A conversation with film historian Max Alvarez
How the #MeToo campaign echoes the McCarthyite witch hunt of the 1940s and 1950s
Alvarez, Max, Walsh, David
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/08/echo-f08.html
Date Written: 2018-02-08
Publisher: World Socialist Web Site
Year Published: 2018
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX22113
Clearly, this is not as organized a political campaign as the one that took place in the 1940s and 1950s, but the climate is chillingly similar in terms of the massive capitulation and conformity in the entertainment industry.
Abstract:
-
Excerpt:
We see these extraordinary attacks going on at present, this type of public shaming and humiliation in which the media serves as judge, jury and executioner. Charges are being made without the accused knowing who the accuser is. Careers are coming to an immediate end without any kind of official investigation or attempt at some semblance of a legal process. This is not coming from the evangelical right, from the nether regions of the Republican Party, although there are many sympathizers there no doubt.
The attacks are coming from liberal, "left" quarters. That is very sobering. In Hollywood, in safer times, after the fact, when people looked back on the blacklist era, they would say things like, "What were they thinking?" "That would never happen again," "We would never turn on our own like they did back then!" So much for that theory! It's incredible how people are caving in today, in many cases within a matter of milliseconds.
Subject Headings
