Okay, I know it probably does not behoove me to tweak other, more ostensibly powerful bloggers, and while some may not buy this, I generally don’t like to bring politics into this blog’s discourse unless it’s directly related to, you know, le cinema—and the times that I have done that, I’ve rather regretted it—but hell, this is just too rich.
Our story begins a few days back, Monday, July 28th to be exact, when the exceptionally, erm, unusual newspaper The Washington Times published a rather, shall we say, querulous op-ed by actor Jon Voight, in which he opined that if Barack Obama were elected president, Obama would turn the United States socialist. (The weaselly but possibly legally necessary words “it seems to me” preceded Voight’s ominous predicition.) Voight also used the word “barbarianism” where “barbarity” would have sufficed, but that’s just me. It was pretty out there, and seemed a trifle factually unsupported by my sights, but hell, it’s apparently the guy’s opinion, and I take it about as seriously as I take most movie actors’ political opinions.
But the piece certainly got up the nose of our old pal Jeffrey Wells (pictured). Followers of his Hollywood Elsewhere site know him as, among other things, a thoroughly unreconstructed Obama supporter…and a guy whose lack of, or maybe willful casting aside of, certain filters makes him an unfailingly entertaining read. Weighing in on the Voight piece on the 29th, he wrote, “My honest deep-down reaction is that I now have a reason to feel negatively about the guy. I’m not saying Voight is on the HE shit list…and I certainly don’t think a symbolic condemnation along these lines would matter much to anyone. Nonetheless, it’s going to be hard henceforth not to think of Voight as some kind of diseased wingnut.”
This post yielded a more-than-usually-spirited bout in the comments section, where I myself weighed in. I should have stuck with my original thought, which was, “You’ve seen both The Champ AND Table For Five, and it’s only now you have a reason to feel negatively about Voight,” but instead I opted for a not-so-funny observation on The Washington Times and a comparison of Voight’s piece with the old Monty Python “there’s a communist peeping out of my wife’s blouse” bit. The thread, incidentally, also contains the thoughts of quite a few who agree with Voight.
Over at National Review Online, the ever-droll Kathryn Jean Lopez took note of the, erm, kerfuffle, writing, “Jon Voight…incites a cyber-comment riot. It’s tough to be conservative in Hollywood. But Breitbart’s got your back.”
Who is this Breitbart of which she speaks? Why, it’s none other than Andrew Breitbart, once and perhaps future writing partner of my old charge Mark Ebner, proprieter of his own website, and newly minted columnist for the aforementioned Washington Times. His column, inasmuch as I can tell from its first three installments, is all about how conservatives can’t get a break in Hollywood, and hell, if he can milk that theme for the next 30 weeks or so, he’ll have earned my resepct. But given that about 40% of his latest column, also offered up by the Washington Times on the 28th, consists of him bitching about some shit George Clooney said three years ago, my hopes aren’t particularly high. The other 60% of the column consists of the musings of Breitbart’s father-in-law, Orson Bean, comparing the blacklist of the HUAC and/or McCarthy era to the dirty looks Hollywood conservatives get from their liberal colleagues today.
Now, again, we get into my failings as a reader—what I thought was most fascinating about the column is the way Breitbart first gloats over the fact that he’s in Mexico on Orson’s dime: Bean “last week took our entire family down to Mexico for his 80th birthday;” and then looks down his nose at the accommodations Bean secured for this sojourn: “Orson recalled over watered-down dark rum pina coladas poolside at Club Med.” This sort of perverse close reading often causes me lose the point.
Which is why the clarifying summing-up of one such as Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds is always a tonic. Here we go, with all links reproduced:
SEQUENCE: Jon Voight criticizes Obama. Andrew Breitbart talks about a new Hollywood blacklist. Jeffrey Wells puts Voight on shit list. “It’s going to be hard henceforth not to think of Voight as some kind of diseased wingnut.… it’s only natural that industry-based Obama supporters will henceforth regard him askance. Honestly? If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn’t pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, ‘Voight? Let him eat cake.’ ” How establishment is Wells? He’s got a permanent Drudge link. (Via Kaus.)
