“The Code, once it came in, did hurt women in terms of what they were able to do on film. They didn’t have many topics to talk about aside from love and fashion. You couldn’t talk about abortions, or being pregnant. Or the cycles of life,” Malone says. A lesser-discussed part of Code history is how it stymied the career of Anna May Wong, heralded as the first Chinese-American movie star. Wong had been making headway in Hollywood during the 1910s and ’20s but could no longer get leading roles in the ’30s. “Once the [Hays] Code was enforced there was nothing she could really play other than the villain or the temptress," reads an article posted on the Museum of Chinese in America’s website. “The [Hays] Code... frowned on suggestions of interracial sex and, combined with the tradition of using ‘yellowed-up’ Western actors to play Asian roles, meant Wong’s options were curtailed. She never recovered from losing the lead role in The Good Earth — a Chinese woman — because the male lead was white.