Tag: blacklist

When Hollywood Made the Big Left Turn

The Hollywood tale begins in the 1920s.

It was a time when most major studio heads were decidedly on the conservative side of the political aisle.

So how did the entertainment industry veer into the leftist stratosphere?

Well, the process seemed to begin after some Hollywood-related scandals caused quite a bit of public embarrassment, which prompted the studios to become more proactive in terms of controlling the inner workings of the movie business.

Rather than having to bow to government regulators, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America hired a former U.S. postmaster general by the name of Will Hays to help develop guardrails for movie production.

In 1933, Hays pushed the film industry to adopt what would come to be known as the Hays Code, which established rules that set boundaries pertaining to onscreen depictions of sex and crime.

Films and eventually television content that conformed to the code received a seal of approval upon which the movie-going public could rely, particularly families with children.

A pivotal event occurred in the late 1940s, which resulted in a transformation of the industry itself.

Some of the intellectuals around town, who were purportedly sympathetic to communist ideology, were investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals provided to the committee the names of those who were alleged to be communists as well as those who supported communist organizations.

Notable entertainment figures of the time, including Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, Sterling Hayden, and Edward G. Robinson named names and/or expressed concern about subversive content of screenplays.

Most of the names that were named were those of screenwriters. A select group of blacklisted individuals became known as the “Hollywood Ten.”

Hollywood is still burdened with an obsession over the blacklist era. Movies that deal with the subject are continuously being produced: “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Front,” “Guilty by Suspicion,” “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg,” “The Majestic,” and two biopics, both titled “Trumbo” based on blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, just to name a few.

At the time of the blacklist and up until the late 1960s, Hollywood was structured along the lines of what came to be called the “studio system.”

This top-down model was controlled by five major movie studios known as the Big Five, and three smaller studios known as the Little Three.

The Big Five was comprised of Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and 20th Century Fox.

The Little Three were United Artists, Universal, and Columbia Pictures.

Interestingly, today’s largest and most powerful company, Disney, was not part of either the Big Five or the Little Three.

The studio system, as well as Hollywood’s Golden Era, took a hit both in power and influence as a result of a landmark Supreme Court decision, United States v. Paramount, an antitrust case.

Originally filed a decade earlier, the landmark case shocked the entertainment industry with language that called for the complete separation of ownership of movie theaters from film production and distribution, effectively terminating the studio system.

This legal decision, along with the continuing backlash against the blacklist, ended up being the catalyst for Hollywood’s extreme leftward tilt.

The studios opened up to independent filmmakers, and by the early 1960s the Hays Code had been replaced by a rating system that had been implemented by the newly formed Motion Picture Association of America, the same rating system that the industry uses to this day.

A new breed of filmmakers began to produce titles with defiant, rebellious, and anti-conventional themes, such as “Easy Rider,” “Midnight Cowboy,” and “Carnal Knowledge.”

By the late 1970s, its metamorphosis was evident. Hollywood continued over the years to become ever more left-wing, which cultivated the soil from which the unimpeded weeds of wokeness grew.

So here we are stuck with the 96th Academy Awards ceremony that recently aired, which, among other things, had imposed a set of DEI rules for a nominee to qualify for the Best Picture Oscar.

Needless to say, the DEI rules are at a minimum a profound obstacle to the creative process and another truly divisive thorn in our culture’s side.

Veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss gave a candid response to the Academy’s DEI standards, after they had been revealed to the public.

“They make me vomit,” Dreyfuss said. “Because this is an art form, it’s also a form of commerce, and it makes money, but it’s an art.”

Is life imitating art or art imitating life?

In a woke world, it’s anybody’s guess.

Actor Antonio Sabato Jr. Launches a Conservative Movie Studio

Antonio Sabato Jr. came to America from Italy when he was just a young boy. He didn’t speak the language of the new country that he now called home, but he was determined to learn.

In a foreshadowing of sorts, Sabato would teach himself to speak America’s dominant language the Hollywood way. He would become fluent in English by watching movies. Later he would break into the world of modeling and move on to working as an actor in television and film.

Most people are aware that the political pendulum in Hollywood has gone through quite a dramatic swing over the years. What began as a top down system, with studio bosses in control, slowly transformed into a quasi bottom up system, which was heavily influenced by agents, lawyers, and enormously overpaid talent.