I gotta tell you, when I read that I almost had a stroke. WELLS HAS A PERMANENT DRUDGE LINK??? Are you fricking kidding me? Wow, what a jackass I am. All those times I saw Jeff at Cannes in May and said, “Oh, hi Jeff,” instead of falling to my knees, fishing out his naughty bits, and orally manipulating him to completion…WHAT ON EARTH WAS I THINKING???
Anyone who follows Jeff’s musings with any regularity knows that…well, how can I put this…very little of what he wants to happen actually happens. Josh Brolin is not going to make a short about his arrest in Shreveport, Louisiana. Peter Jackson is not going to stop making films. And so on, and so on, and so on. But now a fairly substantial number of blogosphere regulars are going to have to be on the alert for Wells, because he’s a VERY ESTABLISHMENT GUY who’s saying that Jon Voight is not a guy he would hire, if he was a producer, which he’s not.
Not to be too old school or anything, but ROTFLMAO.
UPDATE: Whoa. I see the fellows at Powerline, Time Magazine’s Bloggers of the Year for 2004, have joined in on the pile-on. Wells argues coherently in his own defense here. Let Wells be Wells, I say. I still insist that Reynold’s trial balloon for the “When Wells says ‘jump,’ Hollywood says ‘How high?’ meme is hilarious.
Conservatives, if you want to be tough guys, be tough guys. If you want to be whiners, go ahead and whine. But you can’t have it both ways.
Incidentally, I like Jon Voight. I once attended a Q&A he gave, and he spent 30 minutes talking about how much he loved working on Anaconda. Political eccentricity just goes with the territory I suppose. People like him don’t bother me, whatever I think of their opinions. They’re like the proverbial crazy uncle whose rants and raves keep things from getting to dull at the dinner table. On the other hand, smirking little ideologues like K‑Lo at NRO drive me up the wall (and that goes for both sides of the aisle though the right certainly seems to have the monolopoly on “woe-is-me by the way I hate those whiners on the other side” hypocrisy these days. All I want is to see twits like her and Hannity face up to the fact that a) the American people are NOT on their side; b) their complete lack of stoicism is unbecoming for people who like to consider themselves traditionalists; c) they are just as much knee-jerk ideologues as the more PC dopes on the other side.
It’s a strange comparison for the right to be making, since according to Ann Coulter, as I understand it, the blacklist was a good thing.
Differences between then and now? As far as I know, there is no US government investigation to find out who’s a Republican so they can be banned from working. Instead, we have the possibility that when an actor chooses to mouth off in public about his or her views, some potential employers might be put off. Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t that always been the case, and doesn’t it fall under the heading “fair enough”?
It’s true, Ann Coulter speaks for every last conservative. If she says it, I believe it.
As for the rest of it, no, I don’t believe that Voight is going to lose much work for this, as he’s been working steadily for forty years, and has been openly conservative for some time. Same with Dennis Hopper, and others. And Charlie Sheen didn’t get bounced off his shitty TV show for being a 9/11 Truther.
However, I think it’s quite fair to say that conservatives in Hollywood are looked at “askance” by their legion of liberal colleagues. And I just find the whole notion that they’re whispered about as though they have herpes or something to be…I suppose “interesting” is the word I’m looking for.
Your point is valid, Bill—but I also think it has to do with years of built-up perception creating a reality; a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. The fallout from both the Cold War and the counterculture molded Hollywood into a culture wherein the baseline expectation was that if you worked there, you simply HAD to be a liberal. Which of course is not so, and there’s no legitimate reason it should be so. Might make an interesting historical study…
That said, I don’t think Breitbart treats the issue with any particular acuity. “Mr. Spielberg, tear down this wall,” was the title of his first column, and that was a cheap shot in any number of respects.
