Who's Canceling Who?

 In recent days, the term "cancel culture" has reared its ugly head again, in reference to the decisions to end publication of six books by Dr. Seuss (a decision made by the company that represents the author's estate) and to drop the word "Mister" from Hasbro's line of "Potato Head" toys (although the male version of the characters will still bear that name and the female will still be Mrs. Potato Head).

That led me to thinking about the worst case of "canceling" in modern history and who was actually doing the canceling. I'm speaking, of course, of the Hollywood Blacklist, an effort in the 1940s through the early '60s by the extreme right-wing in American politics to deny work to people in the entertainment industry who "were or had ever been" (to use the words of the oft-asked question) a member of the Communist Party, had associated with those who were, or--perhaps most insidiously-refused to name those among their friends and colleagues who might fit that description.

It began in 1947 with just ten people, named for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and subsequently blackballed by all the major film studios in a document that came to be known as the Waldorf Statement. It was followed by the studios demanding "loyalty oaths" of all employees.

By 1950, in a scandalous pamphlet called Red Channels, 150 people were named as Communists or sympathizers. Although no official action was taken, those people were soon unemployable anywhere in the the entertainment industry--film, broadcast, or theater. By the mid-1950s, the entertainers, writers, producers, directors who were essentially blocked from working in the United States numbered more than 200, and included people who had won awards for their work in the past. (A list of them is included in the article linked below; I bet you'll be amazed by the names you see there.)

Some of those who worked behind the scenes (writers, directors, producers, designers) continued to work without credit, thanks to friends who hired them, but could not risk letting that fact be known.

The blacklist was finally broken by courageous people like Alfred Hitchcock, Betty Hutton, Otto Preminger and Kirk Douglas, who hired and gave credit to writers, producers, and composers previously unable to find work in their chosen professions. But remnants of the blacklist lasted until well into the 1970s, in part because of the political stances taken by stars like Ronald Reagan and John Wayne.

Naturally, the conservatives who speak of a "cancel culture" today never speak of their part in the worst example of it in American history; in fact, some of them still point to it with pride.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist