The Cold War And Biberman's Salt Of The Earth

The Cold War split America into two groups: those willing to conform and those not. This divide discriminated against filmmakers who exercised their right to freedom of expression. The Cold War’s “culture of conformity” forced Hollywood to embrace conservative ideology and oppose left-leaning thought. Anti-Communist organizations squashed production of Herbert Biberman’s Salt of the Earth due to its alleged Communist views while On the Waterfront’s Elia Kazan used the film to justify joining the “culture of conformity” by revealing the names of Communists.
During the Red Scare, fear of Communism pervaded the United States. To combat its perceived threat, the government implemented many counter policies. The Truman Doctrine and the “Containment” policy sprouted from an “ideological battle” with the Soviet Union (Lyerly). …show more content…
Blacklisted Biberman gave a “realistic portrayal of a Mexican American mining strike” (Michalczyk). In Bosley Crowther’s review of the film he notes how it is surprising to find that it is simply strongly pro-labor with a “particularly sympathetic interest in the Mexican-Americans with whom it deals” considering that it “occasioned controversy and violence when it was being made.” In “The Suppression of Salt of the Earth in Midwest America” James J. Lorence talks about how Republican Congressman Donald Jackson of California denounced Salt of the Earth as “the work of Communist filmmakers” and warned that it would “aid the Soviet Union by damaging the image of the United States in Latin America” (347). Jackson reiterates HUAC’s worry that Communists could place negative images of the United States in films that would have wide international distribution (Michalczyk). Lorence also reveals how the American Legion claimed that Salt of the Earth was “one of the most vicious propaganda films ever distributed in the United States”