The Hays Code

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Comedy, Sex
Length: 3191

Because wherever ponies discover a new means of entertainment and having fun, including the brand-new industry of movie-making, there will be a self-appointed moral guardian doing her very best to make them stop.

Equestria has just entered the first era of movie-making. Ponies now have a brand-new medium to express themselves in any way they wish, with no limits whatsoever, showing anything and everything they might dare to dream of.

Well, clearly nopony of morals would ever allow that!

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Published 2016-05-03 17:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-05-03 17:00:01 UTC

You Should Have Seen The Human Version

"Stop that! You shall cease behaving in that unseemly manner immediately and forever!"

Actors froze. Camera operators pulled their heads away from lenses. Sound technicians desperately tried to figure out if there was any way to scrub the outburst from the recording spells. Editors stomped their hooves in frustration as the intruder marched across every shot available. And the director, enraged beyond endurance (which never took much), simply reared back onto his hind legs and shouted "Who the Tartarus do you think you are? This is a closed set! We're trying to make a movie here, film isn't cheap, and you just cost us --"

"-- I," the dainty earth pony sniffed as she fully strode onto the movie set, "am Ms. Hays." She disdainfully looked at everything around her, making it clear that in spite of any evidence to the contrary, she personally owned the place and was having serious second thoughts about the purchase. "And we will be speaking about your language in due course. But before that happy moment can occur --" she checked the motionless actors "-- good: they have ceased their immorality. And now to ensure that it never starts again..."

She had an oddly chirpy voice (something else which would be impossible to fully scrub from the recordings), which sounded very little like something which could ever be produced by a pony and more like a bird who'd just learned there were other creatures in the world with the nerve to believe they were allowed to use any part of her sky. The coat was the exact color of curdled cream, and her expression suggested she'd spent her entire life sniffing it.

"Ms. Hays," the director angrily cut in. "And is that supposed to mean something to --" The lead spell gaffer hurriedly galloped up, whispered in his ear. "-- oh."

She waited.

"You're the studio owner's new --"

"-- confidant, if you like."

"The one he cheated on his spouse wi --"

"-- how dare you, sir! Their marriage was over! I would never violate the sanctity of a sacred union! Such an act would be immoral! I simply saw a lonely stallion and fulfilled my marely duty to provide him with -- comfort. A comfort he has truly come to appreciate, and certainly more than his supposed spouse ever provided. Any perception of the timing involved in my entrance to his life would be your error."

"Mine."

"Clearly."

"Including the part where you first showed up at the studio eight moons before their divorce."

"We all find an entry position somewhere."

The director, fully accustomed to telling most ponies whatever he wanted at the exact moment he wished to in the comfort that they could do nothing about it -- still managed to keep from saying Yes, and from what everypony in the head office was gossiping about, yours was under his desk. "And why are you interrupting my shoot?"

"I have been speaking to my confidant," Ms. Hays said. "Rather extensively. Our industry is young yet. Only two years now. And like so many younglings, if left unsupervised, it will race about doing whatever it wishes, to the detriment of a society which missed the chance to raise it properly. Therefore, I asked him for permission, as a good mare should, to become the parent to our studio. Somepony must set a moral example for all of Equestria. And after a time, he agreed to let me establish certain... standards."

"Standards," the director carefully repeated.

"Yes. Guidelines by which our movies shall be made -- or they will not be made at all. Standards which, in time, all of Equestria shall adopt without fail, and with great penalty for any and all violations." A sniff. "As soon as our supposed Princess starts seeing the inherent foolishness in her so-called Freedom of Speech and Expression laws. But for now, I have local authority only, and that authority is this: anypony here has the right to choose that they shall not comply with my simple, moral guidelines. And upon doing so, they will of course be immediately fired and blacklisted in perpetuity." The puce-green eyes narrowed. "I trust this is understood?"

"...yes," the director eventually forced out through his teeth. "So we were doing something wrong."

"Obviously! Your performers broke a guideline. Although as I am a fair and just mare, nopony shall be fired and blacklisted for that offense, as the standards were not officially in place yet." Her neck turned, and her mouth flipped open a saddlebag. "However, now that they are..."

"So... which guideline did we break?"

Several hundred pages emerged from the saddlebag, all completely covered in extremely small mouthwriting. A considerable amount of flipping followed.

"This one."

The director squinted.

"'No onscreen kiss,'" he carefully read, "'shall be permitted to last longer than two seconds' -- two seconds?"

"Yes," Ms. Hays primly (and proudly) said. "From first lip contact to last. Anything beyond that might entice our audience into pursuing false concepts of what a proper expression of affection might be."

He stared at her. Turned to the actors. "I... I want to time this. Nopony film anything. You two -- kiss. And one, and --" He blinked. "-- this is a joke, right? This has to be a joke. This is the absolute end of a three-reeler. Those two characters have been chasing each other across the entire continent, or at least as much of it as I could fake in here. It's the climax. It's where they show their love for each other in a way which nopony could ever see as anything other than the truest bond which could ever exist. And you think that can be expressed with a kiss that lasts two seconds."

