Tarzan, Shame, Jane: Navigating Entertainment Content and Popular Media

In the early 1930s, the Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan became famous for pushing the limits of what was considered acceptable on screen. The most notable example is the 1934 film Tarzan and His Mate. In this production, Jane Porter was depicted in a revealing, skimpy outfit that signaled a sense of primal freedom. Most controversially, the film featured an underwater ballet sequence where a body double for O’Sullivan appeared nude. This moment in media history highlighted a lack of "shame" in the characters' naturalistic environment, yet it triggered a massive backlash from the newly enforced Hays Code. The subsequent censorship of these scenes illustrated how popular media uses the Tarzan-Jane relationship to negotiate the tension between the "uncivilized" wild and the "moral" expectations of the audience.