Yes, I would say that’s most likely true, and would explain a certain amount of surprise felt by a large group of liberals who suddenly discover a few conservatives in their midst. But I get the feeling that “surprise” doesn’t quite cover it. I think “blacklist” overshoots it, but the reaction isn’t positive.
When the government revokes Voight’s passport I’ll take the HUAC comparison seriously.
I agree with everyone: HUAC and the blacklist was bad.
But does it bother any of you that, say, Dalton Trumbo was a lifelong unrepentent supporter of Communism, and Stalinism? What if he’d been a lifelong supporter of fascism, and Nazism?
Wait… Why is Jon Voight writing op-ed pieces for a newspaper? Or was that John Voight the periodontist?
For the same reason Sean Penn writes open letters to the President.
Bill—interesting question, one whose answer, at least as far as I’m concerned, continues to evolve. It ties in with some of the observations Kent Jones made on a thread after I posted on Stephanie Zacherek’s review of that Godard biography.
So—I’m actually not bothered by the fact that Trumbo was an unrepentant Stalinist, because Trumbo the artist means very little to me. I think most of his stuff is high-minded pap. The great films his name is attached, or not officially attached, to, aren’t great because of him. If I thought he was a great artist, if I had some reverence or awe for his work, then, yeah, I suppose it would bother me. I’d be repelled, much as I’m repelled by the anti-semitism of Wagner or Celine or Pound. Except that for me, Wagner and Celine and Pound are all great artists whose works are worth grappling with. I wish they had not been anti-semites, but they were, and insofar as that is evident in the work, I have to grapple with it. All told, I think Flaubert’s dictum to George Sand means more to me all the time: “The man is nothing, the work is everything.” Judging artists by who seems the nicest guy, who’s got the “best” politics, who’s got the worst, and such, is like, say, choosing a President based on which candidate you’d rather have a beer with.
As for Trumbo, there’s more sentimentality than Stalinism in the all-important work. But if he did in fact keep flying the flag for old Joe until his dying day, he doesn’t even qualify for Kingsley Amis’ famed designation “fucking fool” (e.g. a fool who you expect to know better).
And I think about as highly of Sean Penn’s efforts in the op-ed arena as I do Voight’s.
Yes, it bothers me. But what I look at is the movies, and when I look at the blacklist era what I see are tattered filmographies for many talented individuals. We’ll never know just how much American film lost through those years, and no one has ever been able to prove that the national security was improved by it in any respect. The fact that Trumbo embraced a bankrupt and morally blinkered ideology doesn’t turn Roman Holiday into I Am Cuba. Communism in the U.S. remained a distinctly minority view with no great popular traction whatever. (The same cannot be said, however, for quasi-fascist organizations violently enforcing segregation in the South.)
It is also worth noting that unlike Trumbo, a number of blacklisted individuals were not Communists at all, or had long since disavowed the party.
In any event, all this is a digression. While Glenn’s line about “The Champ” made me laugh harder than I have all week, Voight is a talented actor who was memorable indeed in things like Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance. If he wants to write tendentious op-eds he can knock himself out as far as I’m concerned. The next time he’s in a good movie I’ll still go see it, and I find Wells’ attitude puzzling. But his notion that a few people choking on their canapes when a cocktail-party guest plumps for Bush somehow equals the wreckage of the blacklist era is rubbish.
And anyway, aren’t people like NRO’s Corner all proclaiming that Christopher Nolan deliberately produced a pro-Bush allegory? They can’t have it both ways – “Hollywood’s hottest director loves Bush, and the parallels are obvious, but all the same there’s a GOP BLACKLIST I tell you.” Why the insistence on turning Then Vs. Now into some sort of victimization Grand Prix?
Excuse me, that should be “THE notion that a few people choking …” not “HIS notion.” Bad pronoun antecedent. I was talking about Voight’s defenders, not Voight.
