Voting Station

Joseph Breen

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Bureaucrat

The Resume

    (October 14, 1890-December 5, 1965)
    Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Former newspaper reporter
    Head of the Production Code Administration (1934-54)
    Enforced the censorship guidelines developed by Will Hays' Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association

Why he might be annoying:

    He lied about graduating college.
    He felt he had been called by God to head the PCA.
    He wrote that Hollywood was 'a rotten bunch of vile people with no respect for anything beyond the making of money.... Ninety-five percent of these folks are Jews of an Eastern European lineage. They are, probably, the scum of the earth.'
    Prior to the outbreak of WWII, he discouraged Hollywood studios from making films critical of Nazi Germany.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was married to his high school sweetheart, Mary Dervin, for 51 years.
    He loosened censorship standards after WWII.
    Elia Kazan, pleasantly surprised at how much of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' made it to the screen intact, called him 'a hell of an understanding, decent guy.'
    When asked to testify about Communists in the film industry, he declined, saying he had not paid attention to anyone's politics.
    On his retirement, he received an honorary Academy Award for 'his conscientious, open-minded and dignified management of the Motion Picture Production Code.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 16 Votes: 56.25% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 13 Votes: 84.62% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 157 Votes: 42.04% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 11 Votes: 36.36% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 8 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 106 Votes: 52.83% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 293 Votes: 60.07% Annoying