When discussing the various time periods in which communism was the main focus in several parts of our world, there are many factors and events that have arose because of it. Numerous people had mixed feelings about the development of communism and one specific group, called the Hollywood Ten felt as if communism was the right direction for our nation to move in. However, many people opposed this group and various acts were passed as well as court cases that had proceeded because of the Hollywood Ten (“Hollywood Blacklist”). It was mentioned that almost all of the members “were convicted in federal court the following year, they were given sentences of six months to one year in prison,” (“Hollywood Ten”). The Hollywood Ten was a communist group …show more content…
The unit consisted of originally, nineteen writers and directors that were involved in the film producing industry in Hollywood. “Writers Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, and Dalton Trumbo, as well as directors Herbert Biberman and Edward Dmytryk and writer-producer Robert Adrian Scott,” (Dickinson) were involved in the group, but were the only ten of nineteen that refused to cooperate with a sub-committee of HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee). These members were called the Hollywood Ten or often times the Unfriendly Ten. Amid the nine additional people that were not included, Larry Parks was the only actor that had been mentioned. “He was also the only person on the list who the average moviegoer would have known. Parks agreed to give evidence to the HUAC and admitted that he had joined the Communist Party in 1941 but left it four years later.” (Simkin).
Furthermore, “while many of the Hollywood Ten had worked together in the past and knew each other socially, they were by no means a unified front prior to being called by HUAC. What each held––and what bonded them together––was a belief that HUAC’s intrusion into their personal and political beliefs was unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American,” (“The Hollywood Ten”). They had protested and brought it to
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This was a group that declared their communist beliefs to the American Government and eventually had gained enough recognition to have hundreds of people on the list. The Hollywood Ten, Unfriendly Ten, or Hollywood Blacklist had a brief couple of instances that caused controversy and affected various lives of numerous people that were involved in the Hollywood filmmaking industry (Dickinson). Lastly, these events in history have shown the significant clashes of the political parties in various countries because of the fact that they demonstrate the controversy that was caused through the rises and falls of communism. The Hollywood Ten is a memorable group that contributed to Communism and the era of its
The Hollywood blacklist and the subsequent Paramount decision altered the direction of U.S. moviemaking in a big way. While both events are important in filmmaking history, the opinions on the legality, necessity, and effects of these events vary widely depending on who you ask. While the filmmaking industry management opposed the blacklist and the Paramount decision, some management executives may have taken advantage of the blacklist by negotiating stricter contracts based upon extortion, in that to be blacklisted, one only needed to be rumored to be associated with communist ties (Lewis, 2008). The employees, such as actors, directors, and writers of the large studios were also opposed to the Paramount decision and the blacklist, but the ability actors, directors, and writers to fight for and gain large contracts has improved since the Paramount decision, as it cast the studios as advantageous, money hungry totalitarian fraternities. I would argue that the Paramount decision and the
To get a clear view and understanding of the book, first must review the time period in history. The book was written in the mid 1950's during the cold war. Former General McCarthy, then U.S. Senator started a fire ball of suspicion, suppression, and incarceration. This had a very huge impact on the entrainment industry, which included everyone from playwrights to filmmakers, as well as writers and actors. If anyone in that time period was suspected of being a communist, the government could come and pull them out of their home. At the least a suspected communist would be banned, or put on a black ball list. Printed in the Times, McCarthy's First Slander, "Overnight, his speech sparked a media firestorm that played to the basest fears of Americans swept up in a frightening cold war and triggered loyalty oaths, blacklists and personal betrayals that cost an estimated 10,000 Americans their jobs and some shattered innocents their lives." (Johanna McGeary 28) This happened to a number of actors and film makers during that time period. The black ball list was a list of names of people who were believed to be communist. The people on this list came from the movie industry as well as writers. These people would no longer be able to get work ...
In the mid-1900’s, communism was a big issue worldwide. Communism is a political theory created by Karl Marx in which everyone essentially gets an equal share in society, including the fact that houses are publicly owned by the government. The controversial issue to this concept is that some jobs make money than others, so people of a higher class didn’t feel like they were getting their fair share. The case and trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has to do with communism because the couple was accused of committing espionage against the United States. Showcased in the article “Case Against Rosenberg Falls Apart,” published by Achieve3000, Americans were afraid of communism, and the acts by the government were very impactful to society.