Glenn, I’m actually pretty much with you on all of that. Admiring the artistic endeavors of someone who you also know to be a miserable bastard is a difficult conundrum we all have to wrestle with. But my point – which, for some reason, I didn’t bother stating – was more that HUAC and the blacklist are always thrown around in these sorts of conversations without ever being put in its proper context. I am assuredly not the person who can really put it in its proper context, but I do think that it’s worth noting that Trumbo WAS a Stalinist, and knowing what we all do about Stalin, maybe there was a good reason for HUAC. It all went very badly, of course, and people quite innocent of anything suffered. I’m just a little tired of all American Communists of the time being portrayed as brave little guys who just wanted the poor and meek and get their fair share. People like Trumbo – and he wasn’t alone – supported a murderous, nightmarish tyrant, and wanted something similar to rise up in America. Whether they deluded themselves about the “murderous” part (I imagine they probably did) quickly becomes irrelevant.
Well, let’s see here:
1) I do not care about the political opinions of Jon Voight.
2) I do not care about any opinion held by Jeffrey Wells (I can see the two of us in a bar having a beer rapidly turning into some kind of fistfight, which is why I don’t visit Hollywood Elsewhere).
So I’m left with apathy. Voight’s entitled to his opinion and frankly I’d rather have arguments over whether or not Obama is a socialist (and all the Europeans reading are laughing like hell at the idea, I’m sure) than yet MORE racewank.
If I based my moviegoing on a person’s politics, I’d have missed an awful lot of classic movies from Ford, Hawks (who was anti-Semitic, f’God’s sake), Capra, McCarey, etc., not to mention those starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Myrna Loy, Jean Arthur, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Adolphe Menjou, Clint Eastwood, et al.
I think I may set up a website to list all of the Hollywood folks who have acknowledged they’re conservatives. The list would be several miles long.
Don’t forget Kevin Sorbo.
bill,
My question was not rhetorical. I really want to know why Jon Voight is writing op-eds. With Penn, I expect it (and, like most people, find it annoying). I had no idea that Voight was one of those I’m-an-actor-so-I-have-to-have-a-public-opinion-on-everything blowhards. And why should the National Review really treasure his opinion? Why are the political opinions of actors so important? What about the opinions of sous-chefs on the NBA-referee scandal? Or the opinions of landscape architects on media consolidation? Am I the only one that sees the political thoughts of all actors as non-sequiters? If it’s about the campaign money, then I suppose I can understand. The propaganda value of Voight’s opinion for the Right, however, will probably be about as important as Penn’s opinions are for the Left–i.e. neutral at best, but most likely harmful. I only wish the Democrats had FEWER actors on their side.
Joel – That’s fair enough, and so I shall now answer your question: I have no idea. I know that Voight sometimes makes the rounds on conservative talk shows, though I don’t think ever heard him.
As a conservative film lover, the only reason my day might be brightened by news of an actor’s (or other artist’s) political views would be if the person was talented I could at least think, “Well, there’s ONE, anyway.” Juvenile and meaningless, I’ll admit, but one takes what one can get to get through the day.
Then again, you have a guy like Gary Sinise who is a conservative and is quietly out there doing good, decent, concrete things to help US soldiers and Iraqi citizens. I like knowing that, though his deeds would be just as good if he were a liberal, obviously.
I’m with those who ignore the political views of those in the arts. John Wayne’s extremist opinions don’t distract from my enjoyment of his excellent performances in The Quiet Man and The Searchers.
I admire Voight for his ability to restart his career as a character actor after his days as a star were long gone. Like William Hurt, he’s actually much better in supporting roles than as a leading man.
The problem with his Obama comments is not that he’s a conservative daring to offer his views in public. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with celebrities talking about politics–as long as they’re well informed about whatever the issues are. Voight’s comments, however, verge on the ravings of a lunatic. Obama is the devil, and if he’s elected, we’ll all have to look under the bed before going to sleep. In this regard, he’s the right-wing version of Sean Penn, a particularly obnoxious, know-very-little blowhard.
cadavra: I’ve always seen Loy identified as a devout Democrat, and I don’t recall Jean Arthur’s politics being discussed in John Oller’s outstanding bio.
bill: While putting the blacklist into historical context, we have to remember that Trumbo and his pals didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be commies. Their views were products the social and economic turmoil of their times, helped along by the anti-union policies of the Hollywood studios. I haven’t seen the new Trumbo doc yet, but in all the interviews I’ve seen and read, he comes off as an insufferably smug bastard.
