ONLY VICTIMS: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting
▻https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/robert-f-vaughn/only-victims-a-study-of-show-business-blacklist
by Robert F. Vaughn ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 1972
Robert Vaughn, the TV-movie actor best known as the Man from U.N.C.L.E., is also a Ph.D. from USC and this is his doctoral dissertation. It suffers from most of the defects associated with academic thesis writing (turgid prose, factual glut, excessive footnoting, ponderous quotations), but those interested in the methodology of extralegal censorship or the specifics of the entertainment industry’s blacklisting practices in the ’40’s and ’50’s should be willing to overlook these faults. Because lodged among the scholarly impedimenta is some genuinely intriguing and new material which enhances both our understanding of the blacklist technique and our perspective of the particular history involved. Vaughn summarizes and evaluates the House Committee on Un-American Activities’ investigations conducted between 1938 and 1958 into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood, television programming, and the legitimate theater — hearings which produced no legislation, only sensational headlines for politicians like Martin Dies, J. Parnell Thomas, and Francis Walter and ""personalized persecution of entertainment people."" Some of the ""friendly"" witnesses were cowed; others cheerfully cooperated, supplying lists of names; a few of the unfriendly First Amendment types were jailed for contempt (i.e., the Hollywood Ten); and many of those who relied on the Fifth Amendment were blacklisted by their respective industries. What is most useful here, however, is Vaughn’s original research — questionnaire and interview data elicited from selected uncooperative HUAC witnesses — which serves as the basis for some definitive conclusions about the retrospective effects of blacklisting, e.g., motion picture and TV actors were hit hardest (theater performers were hardly affected at all and many writers were able to continue producing under pseudonyms). In sum, what we have here is the most complete and intelligent treatment of the virulent practice of blacklisting now available.
Pub Date: March 14, 1972
ISBN: 0879100818
Publisher: Putnam
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1972
Robert Vaughn
►https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Vaughn
Vaughn was a longtime member of the Democratic Party.[7] His family was also Democratic and was involved in politics in Minneapolis.[53] Early in his career, he was described as a “liberal Democrat”.[54][55][56][57][58] He was opposed to the Hollywood Blacklist of suspected Communists on freedom of speech principles, but Vaughn also was opposed to Communism as a totalitarian system.[59] Vaughn campaigned for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 United States presidential election.[38] He was the chair of the California Democratic State Central Committee speakers bureau and actively campaigned for candidates in the 1960s.[38][53]
Vaughn was the first popular American actor to take a public stand against the Vietnam War and was active in the peace group Another Mother for Peace.[4] Vaughn debated with William F. Buckley Jr. on his program Firing Line on the Vietnam War.[60] With Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner, he was a founder of Dissenting Democrats.[61] Early in the 1968 presidential election, they supported the candidacy of Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, who was running for president as an alternative to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had supported President Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam.[61]
Vaughn was reported to have political ambitions of his own,[62] but in a 1973 interview, he denied having had any political aspirations.[63] In a conversation with historian Jack Sanders, he stated that after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, "I lost heart for the battle.
House Un-American Activities Committee
►https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee
En 1947, les dirigeants des studios demandent à la commission de reconnaître que certains films sortis sur les écrans pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, comme Mission à Moscou (Mission to Moscow), L’Étoile du Nord (The North Star) et Song of Russia, peuvent en fait être considérés comme de la propagande pro-soviétique, mais que ces films étaient précieux dans le contexte de l’effort de guerre allié, et ont été tournés, dans certains cas, à la demande de représentants officiels de la Maison Blanche.
#USA #maccarthysme #histoire #culture #cinéma #listes_noires #cancel_culture