Blacklist

[Dixon Carter Lee]

I'm currently involved with helping someone I know get on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She's been nominated before (and you'd know her if I gave you her name), but because of certain associations in the past, namely a spurious and fashionable membership to the Communist Party, she was blacklisted way back when, and because people she knew "named names" to House Un-American Activies Committee (what a horrible name) she has been rejected by the Hollywood City Council. At least that's what we think. It certainly isn't her status. She's a well known MGM star from way back, and definitely deserves to be strode upon by Japanese Tourists looking for Mann's Chinese. So it must be this horrible mark on her name that's kept her, and an associate, off the sidewalk.

I've researched the whole thing, and her associate was one of the first actors brought before the committe, and he acted stupidly, as he was frightened. And even though "names were named" and no true conspiracy of any kind was unearthed, the stink and perception of "wrong doing" stuck with them both for years, costing them the ability to continue their careers for a long, long time. The whole situation is truly terrible, and disgusting, and is absolutely one of the worst abuses of power the American government has allowed this century.

I was thinking about this in relation to the trouble one of Bush's cabinet appointments has run into because she once gave money and/or housed an illegal alien. I can't believe a qualified cabinet candidate would be rejected out of hand for something so inconsequential.

Perception seems to be so much more valuable than truth, doesn't it? If you can tilt the light just so and cast a shadow upon an opponent, that seems to be enough for both the public and decision makers.

I see this "perception" problem played out here on the board every day, as people don't really read each other's comments in context, but prefer to skim hastily typed posts, latching onto exclamatory sentences, and firing back an argument that has little to do with the topic at hand.

I suppose I'm moving here from McCarthyism to the dearth of critical thinking in everyday life. Is perception more important to you than truth? Are you the kind of person that believes what you read, and trusts your anchorman, and thinks your political party's spin smells fresher than your opponent's?

Or are you the kind that buys alternate newspapers and watches CNN International for a more in depth less slanted take on current events?

Or are you the "Conspiracy Nut" who thinks the whole world is ruled by ten Templar Knights in a cave somewhere in Tibet and thinks "The X-Files" is the best Ken Burns documentary you ever saw?



[Edited by Dixon Carter Lee on 01-11-2001 at 02:46 PM]

 

[April]

Let's see, I can't get CNN International, I only read the Sunday paper, (actually just the sales ads and funnies) and I know the local newspeople lie! (since when does water freeze at 45 degrees?)

Anyway, my own life overwhelms me, so I find it difficult to deal with anything else. Sorry.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[KillerMuffin]

I think the net is a great place. I can read twelve different newspapers from three different countries in two languages and generally get an idea what is going on. I always make sure that the bylines aren't just AP and Rueters, some of it's just recycled, right? Generally, I don't even believe that.

You can't tell a person's character very much from the sludge dragged from the traps in their particular swimming pool filter. It takes a consistency of dredged up past, good and bad, to get an overall impression of a person's character. To get an idea of what people are really like, you have to interact with them, and very few people are going to get to do that, so we're down to see what kind of mud gets dug up to be slung.

I live with conspiracy nuts. One of them is convinced the FBI has the phones of everyone we speak to tapped and that his creditors will come and steal his stuff if he doesn't watch everything like a hawk. I'm married to his son who also believes the government is constantly monitoring us. Considering... they probably are.

Personally, I'm fatalistic about the whole thing. To me, it doesn't really make all that much difference in the end who gets in office. My concerns center entirely around the Department of Defense, narrowminded yes, but people aren't going to die because Linda Chavez was made Labor Secretary.

Some past stains should have on bearing on a person's aptitude to do a job. Some stains do. Depends on the stain and how it changes them. Obviously we wouldn't want Charles Manson to head the FBI. Anyway, it's to the point where the recourse is to write one's legislature to make concerns known. Just because the election is over doesn't mean the government isn't going to want to hear from the constituents. I still give them a whatfor and let them know what I think they should be doing. They are my public servants after all.

 

[Endlessly]

Note: I'm a liberal arts college student. I spend all the time that is not in a class or eating in a 6-by-8 dorm room. The only way I'd know if we got into world war three is if a bomb landed on American Classic Pizzaria and I couldn't order a calzone for dinner.

Eh.. I'm no big fan of America.. But I'm glad it's on MY side. *wry smile*

 

[Grrrn38]

I was thinking about this in relation to the trouble one of Bush's cabinet appointments has run into because she once gave money and/or housed an illegal alien. I can't believe a qualified cabinet candidate would be rejected out of hand for something so inconsequential.

Thanks for a really thought-provoking thread.

