Blacklists Redux
Jul 31, 20203K Shares614K Views
Foreclosed houses, hard times and failing banks these days conjure up imageryfrom the Great Depression, as we’ve noted before. But here’s a throwback to another era: McCarthyism and the blacklistingof Hollywood writers in the 1950s.
At Slate,Mickey Kaus points out that Hollywood bloggers are raising the possibility that actor Jon Voight won’t be able to eat lunch in that town again after sharply criticizing Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in a Washington Times op-ed piece earlier this week. Voight saidin the piece that “If, God forbid, we live to see Mr. Obama president, we will live through a socialist era that America has not seen before, and our country will be weakened in every way.”
At Hollywood Elsewhere,Jeffrey Wells wonderswhether any liberal producer or director might think twice before hiring Voight. If so, he thinks it might be a form of payback:
“„It’s been said in this town many times that the right has a debt to pay for the blacklisting of lefties in the ’50s, and that in all fairness it’s probably going to take a long time to make amends. The fact is that the philosophical grandfathers and great-grandfathers of today’s right-wingers ruined the lives of many Hollywood screenwriters in the ’50s, and so their descendants now have to suffer and make up for that. Simple. As you sew so shall you reap. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
Should Voight face an extended period of joblessness, conservatives will no doubt complain about political correctness. But if the names Ring Lardner Jr.or Dalton Trumbomean anything to you, this is an interesting point. Hollywood is depicted as superficial and shallow, but clearly some people there have long memories.
Hajra Shannon
Reviewer
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