"A good director," Ms. Hays decided, "could do it with hoof-pressing."

He couldn't seem to stop staring at her.

"But as the characters are not wed, there will be a three-second limit on hoof-pressing."

"Now," Ms. Hays politely informed the actress she had backed into the corner, which at least had the benefit of making the mare that much less offensive, "it is a mere trim. I completely fail to see why you would even want to resist. You do wish to continue your employment, yes?"

"You're -- you want to cut off my tail!"

"Of course. That is the new condition for your working at this studio."

"My -- my tail is my signature! It's my look! It's literally part of me!"

"And it is far too large."

The actress, or perhaps soon-to-be-former actress, was staring at her. Ms. Hays sniffed.

"Really," she said, "have you no concept of what the sight of an overly large, extremely full, floor-reaching tail does to the innocents in our audience? It corrupts. It entices them towards immoral acts, perhaps even bends them towards a fetish for the gaudy and unnecessary, when a moral pony is of course attracted to only the small, trim, and proper. And of course that means any who might come simply to see your tail -- well, that is clearly an audience which no proper studio would desire to have attending in the first place. A proper tail should be short. Modest. If at all possible, whenever it might be exposed in public, it should not be. Wraps shall come into fashion soon once I speak to the proper ponies, legislated fashion. High-backed dresses are of course completely inadequate, as they only suggest as to the scale of what is underneath. But as your director continues to insist that a wrap would not fit this scene -- truly, she is just as short-sighted as the last party I provided guidelines to -- you have but two choices. I can personally trim your tail to proper standards. Or you can be escorted off the studio lot. Permanently."

The actress was still staring at her.

"Really," Ms. Hays said, "a mare who wished to have continued screen presence in my industry would do well to have her tail docked."

"That spell," she told the magic gaffer. "Strike it from the script and replace it immediately."

The stallion blinked at her. They all seemed to be doing that. She was starting to suspect the sets were far too brightly lit. "But... but it's how they break into the bank. It's the only spell which could break into the bank at all, after we spent all that time establishing the security measures in the first reel. Everypony watching who knows anything about workings is going to be aware the gang is using the last trick in the world which has a chance. We'd have to rewrite the entire script..."

"Well, it's not as if writers ever do anything important, is it? What would they need, two seconds to think of an equally stupid second excuse? The spell has been struck. Use something else!"

A nearby ink-stained table now had the ponies who surrounded it staring at her. Far too brightly-lit, indeed.

"But -- why?" the gaffer hopelessly insisted. "Why can't we use the only possible spell...?"

Were all of them truly this clueless? Well, it was already known that the average intelligence of those who worked in movies was as low as their moral fiber, or at least that was known by all the ones she'd told. "Because you are teaching ponies how to rob banks."

He stared at her.

"There is a single spell," she explained, "which can break the security at the bank. Your characters, who are bad ponies, bad ponies indeed whom somepony among your idiot scribblers has made the soon-to-be-fixed error of treating sympathetically, and thus we must also rewrite your ending because the immoral shall never be victorious in the final reel.... are casting that spell. And so everypony who watches the film will see that spell. Some are rather weak-minded immoral individuals: in fact, that is the majority of those who would freely approach a movie which they believe to have been filmed without standards. They will see a spell which allows the robbing of banks. And then some of them, enticed by those immoral images, will go out and rob banks themselves, using the spell they had just learned. Have I made this adequately clear to you?"

His lips moved for a while. Speech took somewhat longer to emerge.

"...the security spells aren't real," he finally said. "They're just glow. We film the glow and it looks like security spells. We just make sure the characters give them the right names. It's the same thing with Horsaw's Breaker. The actor can't actually work it. He ignites his corona, pushes to a double, and we call it the Breaker, just so anypony watching who understands that level of magic will have things seem that much more authentic. And even if he could cast the thing... once we get it on camera, it's just glow! On film! There's no feel with film! Nopony in the world could learn how to cast a working just from watching glow...! It's a movie! Nothing is real!"

"The moral weakness of the typical pony," Ms. Hays peacefully countered, "is more real than somepony of your clearly limited intellect could possibly imagine."

Were any of them capable of blinking?

"So either the spell goes -- along with that inferior excuse for a script," she established, "or everypony involved with it does. So which shall it be?"

"Now, this is the next guideline," she imperiously said. "Whenever two actors are sharing a bed together, they shall be on opposite side of the mattress, and the camera must be angled to show that each has, at a minimum, one hind hoof on the floor. Preferably two. There are to be no exceptions to this. As with all the other standards, anypony violating it will be fired and blacklisted."

The actors gave her the latest in a very extended performance series of long looks, none of which managed to truly register on the most local audience.

"You are a pony, right?" the younger one asked.

She hoped that her sniff came across as adequately dismissive, even for the most self-blinding ponies. Then again, given her previous experiences across the various buildings on the lot, there was probably no way to get through except the verbal, and even that... "Obviously. Why would you ever ask such a blatantly idiotic question?"

"Because you don't seem to know how pony legs bend," said the slightly older. "The most practical way to do that is... here, just watch."

