Hollywood blacklist | History, Effect on Society, & Facts (2024)

Hollywood blacklist, list of media workers ineligible for employment because of alleged communist or subversive ties, generated by Hollywood studios in the late 1940s and ’50s. In the anticommunist furor of post-World War II America, many crusaders—both within the government and in the private sector—targeted the media as a site of subversive infiltration. The blacklist was implemented by the Hollywood studios to promote their patriotic credentials in the face of public attacks and served to shield the film industry from the economic harm that would result from an association of its product with subversives. Though many of the entries on the blacklist were the result of rumours, the hint of suspicion was enough to end a career.

Congressional accusations of communist influence in the film industry began in 1941, when Senators Burton Wheeler and Gerald Nye led an investigation of Hollywood’s role in promoting Soviet propaganda. Wendell Willkie, the lawyer who defended the studios, revealed the senators’ conflation of Judaism with communism, casting the senators as anti-Semites rather than patriots. Those hearings anticipated the much more infamous and influential investigations that would take place after World War II.

In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into Hollywood. Of the individuals subpoenaed by the committee that year, 10 refused to testify. Referred to as the Hollywood Ten, they were indicted for contempt of Congress and sentenced to brief imprisonment. Although the leaders of the motion picture studios had initially supported the Hollywood Ten, they soon denounced them, and the Hollywood Ten were suspended without pay. Shortly thereafter it was announced that no subversive would be knowingly employed in Hollywood. The Hollywood blacklist was born.

The HUAC continued to subpoena members of the film industry in the 1950s, asking questions not only about their own activities but also about fellow workers. One-third of those subpoenaed cooperated with the committee, which often meant accusing friends and coworkers, and those who did not cooperate risked going to jail and being blacklisted.

In addition to the HUAC, private groups monitored the entertainment industries and published articles and pamphlets that identified subversive individuals. Perhaps the most powerful of those groups was the American Legion, which not only disseminated information about communist associations of media workers but also encouraged its 2.8 million members to picket movies made by people who had not cooperated with the HUAC.

As the anticommunism crusade subsided in the early 1960s, the Hollywood blacklist was slowly discontinued. Hollywood itself has commemorated the days of the blacklist in films like Guilty by Suspicion (1991) and The Front (1976). Those movies reinforce the popular notion of the blacklist as a blight on the history of American entertainment, a time when the film industry pandered to the hysteria of both the HUAC and private anticommunist organizations. As part of the wider sweep of anticommunist activities of the postwar period, the Hollywood blacklist brought media workers into the web of suspicion and fear that characterized the era.