When the Hayes Code, a set of restrictions placed on what could or couldn't be depicted in American cinema in order to "protect the sanctity of the family", fell in 1964, American cinema suddenly had a golden opportunity on its hand to explore darker and more adult-oriented storytelling that had been off-limits for decades now. Studios didn't rush to make the filthiest movies they could imagine, but they did start to test the waters with what exactly they could do under the heavily reduced amount of restrictions placed on their art form. Come 1966, the Mike Nichols directorial effort
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would help push those boundaries with a movie that wasn't afraid to talk about grim matters that would have been unspeakable had it been made in the Hayes Code era.