“When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.” During the late 1940s and early 1950s, these words of Abraham Lincoln were all on the minds of Americans (McCarthyism). After fighting against Communism for decades, the fear of it taking down the country terrorized people’s thoughts. Even more so, people were extremely frightened of the idea that there could be Communists within the spotlights of American influence that were plotting the destruction of the United States. A fear swept the country for almost a decade, and it transformed every aspect of American culture. This transformation began in the entertainment industry and hit here the hardest. The fear of Communism completely spun the industry upside down and distorted everything that made American showbiz so distinct. Even today, the controversies of the 1940s and 1950s have left an impression on the current entertainment industry.
A Documentary History (Paperback). Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. Scott, Peter Dale, Deep Politics, University of California Press; Reprint edition (June 22, 1996). Mitgang, Herbert Lillian Hellman's FBI File, Dangerous dossiers: exposing the secret war against America's greatest authors, New York: D.I. Fine, 1988, retrieved from a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html">http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html/a>. Ted Morgan, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America, New York: Random House, 1st edition, 2003.
In Hollywood political conflict was also paving the way for what would later occur in Hollywood as the HUAC would attack the industry. Big business controlled the lucrative industry and the companies that controlled the market were eight major studios in Hollywood. The Metro-Goldw...
During the late nineteen forties, a new anti-Communistic chase was in full holler, this being the one of the most active Cold War fronts at home. Many panic-stricken citizens feared that Communist spies were undermining the government and treacherously misdirecting foreign policy. The attorney general planned a list of ninety supposedly disloyal organizations, none of which was given the right to prove its loyalty to the United States. The Loyalty Review Board investigated more than three million employees that caused a nation wide security conscious. Later, individual states began ferreting out Communist spies in their area. Now, Americans cannot continue to enjoy traditional freedoms in the face of a ruthless international conspiracy known as the Soviet Communism. In 1949, eleven accused Communists were brought before a New York jury for abusing the Smith Act of 1940, which prohibited conspiring to teach the violent overthrow of the government. The eleven Communist leaders were convicted and sentenced to prison.
Some of those blacklisted continued to write Hollywood films, using false names. This allowed movies such as The Bridge on the River Kwai to be completed. Several screenwriters moved to other countries, where they were able to find work in film. Most estimates indicate that the blacklist involved approximately three hundred and twenty-five employees in film and related industries. However nearly expert believes there were over five hundred victims of the Hollywood blacklist. It wasn’t until 1961, when a director named Otto Preminger announced he was hiring a writer named Trumbo who was on the blacklist to write a move that things began to slowly change. In 1997, a group named the Writers Guild of America voted to change the writing credits of 23 films made during the blacklist period.
Communism is everywhere. And many people were involved in communism around the world especially during the 1950’s. One main person involved in american communism was Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy, although negatively, was very much involved in the search for communists in the United States of America.
The government would inaccurately portray communism many times to make them look more egregious than they really were.
I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy” (para 9). In this metaphor he compares the State Department to place that has been infested with rats, the rats being Communists spies. Moreover, he made accusations and claims about having in his hand the names of 57 individuals who are card carrying Communist, yet are working in the government and shaping foreign policy. This plants fear in the audience by making them feel as though they are unsafe since the government is falling to Communism, therefore immediate action must be taken to eliminate Communist traitors and restore the security of the country. Furthermore, McCarthy uses an analogy when stating, “This cloak of numbness and apathy has only needed a spark to rekindle them. Happily, this spark has finally been supplied” (para 12). McCarthy claims that after seeing war and mass murder, people become numb and, like a fire, they need a spark to
The famed political author George Orwell once said “I write […] because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention . . .” (Orwell 3). This philosophy is at the heart of his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four in which he strives to reveal the dangers of communism through the extreme totalitarian world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The principal danger which Orwell presents is that “communism [is] not a revolutionary force, but instead [is] a new, dangerous form of totalitarianism” (Rossi 207) in which the government is stifling society to gain control and power at the cost of its citizen’s freedom, and humanity. There are
Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The House of Un-American Activities Committee and the courts during appeals disagreed and they all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each was sentenced to between six and twelve months in prison.
The concept of the Committee of 100 resulted from I.M. Pei, who was an influential Chinese American at the time and was getting calls from reporters seeking his reaction to the Tiananmen Square events in June of 1989. At the time there was a kind of backlash against the Chines, resulting in the American media questioning what the Chines community thought on the issue was. Pei felt no single Chinese American could ...
It seems as if sppome people just can’t get enough of the exploratory tabloids of their favorite celebrities, some people still take an interest in celebrities that aren't even around anymore . Throughout Americas Hollywood History the views of women actresses has changed drastically, two very good examples are Elizabeth Taylor and Lindsay Lohan.The contrast between these two women show a difference in class,culture and time. By researching actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Lindsay Lohan one would discover the tragic and destructive toll Hollywood glamor that would eventually come to overrun their lives.