Page 46 - American Conservative September/October 2015

Arts&Letters
Hellman, Donald Ogden Stewart, Langston Hughes, Dashiell Hammett, and Erskine Caldwell backed [the an- tiwar effort], which savaged the parties resisting Hitler and the nations over- whelmed by his armies as ‘imperialist’. Caldwell, author of Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre, sent greetings from Moscow.”
But Hollywood did fight back, and Ryskind’s third achievement is to re- vive some of the reputations of the red baiters. Enter Ronald Reagan. He was a transformative president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1940s and 1950s. Reagan was a liberal in transi- tion to conservatism, and he navigated Hollywood’s complex politics with intelligence and skill. His goal was to preserve the principles of fair union representation without succumbing to left-wing agitation. Ryskind is at his most revealing when detailing meet- ings between union activists and stars like Reagan, Gene Kelly, Dick Powell, and Robert Taylor.
Their engagement was partly mo- tivated by self-interest and protect- ing their industry. But it was also a hangover of the idealism of the 1930s, when the New Deal spirit permeated Hollywood and encouraged unioniza- tion. Reagan always remained roman- tic about the Roosevelt years. There’s a strain of postwar conservatism that was about rescuing liberalism from it- self by cutting out the socialism.
Indeed, there’s one interesting detail that Ryskind doesn’t mention about Reagan. Not only was he a New Dealer but in 1945 he spoke at a rally against nuclear weapons. Of course, this does not mean that Reagan was one of those secret Reds that Hollywood Traitors works so hard to expose. But it does remind us that the 1930s and 1940s were a complex time in which many reasonable folks flirted with the left. Ryskind doesn’t give us this kind of social context.
It’s not that he is unfair with indi- vidual biographies: Hayden’s noble war record is covered. But if you flip
to the index you’ll note that Ryskind doesn’t include a single reference for the words “Great Depression.” This is a major omission in a book about U.S. communism. Ryskind does not talk about breadlines or mass unemploy- ment. Anti-Semitism isn’t touched upon much either, despite Hollywood being a town in which aspiring im- migrant Americans found themselves blackballed from the best clubs and schools, which was bound to breed some resentment against the establish- ment. Nor does Ryskind expose the ruthless conservatism of the studio system, which did its best to destroy unions and whip its stars into political order. When Upton Sinclair launched a progressive campaign for governor of California in 1934, MGM docked its employees a day’s pay to donate to the opposition. Stars who refused to join the bandwagon were punished. The movie moguls were savage gods who ran their studios like factory lines.
And they sexually abused the staff. Louis B. Mayer—fine Republican, per- sonal friend of Herbert Hoover, and described in Hollywood Traitors as “typical of the success story of so many American immigrants”—invited Judy Garland to sing for him in his private office while he groped her left breast. “I often thought I was lucky I didn’t sing from another part of my anatomy,” Garland later joked.
Incidentally, Mayer was indeed happy to blacklist Communists in his studio. But he was less happy about the thought of federal legislation doing it for him. In Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. RossexplainsthatMayerandWarner Bros were not pleased with Washington meddling in their affairs. “Despite his vocal anti-Communism, Mayer initially resisted firing anyone who could make money for his studio.” A screenwriter under suspicion was brought to Mayer’s office, and the mogul told him: “I don’t give a s--t about the law. It’s them god- dam commies that you’re tied up with. Break with them ... I believe you’re great. Dough means nothing. We’ll tear
up your contract, double your salary. You name it, you can have it. Just make the break.”
The screenwriter refused. Ross puts Mayer’s intervention down to financial interest. But it’s impossible not to read between the lines of that dialogue and sense that the studio boss was genuinely keen to save a good artist from his own damned foolishness.
The point is that the politics and the emotion of the period were more am- biguous than a straightforward fight between good (America) and evil (ly- ing Commies). Hollywood was dealing with issues of class, race, identity, and the tension between liberty and patrio- tism. And it is possible to stand back from this whole messy narrative and grasp that, yes, the Hollywood Ten were Communists, fools, and/or liars—but there’s still something disturbing about the way they were treated in a society predicated upon political liberty. Can a free society tolerate the freedom of people who want to abolish freedom? Increasingly, Western societies are now saying “no.” My own country, Britain, is on the verge of asking teachers to watch their pupils for evidence of “extrem- ism”—homophobia qualifies—and re- port it to the authorities. We are in dan- ger of replaying McCarthyism like it’s a special season of paranoia on Turner Classic Movies.
Ryskind’s book brings a lot that’s fresh to this subject—but not quite enough. He’s very good at identifying the way in which left-wing authoritarians eradi- cate disagreement. He’s less keen to acknowledge the sins of the right. Mc- Carthyismwasonmanylevelsaquite rational response to social change and political threat from a foreign power. But it was undeniably also used to re- tard the growth of the New Deal proj- ect and repress the liberal spirit of the 1930s. It was as American as vodka and the balalaika.
Timothy Stanley is the author of Citizen Hol- lywood: How the Collaboration between LA and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics.
46 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015