The Rise in “Misunderstoods”: the Film Industry’s Abuse of Freedom

We’re well over a century into the film industry, and I think we can all agree there’s good films, there’s bad films, and there’s an increase in the number of indoctrination tools posing as cinema.

Recent decades have seen an increase in films celebrating moral depravity with a villain who was not bad, but simply “misunderstood,” and an increase in entertainment with LGBTQ content, including in media geared toward children. Many parents will see the cover or trailer of a movie or show and assume the animated caricatures on the front can’t be that bad. But they can in fact be that bad.

Film was not always this way. There was a time where morality and natural law was upheld as an inherent part of the industry. This is no longer the case, though it very much should be.

In 1930, an internal regulatory system for the film industry known as The Hays Code was established. This kept the government from stepping in and establishing its own regulations. The Hays Code itself is astronomically different from today’s scale ratings as it was made up of content requirements, not content permissions.

Two main points upheld by the Hays Code state that a film could not degrade the moral standard of the viewer making them sympathetic to a villain, and ridiculing natural or written law was off limits and a character who did so could not garner sympathy. It’s easy to see how far we’ve fallen from these standards.

Of course, there were exceptions — controversial films made outside of these parameters — but in 1952, everything began to change when the Supreme Court ruled that film is protected under the First Amendment. Just over a decade and a half later, the Hays Code was replaced by the Motion Picture Association of America (now Motion Picture Association) where the current voluntary rating system was established.

It is easy to see how the Hays Code served as cultural protection. But with the new rating system and changes to film distribution, the moral standards upheld in Hays' day disappeared, and moral depravity was allowed — even celebrated.

Take “Maleficent”, the popular retelling of the “Sleeping Beauty” fairytale. Parents who grew up with the original animated movie might feel a sense of nostalgia as they sit down with their kids and are told the villain they grew up with is not evil, but simply misunderstood. Meanwhile, their children absorb a deeper message. In “Maleficent”, the villain’s story changed from one where the witch cursed an innocent girl to one where the witch was a hurt, misunderstood victim — who still cursed an innocent girl (the repentance aspect of the film is a good message, but it is doubtful this outweighs the negative impact of recreating the story from this lens). For children just learning right and wrong, the film does not reinforce strong moral standards.

The same goes for “Wicked”, the popular musical that took the world by storm. The witch everyone knew from watching the “Wizard of Oz” growing up is suddenly a victim. Watch the 1939 “Wizard of Oz”, and everyone was scared to death of the green witch. In 2026, not so much.

Crime and villainly are not the only acceptable forms of depravity presented in modern media. LGBTQ-identified characters are also making appearances in children’s content. Take the 2022 “Lightyear” movie featuring two female characters kissing. The moment is quick to pass, but to a child engrossed in the story, the kiss leaves an impact. That’s only one example.

While the new post-Hays rating system put the power in the hands of the consumer to choose the content they consumed, accountability was stripped from the film industry that is perpetuating this morally depraved content. No warning label is given for LGBTQ content or for morally ambiguous characters that might confuse a child’s sense of right and wrong.

Most parents think ratings and their descriptors are accurate, but accurate and morally sound are two different things. And as LGBTQ content becomes more and more popular in kids’ content, parents are growing more and more concerned about what their kids are watching, with 87% saying kids’ content needs an LGBTQ warning.

For nearly 75 years, film has been protected under the First Amendment, but that amendment was written for a moral and religious people, as noted by John Adams. Film deserves this protection, but it has strayed from the responsibilities associated with that freedom and it would be advantageous for the film industry to realize this.

It’s ridiculous to have to say it, but moral depravity, especially in content geared toward children, is an abuse of freedom and not a mark of a moral and religious people. It’s past time to accept that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand and to start creating content acknowledging the difference between good and evil and that does not celebrate sexual perversion. Parents are already starting to protest and it’s the film industry that will begin to hurt. Perhaps it’s time to think about a new way of looking at film, perhaps a return to a Hays type of system.