I agree that critical thinking is in short supply, but no shorter than ever before. The problem is that people watch the evening news and think they're well-informed. Did you see the NY Times Sun. Mag cover story before the election discussing the effect that Leno, Letterman, The Daily Show, etc. have on Gen-Xers? It cited a poll in which some incredible percentage of people got their political opinions EXCLUSIVELY from those comedians!

I read a terrific local paper (liberal), a bad local paper with good local political news (conservative), the NY Times. Never watch TV news, including CNN -- the mere fact that they need to fill 24 hours has led to some of the worst media excesses of the last century (see Columbine). Don't get CNN International but would rather read news than watch it.

As for prejudice, interesting point. As I read your post with a critical eye (as I do all editorial writing!) I disagree heartily with your conclusion that Linda Chavez would be rejected for doing something inconsequential. Chavez the humanitarian should be lauded: she did the right thing for a fellow human being who needed her help. Chavez the potential Secretary of Labor showed she isn't up to the political demands of the job by two serious lapses in judgement:

1) she witheld information from her future boss that would have prevented her from being nominated, thus putting him (and her) in an untenable position; and

2) she lied about knowing Ms. Mercato was an illegal, then admitted she lied. Lying is a bad thing in a public servant. Especially when he/she doesn't have the job yet.

Interesting that most of the media pilloried Chavez by bringing up Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, points that don't apply here. No one seriously believes that Linda Chavez did more thank offer this woman help and hope.

 

[Guest]

I hope she gets her Hollywood Walk of Fame. After the bitch is hung for treason.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Thank you John "Pinko" Wayne. LOL

 

[Shintani]

Actually, the world is run by NINE Templar Knights, and they're not in Tibet, they're in New Jersey.

 

[Dillinger]

This is the quote thread, isn't it?

"There's right and there's wrong. You gotta do one or the other. You do the one, and you're living. You do the other, and you may be walking around, but you're as dead as a beaver hat." John "Pinko" Wayne in "McCarthy's Alamo"

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Actually, the world is run by NINE Templar Knights, and they're not in Tibet, they're in New Jersey.

No, that's the Knights of Columbus, and the only world they run is the "World of Bingo" Wednesday nights at St. John's in South Amboy, two cards for a dollar.

 

[R Nitelight]

Shintani

Actually, the world is run by NINE Templar Knights, and they're not in Tibet, they're in New Jersey.

Shhhhh!!!!

 

[Dillinger]

Sure its not the Nine Unknown Men dressed in football outfits as they put on their helmets and chant in unison...

There is only one God
He is the Sun God
Ra Ra Ra

Or should I have posted this on the Philosophical Thread or the God is Dead thread...

Goddess, I'm so confused!

 

[scylis]

Our cause is a secret within a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain; it is a secret about a secret veiled by a secret.

 

[Siren]

D-8 , B-4, A-7

 

[Rosebud]

I don't think that a person's beliefs should affect their career. I like many actors performances but in real life hate them...that shouldn't keep them from the walk of fame...they should be judged by their performances and nothing else...Rock Hudson's lifestyle was not accepted at the time he was alive but yet....

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

You underestimate the emotions surrounding the House Un-American Activities Committee. If you testified they way they wanted you to (an illegal request, as they would not listen to 5th Ammendment arguments), you were hated by everyone else in the entertainment industry. "Sure I went to a party of a Producer who might have joined the Communist Party in 1933 to get laid by socialist chicks. And you wnat me just to name some people who were at that party? That's all you want? Well, uh, what if I don't feel like telling you? I mean, I'm not withholding evidence of a crime here, because you haven't told me about any crime committed by anyone. So if just don't feel like telling you who was at this party, I can do that, right? I mean, I'm allowed to not saying anything, correct? That's my right? Right?"

Wrong. If you didn't say anything you were immediatley blacklisted, which meant you couldn't work. There was a person in every studio that reported to the House Un-American Activities Committee. The studios caved, and would not hire anyone on the "list". It didn't matter if you were a big star. You were professionally dead.

Just for not naming a few people at a party you attended a decade or more earlier.

And if you did name some people (like Gary Cooper), you risked the wrath of your friends, but you worked.

And it wasn't like anything was done with these "names". Nobody was arrested for anything, because no crimes were committed. And very few of these people actually ever joined the communist party. It was guilt by association.

I can't give you more details about my friend because it's too close to my personal life. But if you'd like to see a killer film about the nastieness of this whole buisness rent "The Front" starring (though not written or directed by) Woody Allen. The film was written by, directed by, and starred blacklisted artists (except Allen). Alan plays a schlub who agrees to turn in scripts for blacklisted writers, and thinks he can outsmart the committe by being evasive. He never takes a stand, until the final scene, which is a howler.

 

[Siren]

Dixie my pet...I am very aware of the McCarthy era....

