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Friday, May 4, 2018
Hollywood Ten
During the Era of McCarthyism the U.S. government and the population in general were paranoid of any communist ideas spreading to the United States. One very public case of accusation and interrogation was the Hollywood Ten. In order to combat the paranoia, the government created the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). This committee quickly turned their attention towards Hollywood because the stars there were known to be very liberal. More than 40 people associated with the movie industry received subpoenas to testify before the committee.
While there was no direct evidence indicating any collusion between the Hollywood movie industry and communism, the HUAC continued its practice of calling witnesses and forcing them to give testimony to identify people they believed might be "red." 10 of these Hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters believed that this practice was a violation of their civil rights and civil liberties and therefore refused to testify. They were nicknamed the Hollywood 10.
In 1948 they were tried and sentenced to a year in prison and a $1000 fine. All ten members of the Hollywood 10 were ultimately blacklisted in Hollywood. In 1960 this blacklist was abolished but the damage that the accusations had done to their reputations could not be undone. The Hollywood 10 today are a great example of fighting censorship in the U.S.
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Thanks for the informative post! It is amazing what Americans were willing to do to each other due to the fear of communism. This occurrence of American's questioning their neighbor's loyalty seems to be an reoccurring theme in American history. Connecting back to the Salem Witch Trials, which we read about in The Crucible, and then to the internment of Japanese-Americans as a result of Executive order 9066. Are these periods of American paranoia just a normal aspect of any society, or is there something inherently different about America's?
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/hollywood-ten
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-signs-executive-order-9066
After reading this blogpost and being reminded of the Red Scare I wanted to see what kind of influence communism still has today and found that with Trump's alleged ties to Russia a lot of these old feelings are being brought up again. There's a lot of "Anti-communist language [that] remains on the books in several states, and in California, at least, it’s not going anywhere." Only about a year ago California shot down and attempt at getting a bill sign that would have banned that kind of language and would have allowed for people that share communist ideals to take government positions.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/22/anti-communist-laws-california-trump-russia
Hugo, I thought your post was interesting, as I wanted to write about the Hollywood 10 as well. What I thought was interesting was how the ten were blacklisted in Hollywood. As fellow liberals and no doubt fellow resistors to the government, it seems like the rest of Hollywood should have shown their support, or at least their acceptance, of these individuals. Instead, however, they were blacklisted and in your words,'the damage that the accusations had done to their reputations could not be undone'. It must have partly to do with the fear of the time. I'm sure the fellow Hollywood celebrities did not want to be treated the same as the Hollywood Ten, and it is possible that the public would have turned against Hollywood had their shown support for the Ten. All of this goes to show the power of the fear that gripped America in this troubled time.
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