3 The end of World War I was also followed by women's struggle to obtain equality and a shift of their public image, as they started to abandon the modest and domestic ideals of those times. During the 1920s it is estimated that almost 50 percent of women held a job outside their households in America. However, during this period these changes were not often represented on screen, as movie plotlines were designed to calm the public fear that the traditional values of family structure were threatened.4 .
The Cold War 1950s also brought social changes as the gay rights movements rose in the United States together with the founding of the one of the earliest homosexual organizations, the Mattachine Society. Up until that point cinema representation of sexual orientations that deviated from the heterosexual norm only alluded to this aspect and had an allegorical depiction. The society of this decade saw homosexual behaviour as a national threat that was connected to a lack of proper morals in the American society and a diminishment in masculinity. Hollywood's response was to include more representations of homosexuality, though still veiled in symbolism.5 As the public became more obsessed over the issue of sexual morals, the educational role of cinema increased as more and more movies concerning the public good were screened. Movies incorporated prominent issues into their narrative and thus influenced public opinion.6.
The Catholic publisher Martin J. Quigley acknowledged the vast difference in power between motion pictures and other forms of communication and observing the influence it had over social behavior he argued that film could become the "curse of the modern world" by eradicating the principles upon which civilization was built.7 Content which was considered to be controversial, such as portrayal of ethnic group, criminal violence, suicide, birth control, abortion, drinking, promiscuity and sexually deviant behavior was heavily combated by religious and progressive reformer groups.
