#the hays code

I feel like its a sort of spiritual successor to Some Like It Hot.

Some Like It Hot was an independent movie from 1959 in which two men dress in women's clothes to escape the mob. And this movie was made during the Hay's Code. Which was essentially a list of a bunch of rules of what you could and could not put in a movie. one of its defining rules being it-

prohibited a picture from "lowering the moral standards of those who see it"...

This meant that it could not show anything queer/lgbtq unless they are punished and die by the end (thus giving rise to the queer coded villain), sex could not be shown at all, there could be no moral ambuguity in films, etc etc. Some Like It Hot reveled in breaking these. In challenging what and what could not be in a movie. And yet it is still one of the greatest movies of all time. Thus giving rise to more movie makers to break the code and the eventual dissolution of the code.

Iron Lung is released when everything around us is being sanitized down and the internet is being broken in the name of "the children" (the same tactic the Hays Code used to be put into effect). It is an independent film which sees immense commerical success and was made by someone with genuine love for art. It revels in breaking the norms of current movies. A lot of the film is silence and stewing in what you are seeing. Deciphering what something means, you are not given all of the answers and things are left up in the air. It was made using practical effects instead of cgi and was made on a much smaller budget. It has none of the traits of typical blockbusters and was not backed by any major studio. And Hollywood hates that this is happening. That something is going against the norm. That a movie that goes against what a movie can and cant be has beaten all of their carefully crafted blockbusters with jingly keys in front of audience's faces. Going so far as to remove it from the list of top movies right now.