What's in a code?

As we all know, film has received some of the harshest treatment of censorship due to the fact it can show both audio and video that can be offensive. No doubt a spike in violent/sex films would have occurred much earlier had the code never been written, and who knows, may have even surpassed our levels of violence currently. The code is very interesting as how it tries to protect the viewers. The list of what is taboo now is much different, and nearly required the offensive subject in question to be grossly exaggerated. However, right before this code was put into effect, a few movies slipped by to live in the world of a released film even if it was but a brief period of time.

What is funny, is these films still somewhat censor content, although their reason could be debatable. When they turn the camera away from a gunshot, did they really do that to avoid the sight of a death, or was it because honestly, it was cheaper?

Because of this time before special effects and animated elephants being blown into nearly a thousand pieces in detail, the violence part of this code kind of gave directors an excuse to hide what was going on in the story. When asked about plot holes or questions on what exactly happened can be easily dodged by placing the blame on the code. While the code did put a greater emphasis on good story telling and using film as art, it took away realism, as anything that censors life, can not imitate life.