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What Cancel Culture Did to Hollywood
Cancelling Credits in Cold War Hollywood
“Cancel Culture” is not new to Hollywood. During the Cold War, Hollywood tried to “cancel” its best and brightest talent. The results were both absurd and horrifying. This history should be studied as a lesson for today.
[Since the term “Cancel Culture” itself has become a Rorschach Blot, let me be clear about what I am referring to. By “Cancel Culture” I mean a moral judgment (whether for racism, communism, or any other reason) passed on a person, and the “consequence” imposed of “cancelling” that person’s work or legacy from our culture.]
BACKSTORY — THE GRAPES OF WRATH
John Steinbeck’s story of the Joad family’s journey from individual despair to hope in the form of collective action paralleled the surge of collective action during the Great Depression and New Deal. Denounced as “obscene and subversive,” the book was banned in several places, and actually ordered burned in East St. Luis. When the Associated Farmers of California got wind that this subversive book was going to be made into a movie, they called for a boycott of all Twentieth Century Fox releases. Instead of…
