Hollywood Communists
When I first heard about the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s, I was a bit confused. Aside from the fact that McCarthyism seems a bit reactionary with the benefit of hindsight, the particular focus on the entertainment industry struck me as a bit unique. Sure, part of the idea of propaganda is that you can disseminate a message on a population without their questioning or even noticing it, but even so, the idea that Zero Mostel could bring down Western Civilization with a Marxist bounce in his step seemed a bit far-fetched. If you want to persecute communists infiltrating government, fine. If you’re worried that those in charge of the financial sector might believe in redistribution of wealth, then lynch away! But do people really expect that the red menace could brainwash the American public about the merits of communal living with such devious tools as Creature from the Black Lagoon 6: Creature Goes to Summer Camp? Or did they just think that it was the obvious place for undesirables to mask their identities, what with the abundance of wigs and false mustaches floating around the dressing rooms?
What is more, it always seemed implausible to me that Hollywood would be any more replete with Communists than your average run of the mill tire factory. That is, until a few weeks ago when I overheard something so shocking, so un-American that it shook my values to the core.
The company that I work for is currently shooting its first feature film. In discussing all the various legal hoops they have to jump through in order to comply with unions and achieve tax exempt status, someone mentioned that according to official documentation, the Screen Actors Guild does not consider hamburgers and hotdogs to be a meal. If there is any more fundamentally un-American statement than “a hot dog does not a meal make,” I don’t know what it is.
For the first time, I was outraged at the red menace. I could care less if they have Harry Potter learning spells from a little red wizarding book, or send the USS Enterprise on a five-year mission to give space-workers control of the means of space-production. But if I find myself in a retirement home, being waited on by a generation of youngsters that have been manipulated into believing that red meat and tubified animal byproducts don’t constitute food, I will fear for the future just as I will fear for my taste buds.
-TC