As I documented in my books and writings over the past couple of decades, when it comes to diversity of political thought, there has been very little permission granted to folks who are working in the entertainment industry to be anything but liberal. Still, nothing could have prepared Tinseltown conservatives for what was about to happen.

In 2016 Donald J. Trump won the presidency. He took his place in the Oval Office, and it seems as though for Hollywood leftists everywhere, in one fell swoop the gates of Hades blew wide open.

After a few initial days of shell-shock and tears over the election results, Hollywood residents snapped into action. Arm and arm with the Democratic Party, celebrity leftists signed on to the coup, swarmed the media, and worked harder than they ever had to get rid of the president.

Pre-2016 the hatred in Hollywood against those who held contrary political positions was at a steady simmer. Post-2016 it would flat-out boil over, blistering every facet of the business. Direct aim would be taken against any individual who would dare to express even the slightest bit of openness to an opposing viewpoint.

The McCarthy Era would have nothing on the New Hollywood Trump Era. One after another Hollywood conservatives in Tinseltown would be shown the door.

Enter stage right. Sabato’s political views were routinely unacceptable in Hollywood, but now they would be deadly to his career. Except for the fact that he’s a Hollywood conservative who was in no way going to take it lying down.

He came to the conclusion that conservative creatives needed an alternative place to make the kind of movies and other entertainment product that are now banned by uber-woke Hollywood.

In a recent post on his Twitter account, Sabato revealed his plans for an alternative entertainment company.

“We are putting together a plan to create a conservative movie studio for all patriots to do projects that Hollywood would never do,” Sabato wrote. “No more blacklisting and no more injustice from the socialist elites.”

A follow-up tweet indicated that Sabato’s studio offered an oasis for conservative filmmakers to join in with the studio’s new film and mission.

“To all conservative producers who want to make a change this is the time, get in touch with me, and be part of our team,” the post read. “Right now we are in pre-production with Trail Blazers [Sabato’s upcoming film project] our first in line for many more & first to start our studio.”

IMDB describes “Trail Blazers” as a Western drama and indicates an expected release next year.

The film stars fellow conservatives Kristy Swanson and Stacey Dash, along with legendary film icon Robert Wagner. The cast of “Trail Blazers” also has a host of familiar right-of-center actors in Hollywood, including Kevin Sorbo, Scott Baio, Dean Cain, and Lorenzo Lamas.

Sabato is directing the film, which he co-wrote with actress and producer Deborah Twiss, and he will act in the project as well.

It is no longer a secret that Hollywood has no tolerance for anyone who doesn’t capitulate to the “woke” litany of approved beliefs. Artists trying to make it in the rough and tumble business of entertainment have known that they have to stay in what legendary actor Charlton Heston referred to as the “conservative closet.”

Sabato declared his support for President Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and since then his career suffered. He recently shared via media interviews what happened to him after his name was firmly engraved on Hollywood’s new blacklist.

“I was the first celebrity to come out and talk about the president, and he had my vote from day one,” he told Variety. “I had to sell everything, I had to pay all my debts, I was blacklisted. All my representatives left me, from agents to managers to commercial agents. I literally had to move, find a new job to survive and take care of my kids.”

During a recent appearance on Fox Business, Sabato explained to host Maria Bartiromo that your future is in jeopardy if Hollywood has disdain for your political point of view or your religious belief system.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he told Bartiromo. “I never expected to see it here in Hollywood where you have this liberal world dictating the future of everybody in the business who disagrees with them politically.” He explained that it can be seriously problematic if you bring up God or express your faith by wearing a cross.

He also indicated that there are other Trump supporters in the entertainment industry who are too afraid to reveal their political views for fear they will lose opportunities to work in the highly competitive industry.

Sabato is not completely alone in speaking out about the treatment of conservatives in Hollywood. Tim Allen and James Woods have let it be known their careers were hurt by having the “wrong” political beliefs in Hollywood. And Tinseltown’s bias turned super extreme when comedic actress Roseanne Barr received particularly harsh treatment over a single tweet. She lost her ABC show and her career in part because she was known to be a Trump supporter.

“The amount of people being blacklisted in Hollywood is astounding. I have never received so much support and so much love and also wanting to be a part of my new venture with our new studio. Incredible times and we will do it together!” Sabato recently posted.

Everyone knows you can’t keep a good conservative down. Something tells me a grateful public is in Sabato’s corner.