The most urgent task now was to get the film approved and find a distributor.
"I'll take care of it!"
Jenny volunteered.
So the task was assigned to her, while everyone else waited anxiously for the premiere.
Even though it was a student film, they all hoped to create something that would resonate with audiences—especially with Catherine.
All of February, and even March, passed in this hopeful anticipation.
Catherine looked at herself in the mirror and let out a deep sigh.
Filming had temporarily come to an end, and life had returned to normal, but Catherine felt that ever since that day, her body had begun to undergo subtle changes.
For example, the two small mounds she was looking at.
It wasn't the mounds of flesh on her chest themselves, but rather that every time her partner touched them, a strange sensation rose from deep within her body and washed over her.
It felt as though something was twisting inside her, weakening her legs and then spreading through her entire body until she could no longer resist.
Suddenly, she realized that her body seemed far too sensitive.
She began rubbing her thighs, and the stimulating sensation spread throughout her body. It was
incredibly arousing down there.
"Am I some kind of legendary 'female treasure'? Hehe…"
Catherine chuckled self-mockingly.
Just then, the phone rang. She was alone, so Catherine wrapped herself in a towel and stepped out.
"Kate! It's all done!"
Jenny's excited voice came through the line.
"What?"
"The film passed censorship, but…"
"Go on."
Thank goodness it passed censorship.
"But they cut a lot of scenes."
"What?!"
Catherine jumped to her feet.
"You know, those Catholics."
The American film rating system began to take shape in 1968, but for now, what truly restricted releases was something else entirely: the Hays Code.
This was a set of moral guidelines for film production, drafted by Catholic editor Martin Quigley and Jesuit priest Daniel Lord. It was the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930—also known as the "Hays Code"—a set of rules widely criticized by filmmakers. After the film premiered in New York State, Catholic groups in a certain area attempted to bribe a distributor into canceling screenings of the "condemned" movie. When their demands were rejected, they launched a six-month boycott against the theater.
They even organized a march—one Catherine had seen years earlier but hadn't paid much attention to at the time. Now, it finally clicked.
"Damn Christians!"
Her father was Jewish and her mother Orthodox, but both had converted to atheism after getting married.
"Luckily, my grandfather tried to negotiate… and fortunately, they don't seem to care much about a B-movie."
A bit of luck in the midst of misfortune.
If this had been a blockbuster, the number of scenes cut would probably have tripled—or worse.
"We've already confirmed the distributor. It's Columbia Pictures. What do you think? Should we let them handle distribution?"
"No problem."
Columbia Pictures—later renamed Columbia Pictures Entertainment and Columbia TriStar—is a well-known American distributor.
Although Catherine didn't know how Jenny had managed to get in touch with them, it clearly showed the potential success of their film.
"Kate, are you free next week?"
Jenny suddenly asked.
"Yes," Catherine replied.
"Great, Kate. It's my birthday next week, and I hope you can come."
"No problem."
Of course she would attend her friend's birthday party.
After hanging up, Catherine's thoughts drifted back to television.
Television had spread rapidly through American households since the 1950s. Compared to the increasingly popular TV, movies were becoming more and more niche, with audiences gradually fragmenting. The shared experience of millions of people watching a film at roughly the same time was becoming difficult to replicate. In 1948, the average weekly movie audience in the U.S. still reached 80 million, but before and after the implementation of the film rating system, that number plummeted to 20 million. As a result, television quickly replaced movies as the preferred form of home entertainment throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
By then, television was becoming truly mainstream.
Integrated-circuit television could be seen as a reform of color television, and now she was eager to launch her own integrated-circuit TV.
Catherine had thought everything through. The reason she chose a game console—rather than developing a standalone gaming system like the Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360 of later generations—was simple:
She wanted to capture the entire television market.
Having a broad perspective and strategic vision isn't just a saying.
This is where the difference between men and women lies—at least in most cases.
Even though the genders had changed, that broad perspective and the legacy of her previous life remained unchanged.
In the 1960s, American technology experienced explosive growth. In the television sector, this was reflected in the widespread adoption of color TV programs, which led to a massive expansion of the television market—more than doubling its size.
So how do you conquer such a huge market?
The answer was simple: bundling strategies.
Gaming television was Catherine's trump card.
Bill Gates did the same back then—his Internet Explorer aggressively captured market share through bundling and free distribution. What Catherine was doing now was exactly the same thing the future richest man in the world would do.
It was 1961, the beginning of a period of economic growth in the United States that Western economists would later call the "Golden Age." During this period, U.S. GDP rose from $523.3 billion in 1961 to $1.0634 trillion in 1971.
After that came the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the first oil crisis. Then came China's reform and opening-up, followed by the second oil crisis…
Those events were still some distance away for Catherine, but America's golden era had arrived. If she could seize it, she could rise to the very top.
The Hays Code would remain in force for at least another seven years. Catherine knew that during those seven years, the films she made would inevitably fall short of their box-office potential unless she abandoned them altogether. But that wasn't an option.
So Catherine began desperately searching for other paths.
Television was one of them.
And why not just make TV series? Television was booming at the time.
"By the way, if I were to start a TV company… what should I call it?"
Catherine thought for a moment.
"Hmm, let's call it Apple!"
Who knows what will become of Steve Jobs, who's still just a kid… Anyway, what does that have to do with me?