I’ve been a loyal Wells reader since his Mr. Hollywood days, and while I don’t agree with much of what he says about movies and other topics–his view of McCain’s new anti-Obama ad yesterday was especially obtuse–he is endearing because of the passion and liveliness of his writing. He’s a true American eccentric.
To get back to some of the points made above by Bill and Campaspe…I think they’re both right! In the scramble to claim the highest moral ground, more often than not truth, or at the very least, honesty, is the first casualty. Yes, HUAC as conducted was a travesty and a tragedy. And also yes, Alger Hiss was guilty as sin. And it goes on and on. But finally, Campaspe’s point about the blacklist resulting in quite a bit more than social ostracization is what makes the latter-day comparisons most galling. Cadavra’s list of some of our favorite stars is also constructive…it almost makes one believe that Hollywood was once a place of lively political debate rather than polarization.
While I don’t particularly care about an actor’s views once I sit down to watch a movie, neither do I subscribe to the idea that actors’ political opinions are intrinsically worthless. There are plenty of actors with cogent and well-thought-out political beliefs, and plenty of examples of beneficial activism on the part of actors. Even if we’re talking about a total gasbag, if an actor feels a duty to use his fame as a platform, so what? As distasteful as I found Voight’s editorial, I find Laura’s Ingraham’s exhortation to “Shut Up and Sing” to be about ten times worse–as well as historically illiterate, since where would Ms Ingraham be if Mr. Reagan had followed her advice?
“Cadavra’s list of some of our favorite stars is also constructive…it almost makes one believe that Hollywood was once a place of lively political debate rather than polarization.”
Excellent point. Oh well. Those were the days, I guess.
I’ve had the art vs. artist discussion so many times that I’d prefer it if all art were created by robots in future.
What does interest me about this discussion is the fact that Voight was able to publish an op-ed in The Washington Times. Why does he get space and someone with fact-based opinions doesn’t? Because 1) he’s a celebrity, our country’s new authority class on just about everything, 2) he’s a celebrity who will draw stargazing readers, particularly fans of Angeline Jolie, 3) he’s a celebrity who is guaranteed to say something so inarticulate that it will become controversial and buzz all over the world
Number 3 is the most important, and this post and all the other blogs that have commented on it prove how newspapers get traction these days. More and more pundits from government service are now on news staffs or regular columnists. More and more columnists are saying outrageous things that will provoke a response. If you read The Daily Howler regularly, you’ll become very familiar with the culprits and their M.O. The internet has made it easier for pundit narratives to be accepted facts in a matter of hours. Whether you believe in Voight’s opinion, his view is now travelling at the speed of light around the world. I wonder if Wells’ is getting farther than the entertainment blogs?
When it comes to Hollywood, I wouldn’t count on it being so all-fired liberal. People with money like to keep it, and that often brings out the conservative streak when push comes to shove.
Hurm? I was over at HE, reading the comments for the post wherein Wells explains himself, and someone there is glad I “boycott” that site. Did I say I boycott it? I can’t imagine I did say that, because I don’t. Also, this has been a very civil discussion, so I can only assume Mr. or Mrs. T. S. Idiot dislikes me because I don’t agree with them about something.
Since I tried to comment over there, but had some log-in computer issues, Mr or Mrs. Idiot, if you’re still reading, I apologize for not agreeing with you about whatever it is we don’t agree about.
That comment struck me as kind of odd too. But, you know, I cannot be responsible for any of the statements of commenters at Jeff’s site.
http://www.dirtyharrysplace.com
THIS should be an interesting site to look at for y’all…
Wells is quite pleased with his new banning phase, so it comes as no surprise he would metaphorically suggest one in reality. Such is the distance between alleged liberals and future fascists.