They both rearranged themselves. After some awkward shuffling, the efforts produced a pair of ponies, each of whom had their forelegs and barrels on the bed, with their hind legs and recently-trimmed tails resting upon the floor, facing each other across seeming acres of empty mattress.

And for the first time during her visits to any of the sets, Ms. Hays found herself nodding with open approval. "That... is actually quite acceptable. Well done!"

Both performers stared at her again.

"We're supposed to be playing a married couple," the younger said.

"I read the script." She'd already crossed out most of it.

"And you think married couples sleep like this?" the older shot back. "That anypony could sleep like this?"

"That is not the point!" Ms. Hayes insisted. "The point is not to show anything which could be found offensive by a proper mind! The point is not to give the immoral parts of our feeble-brained population any ideas!"

"...ideas -- about?" the younger carefully asked.

It took a few moments of gathering her strength before she could form the word.

"Sex," she reluctantly said.

"Sex," both actors echoed.

"Yes." And then, with just as much satisfaction as she'd felt during the composition of the standards, she proudly continued with "Because nopony in those positions could ever do anything even remotely approaching having any kind of sex."

"No kind of sex," said the younger.

"Isn't that obvious?"

"At all," added the elder.

"Clearly! For there is no way for them to touch!"

The performers looked at her. Then at each other.

"Do you still want to work here?" asked the younger.

"No," said the older. "You?"

"No."

"Well, in that case... shall we?"

"Yes, I think so. Might as well go out with a bang..."

Both horns ignited.

Her breathing still hadn't slowed in the least by the time she reached the head office. Having raced all the way across the studio at full gallop hadn't helped.

"Pookie?" her confidant endearingly worried as she kicked the door shut behind her. "What happened? I haven't seen you this stressed since Tanibelle nearly caught us in --"

"-- it's... nothing," she panted. "Nothing more than I should have expected! I knew this industry was a haven for the unclean and liberal and sick and immoral, but to see -- to see that...!"

"...see what?"

Forelegs were beginning to frantically gesture. "Right in front of me! In front of everypony! The ones with the cameras just kept filming! And all their former director said was that she'd just discovered a new genre!"

He came out from behind their favorite desk, rubbed his flank against hers. "Easy... easy... just breathe... slowly..."

After a time, she managed it, and smiled at him. "I'll be all right. Just -- don't ask me to talk about what I saw. Not until later, anyway."

He nodded. "So is there anything about your little project you can tell me about?"

She loved that: his calling her great and moral work a "little project." It was almost as if he truly didn't understand what was at stake, how the very future of all Equestria had so clearly been at risk, at least until she'd taken the first hoofstep towards herding the young industry down the moral path. No, he'd simply told her that if she truly had some great ideas, she should just write them down and gallop with them, just do whatever she wished because he loved her that much, or certainly that was how she'd heard it. And his word on the lot was law and she so obviously spoke for him, especially when he didn't understand enough to speak for himself. And she had done just that, knowing he trusted her implicitly. And besides, he was far too important to spend any time looking over her written results. And busy. And in slight need of moral adjustment himself, but she was working on that...

"Well... except for... that... it went well enough. I can safely say that after my first efforts, there are no immoral productions taking place anywhere on our lot. Everything has been properly adjusted to a state where a proper studio can begin to show Equestria why we and we alone are the model who should be followed." And in time, had to be followed, by law...

"So how many productions did you have to adjust?"

"All of them! Can you believe that? I expected degenerates, but to find nothing but..." She found another smile. "Well, at least that's somepony else's problem now. All of it. At least until we win, and then they'll be blacklisted from everything." The thought made the smile stronger.

He blinked at her. "Somepony -- else's problem?"

"Well, yes. Since they're not allowed here any longer, and it's not as if I'll ever stand to have those degenerates under contract again..."

And now it was staring, happening away from the harsh studio lights. "You fired ponies?"

"Blacklisted. Kicked off the lot. And in doing so, I shut down their immoral works." She shuddered. "So many immoral works..."

"Pookie..." Softly. "How many ponies did you get rid of?"

"The immoral ones."

His voice seemed to be oddly tight. She would have to work on that later. "How. Many?"

Proudly, "The proper number."

"How --"

"All of them!"

She jumped backwards just before the hard-kicked gate would have rammed into her snout, and watched her former confidant angrily stomp away until his lashing tail was finally out of sight. Forever.

"Well," she huffed to the immoral world itself, "some ponies clearly need some extra time before their total lack of standards comes out...!"

Her properly short and wrapped tail swished, and she began to purposefully march away, doing her best to ignore the laughing, jeering, extremely long and vocal line of performers and camera operators and gaffers and directors and everypony else waiting for readmission, possibly after a little personally-beneficial renegotiation of the new contract as compensation for continuing to be degenerates. And she wanted nothing more than to get away from them, and him, and try to find a new place where the moral quest to save Equestria from those who comprised it could begin again --

-- but she stopped in front of two particular ponies, briefly stared at their mirthful faces, and let the fury come out.

"And what did he mean, 'I'm going to be the first pony to sell a whole new genre?'"

Author's Note

You wish I'd just completely made this up.