No more than three weeks ago, 17 days to be exact, Hollywood’s favorite overrated, race-obsessed, ex-scientologist Oscar-winner, Paul Haggis, raised the bloody shirt of the dreaded Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and ’50s … again. For those of you might have missed one of the annual offerings from Hollywood’s self-referential masturbatory genre of films covering the blacklist, essentially what happened is that for a time entertainment professionals were denied employment based on real and perceived communist sympathies. A terrible thing to be sure, but not so terrible for today’s communist sympathizers who, for seven decades now, have lovingly fed, pruned and cared for this unfortunate era of Hollywood history in order to grow it into a Mighty Oak of Indignation. After all, how else would today’s Hollywood — the wealthiest, freest community of artists in the history of the world — feel the moral superiority that comes with being oppressed were it not for a scandal old enough to collect Social Security?
The irony of this, of course, is that the situation is now reversed. The only thing today’s Hollywood Left learned from the original blacklist was how to blacklist better. They leave no fingerprints today. There’s nothing official, there’s no list, so there’s no way for anyone to get caught. At the very least, The Hollywood Ten understood what had happened to them. There was a list, they were on it, and so they could work around it with the use of pseudonyms until the storm passed. Today’s Hollywood Blacklisters are shrewder and much more insidious. Their blacklist is an unspoken social one. There’s nothing official to tell you why the phone stops ringing.
The worst part is that those on this awful list aren’t even looked at as victims (not that they want to be). As we’ve documented ad nauseum, the entertainment media is a willing participant in the blacklisting of those who don’t conform to their political beliefs. Anyone who dares mention that it might not be the best career move to take the other side of a Global Warming debate in a production meeting or by the craft services table, is immediately pounced upon as a talentless, hasbeen, paranoid whiner by no less than Patrick Goldstein at the L.A. Times, among others.
A best, a news media that is normally desperate to root out and report on all forms of discrimination, wilfully ignores testimony after testimony coming from those who claim a new blacklist has formed in Hollywood. At worst, the same media plays whack-a-mole on behalf of their Hollywood Masters by making whistleblowers pay a price for daring to speak out. They’re met with ridicule, derision, and calculated, pre-written hoots of disbelief. Except….
Over the weekend, there was a notable exception. Writing for the Hollywood Reporter, Paul Bond let two respected, veterans — Clint Howard and Morgan Brittany– have their unflitered say:
It ain’t easy being a Republican in Hollywood, even if your brother is an A-list director and producer. That’s what actor Clint Howard told attendees at a California GOP convention over the weekend.
Howard, an actor since 1961 and the younger brother of filmmaker Ron Howard, said that while he is comfortable speaking publicly about his conservatism, his advice to Republicans looking to break into the industry is to keep their political opinions to themselves, even though Hollywood liberals seldom do.
About five years ago “I came out of the closet. In Hollywood. I certainly understand that’s dangerous,” he said.
“If the entertainment industry should turn on me, I’d say, ‘well fine.’ But for young conservatives, you may hear me speak out but let me tell you: Be careful,” he said.
Howard was joined by Morgan Brittany, one of the stars of the 1980s nighttime soap opera Dallas. The pair have more than 100 years of acting experience between them (Brittany’s first job was as a child in the late 1950s), and they’ve noted a leftward slide in the industry and an intolerance for political dissent over the decades.
“I’d go out on location with the Dallas crew,” she told members of the California Congress of Republicans in Valencia on Saturday. “Everybody in the van was bashing (President Reagan). I never said anything because I thought I’d lose my job. And I probably would have lost my job. I got to a point later on, after Dallas was over and I had my two children, that I said, ‘enough is enough. I’m not going to be silent any longer’,” she said.
“If I’m silent then I’m enabling these people and I’m letting them win. They need to know that we’re out there. That we’re strong and that we have ideas and solutions.
The reaction to her newfound political courage back then wasn’t pretty.
“Oh man, the flack I took from the people, the agencies — ‘oh, you can’t say that. You can’t do that. Casting people might see you. And directors!'”
You’re going to want to read the whole thing, especially the part about how warm and cuddly Ed Asner isn’t.
Kudos to Bond and THR for telling the story, but most especially to Howard and Brittany for speaking out. Hardcore Hollywood Leftists will never change but good-hearted liberals need to hear these stories and Hollywood conservatives need to know they’re not alone. This reign of ideological totalitarianism in Hollywood is and will come to an end. More and more, you have the likes of Clint Howard and Morgan Brittany exposing what’s happening and setting the example that the answer is to fight this intolerance, not to roll over and wait for reparations.
Let the Left play the victim. As Paul Haggis showed us, that’s what they do best, even when they hold all the cards.
P.S. My challenge to those in the media who pride themselves as moral crusaders against prejudice and injustice still stands. For those of you more interested in actual reporting as opposed to protecting the Leftist narrative, take it away.