I’m certainly not taking the opinion that someone’s political views are meaningless just because that person is a famous actor. I’m taking the opinion that a newspaper asking a celebrity to write an op-ed piece BECAUSE he is a famous actor is weird. Unless that person has decided to run for office, or even plays a major role in some kind of political organization, then his opinion is just the opinion of average citizen–valuable when it comes time to vote, but inexplicably weird to encounter in a daily newspaper, even one that fills the Reverend Moon’s coffers. However, I was not aware that Voight has been on conservative talk shows, which at least gives this editorial decision a smidgen of precedent. And Bill, I think that Sinise is an excellent person to point to and say, “Well, there’s ONE anyway.” A very good actor, and, from what I can tell, a decent guy.
There are indeed some actors and actresses who have opinions they can validate with facts and cogent arguments. Those opinions are valid, in my opinion. Jon Voight’s commentary had neither. That the W.T. chose to run it is evidence to me that they wanted to create buzz, not encourage the development of insight.
Wait, why does anyone give a shit what Jon Voight thinks? Am I the only one who suffered through his astonishing non-performance in Transformers? Seriously, he raised “phoning it in” to the level of art. He didn’t even phone it in, it’s more like he text messaged it in. And the text message had lots of spelling and grammar errors. And the content of the message read something like, “I eat shit!”
Probably Mr., Mrs., or Ms. Idiot means that the signature “bill” is absent from the frequent posters at HE. Given the contrast between bill’s views and Wells’s, a boycott was assumed, though this contrast has not stopped numerous others from piling on our Jeffrey.
But does it bother any of you that, say, Dalton Trumbo was a lifelong unrepentent supporter of Communism, and Stalinism? What if he’d been a lifelong supporter of fascism, and Nazism?
Posted by:bill | July 31, 2008 at 11:27 AM
That’s like me saying I’d be cute if I had a different face. It’s an interesting thought, but essentially meaningless.
In any case, I’m not sure if describing Trumbo as an unrepentant Stalinist has any resemblance to something that might be described as “the truth.”
Steve, with all due respect (and love, which you know I’ve got for you in abundance), the conversation’s moved on a bit from the comment you cite. We’re in what I consider a pretty positive groove of disagreeing as reasonable people will. Trumbo’s case is a pretty multi-leveled one—I think my assessment of him slighted “Roman Holiday,” a favorite of Campaspe’s.
Let me divert the crowd with a whacked-out anecdote. One of my all-time favorite musicians (as you know, Steve), Robert Wyatt, once recorded a cover of a song called “Stalin Wasn’t Stallin,” a weird quasi-gospel tune originally recorded by Willie Johnson and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet. It was a celebration of Stalin’s tactics during World War II, and Wyatt recorded it, as per Wikipedia, “to remind the West of the selective memory they had during the Cold War about this earlier alliance.”
Oy. Catchy little tune, with Wyatt multi-tracking the four-part harmony. And, yeah, there are a number of historians who aver that absent Stalin’s resourcefulness/ruthlessness, WW II would have in fact been lost to the fascists. And then what a mess we might have been in.
But still.
It was about 1985, and I was at a party for the first Arto Lindsay/Ambitious Lovers LP over at Danceteria, and I was preparing a big piece on Wyatt for the Village Voice. I was hobnobbing with a then new-music bigwig (initials R. T.) who had recently visited Wyatt in Britain. “I wouldn’t say Robert’s actually a Stalinist,” he noted. “I mean, he admires what Stalin DID…”
Oh, the ’80s.
This didn’t put me off Wyatt’s music but it led me to distrust the specifics of his politics as they were articulated within it. Eventually, Wyatt’s body of work showed itself as far more humane than any actual Stalinist, or “admirer” of Stalin, could be. One song of his, inspired by Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissal of “Old Europe,” is one of his most moving. But certain things stick in the craw.
Aside from all the paying work I’ve been pursuing today, I’ve been looking into the whole “Trumbo as unrepentant Stalinist” theme. An interesting recent piece by Ronald Radosh should be read by everybody interested in this:
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=5681
“And Bill, I think that Sinise is an excellent person to point to and say, “Well, there’s ONE anyway.” A very good actor, and, from what I can tell, a decent guy.”
Joel – Not that I want Sinise to do less charity work, but I really would like him to act more (outside of “CSI”). He really is terrific.
Glenn – Fascinating article. And maybe in my haste to make a point, I should have steered clear of the phrase “unrepentant Stalinist”, although, really, maybe not. I thought I might have borrowed the phrase from Terry Teachout regarding Trumbo, and even if I didn’t, I certainly borrowed the basic point, having recently read this terrific essay by him (Trumbo is only mentioned in passing, but it’s a great article anyway):
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006781
That Radosh article really should be read. It shows that Trumbo was no hero, or martyr, and aligned himself closely with some truly horrible people and causes, while acknowledging later “doubts and disillusionment” of which I was unaware.
The results of Stalinism and Nazism are certainly comparable, with Stalinism causing actually more harm than nazism (remembering that Stalin facilitated much of the Third Reich’s evils), but it’s at least arguable that the intentions behind them are different. A lot of people got into communism out of a desire to help the poor and see social justice. Having embraced those ideals, they were suckered by Stalin. What are the Humanitarian virtues of Nazism? What attracted the supporters? So I think there’s a big difference of intent.
The idea that the blacklist was a well-meaning operation to curb a genuine threat, which then got out of hand, is not supported by the evidence. Stalinism = very bad. But the idea that writers or directors in 50s Hollywood could smuggle Stalinism into mainstream cinema is clearly absurd: the studios acted as very effective gatekeepers in that respect. The only “Stalinist” line of dialogue anybody could point to was “All for one and one for all: that’s democracy,” in TENDER COMRADE, a wartime propoganda film made at the behest of the US government, and the only person who found the line offensive was Ginger Rogers’s mum.
Even if immoral political messages could be hidden in scripts and escape detection, why go after actors? It is and always was obvious that the purpose of HUAC was to gain positive publicity for a bunch of far-right politicians. The committee was founded to propose legislation, that was their reason for being, and in their whole existence they never proposed any legislation. It was a self-perpetuating publicity-generating machine, fuelled by the careers of studio employees whose guilt or innocence was largely irrelevant.
Orson Welles said that the issue of the blacklist was not one of “innocent victims” – most of those blacklisted were in fact communists (I don’t know if this is true). The issue was that people in a democracy were denied work because of their political beliefs, in a large-scale officially sanctioned operation. And this lead to a climate of fear in which any discussion of politics in American film was hampered more than it already was by commercial concerns.
You know, I read somewhere that Bean is a recovering alcoholic, so Breitbart’s column is a bit suspect.
Then again, if I were hanging around with Andrew Breitbart, my liver would be worth the risk.
I can’t vouch for Wells, but I came across an interesting fact about Voight recently while researching a blog item on Harvey Weinstein’s remarkable assertion that as a lad, he fled a Broadway performance of “The Sound of Music” with Mary Martin and ended up seeing “Goldfinger” with his dad. Harvey’s chronology didn’t parse, but in checking the Internet Broadway Database I did learn that Voight took the role of the singing Nazi Rolf later in the run.
Hey, he did kill Eddie Murphy’s Oscar chances single-handedly… I think it’s inevitable that Obama is our next President and John Voigt will never work again. While Voigt’s initial op-ed was pretty silly, how can anyone have anything against someone who can sire the likes of Angelina Jolie from his loins?
It isn’t really surprising to see the far left support censorship and blacklisting. It took a lot of bravery on Voight’s part to say what he believes(whether you agree with his opinion or not) in an industry that has become ever less open to differing ideas. Look at most of the TV and movie fare and you’ll see extraordinary thinking is not their hallmark.