 

[Rosebud]

i understand all of that...and i do not condone communism...i am saying that the walk of fame is or at least should be awarded by the actor's ability...Does Lucille Ball have her's on there...and how about Charlie Chaplin????

 

[riff]

Re: Shintani

Actually, the world is run by NINE Templar Knights, and they're not in Tibet, they're in New Jersey.

Shhhhh!!!!

You read Foucault's Pendulum. Good 4 u

 

[CreamyLady]

Perception is a kind of truth in itself, and many people perceive things -- albeit subjectively -- that others do not. Who is to say they are mistaken? One person's reality is another's fantasy, and a perception of negative feelings need not mean a person is unduly paranoid or a conspiracy buff.

It is fashionable right now to cast aspersion on those who saved their own skins by naming names, and deify those who kept silent. It is an even better demonstration that "it can happen here" than the famous "electric shock" experiment -- who among us would really stiffen our spines and commit professional suicide? The perception now is that those who gave in were weak, and therefore contemptible. At the time, they were heroes.

Someday maybe talent and staying power will win out over mere perception. I wish her luck.

 

[RonG]

You like me, you really like me!

A bizarre way of viewing this (like I would have any other) is the struggle for whether celebrities/politicos are liked for who they are or what they do. We all would like to think that the entirety of our being is what people like when in fact it is specific acts we perform. I like several of Roman Polanski's movies, but screwing drugged teenagers is not something I like. Give him a star but keep him outta my neighborhood.

After watching the hysteria around Elia Kazan last year at the Oscars, obviously there are a lot of hurt feelings still going around so presumably there are plenty of old timers left on the other side of the fence, regardless of our current perception of who was right.

So, as long as celebs try to create a cult of personality and we guppies in the public buy in, we are going to have people pilloried for unrelated facets or past acts. You want to be loved as a total person, prepare to face the dark side of it. Fame. Ain't it a bitch.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

The blacklist and how people reacted to it is STILL very much a divisive, sensitive issue. The Kazan issue is a good example.

Good acting matters, but when it comes to a statue or a star moral character and "who you did or did not screw in the past" comes very much into focus.

George M. Cohan was "The Man Who Owned Broadway" (James Cagney played him "Yankee Doodle Dandy") but when a proposed statue of him for Times Square was planned Actor's Equity put up an enormous fight, because Cohan was anti-union. The statue is there, but not every actor is happy about it.

The Blacklist still very much matters, which is what I was getting at with the last post.

 

[RisiaSkye]

I think it's particularly easy for those of us who are very young to forget just how much is bound up in people's feelings and memories about McCarthyism and the red scare. For those of us who never lived in segregation (which certainly went on longer and ended later) it is that much more difficult to imagine our nation so divided over the non-criminal activity of exploring another political party.

That does not, however, mean that it isn't, or wasn't, so. Lucille Ball had trouble getting a TV show, and sponsors, because she had once registered Communist to appease her staunchly leftist grandfather. Writers and actors have been banned for being Jewish, Japanese, Communist, etc. One of the actresses from the Charlie Chan movies actually spent some years in a Japanese Internment camp. Plenty of talented artists have spent their years in poverty and fear because they held unpopular views--or were accused of holding them.

In the arts, perhaps even more than anywhere else, perception is all that counts. Actors (include politicians in this category) may have it the worst--their entire life becomes a play in which they must speak, and live, the lines we wish to feed them. They are the projection screen onto which we shine our fantasies, desires, and fears. And when our idols fail to be more than human, when their real life looks too much like messy reality, we punish them all the more brutally because of the glamourous facade they project. It rarely makes a difference that we the public demanded the facade in the first place.

DCL, I am sorry for your friend's struggles. For all of the leftish politics floating around it, many facets of Hollywood are as conservative as Pat Buchanan in a Bill Blass suit. Where there's money, there's conservatism. All of which just goes to show how immesely the nation's belief systems can change, and how slowly the laws and the rule makers catch up with the changes.

 

[Gingersnap]

When I worked in Atlanta at a large county hospital there were identical emergency rooms, one now for mediccal and one for surgical. I was told that this was from the days of a seperate but equal facilities for the races.

To say that the fallout of those battles has cleared is about as true as saying it has for the MeCarthy era. It was an ugly period in our history. Those small minds are still around us and if you don't believe it then surf the Net.

I bet a significant number of people on this board don't even realize that Richard Nixon cochaired that committee.
Whenever I hear someone say they have to "protect" me from some idea my radar goes beeping.

I have (ahem) friends overseas and since I have started reading international news my opinions and thoughts have changed somewhat. This new perspective has helped me in other areas of my life. Like the board I find many things to be not to my taste. I do however recognize the need and value of those different from my own.

DCL I am sorry for your friend she does deserve recognition for her body of work not her social and political leanings.