During the 1940’s and 1950’s, communism was a popular political movement in the United States. The House Un-American Activities Committee was created to investigate those suspected of having communist ties. Miller refused to name any names so he was given jail time. Kazan decided that his career was the most important thing, so he ratted out 17 CPers. Kazan was said to have ruined their careers and lives.
McCarthyism caused Americans to turn on each other due to fear, unawareness, and propaganda. Clearly due to McCarthyism, fear evoked betrayal among Americans in the 1950’s. One reason McCarthyism sparked paranoia is due to the rapid rate of communism spreading
These years are often referred to as the “McCarthy era”, named after a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who blamed many of his colleagues of Communist subversion. In many cases, defendants were pitted against their own friends, whose only evidence were their words. Cultural and racial bias ran rampant, and often those accused of a crime against the country, such as espionage or conspiracy of espionage, were not given fair trials. In one such case, a husband
In the 1950’s the cold war had begun. The fear of retaliation from communists was at large. Some Americans believed that communists were amongst them plotting. This lead to a dark time in history when American opportunity became limited for many. Most rights were limited, normal life was disrupted, and the most necessary human right may have been taken.
The Red Scare Analysis During the rise of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had been brought into an alliance due to both of their desires to defeat Nazi, Germany. Although the Soviet Union’s aggressive, antidemocratic policy towards Europe created tensions even before World War II had ended. That being said, they tolerated each other as much as they could but weren’t exactly friends. The United States government was initially hostile to the Soviet leaders for their decision to take Russia out of World War I and was opposed to a state ideologically based on communism. The main conflict between them was their inability to agree about communism.
“The Hollywood Ten, McCarthyism, and the Witches of Hollywood” Back in 1947, when the Cold War with the Soviet Union had occurred, the House of Un-American Activities Committee was checking to see if any suspicious communists’ activity was going on in Hollywood. This event caused nine screenwriters and one film director (lvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo) to get arrested, and they were known as “The Hollywood Ten”. “During the investigations, HUAC coerced prominent people from the film industry to declare their patriotism and give up large names of colleagues suspected of having politically unfriendly tendencies”.
According to the article A Decade of Fear by Sam Roberts it states, “As his fame and power grew, so did his anti-Communist fervor. He accused government officials and politicians who opposed him,” (para 11). Sam
Jennifer Frost argues how famous Hollywood columnist, Hedda Hopper used her celebrity prestige to influence Americans into anticommunism and being “Red Scared.” Indeed, Hopper used her charisma to influence Hollywood internally and externally, as its culture moved against the Commies. Frost argues how Hopper, through her column, in the Los Angeles Times, along with her radio show, had a significant impact in generating intolerance against Communism. “Hopper and her readers used her column to share and exchange information about films they saw as communist propaganda and to redbait filmmakers they suspected of communist affiliations or .sympathies.”
The Cold War is often seen as a dark time in American history, not just because of the international conflict, but because of the strife it caused within the United States itself. During the Cold War, the general culture in America was fearful and paranoid about the rise and spread of Communism within their society. One example of how this hysteria manifested is illustrated in the movie, Trumbo, which tells the story of when the Hollywood industry blacklisted famous writer Dalton Trumbo, along with other workers in the industry, who were connected to Communism. Dalton Trumbo and his associates faced bigotry and were effectively attacked for standing by their ideals, which was a reflection of how American culture had changed at that time. By
Sarah Paroya D period I hate MUSH The end of World War II should have marked a period of relief in America but instead, it lead America into a completely different type of war called the Cold War. The Cold War was an ongoing state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. This constant state of tension and fear had been embedded deep in the American public.
During this time in the world people were scared of the red scarce. People would say that Joseph Mccarthy was the modern
Senator Joseph McCarthy was a merciless politician who would be censured by the Senate in 1954 for his false accusations. However, his political journey throughout the country had a significant impact on the American public. Americans let fear override their conscious and allowed a bully to insert panic into their minds. McCarthy’s crusade was powerful and convinced the naive public during a time of war to question their own government without sufficient
The Cold War lasted forty-four years and left a lasting social impact on the United States. The spread of communism and The Soviet Union left many Americans in a constant state of fear and paranoia. The space race between the United States and The Soviet Union significantly impacted the education system in the United States and the curriculum that was taught for years to come. The social emphasis on gender caused a crisis on American masculinity and feminism by influencing many to assume certain gender roles and feel that they were not masculine enough or too feminine because of their view on communism. The Cold War socially impacted the United States through fear, education, and gender.
People lived in constant anxiety of America falling to Communist control. The fear of infiltration rose when Mao Zedong led Communists to take control of China as well as the Soviets detonating the atomic bomb. This caused the anxiety and fear to increase because even some American Scientists didn’t believe that the Soviets had the expertise to do so. American citizens began to believe that communist spies had been able to steal American technology. The detonation of the bomb started drills throughout America.
(Diversity in top films misrepresent U.S population section, para. 3). Informing that Hollywood is not showing afford to be diverse in their movies even though they have the people to do so. Horowitz (2014) study also determined the group to be the most discriminated, even though Hispanics bought 25% of movie tickets than any other group, per the Motion Picture Association of America (Diversity in top films misrepresent U.S population section, para. 3). The Hispanic group is willing to go out and see the movies produce in Hollywood to be entertain. But Hollywood is not willing to hire the Hispanic group even though they are most the fan base.