The Hollywood Blacklist And The Fall Of The Film Industry

The film industry has endured many changes throughout time. 2 significant changes that would go on and alter the business direction from being on a rise to taking a steep fall were the Hollywood Blacklist and the United States v. Paramount Pictures case; which greatly impacted the revenue earned by studios and the employment of many film professionals. To understand the Hollywood black list, what was happening in American history must be understood first. With the fall of Nazism and Imperialism at the end of World War II, America would constantly clash with Russia. (Britannica Inc.2016) America being Capitalist and Russia being Communist caused many issues and would cause the citizen to often have issues as well starting in 1947. Due to these issues an investigative group by the name of “The House …show more content…
(History.com Staff 2016) They went after many Hollywood film professionals who were thought to be inspired by the communist party. The group initially sought after ten writers and directors as suspected people in entertainment spreading Communist propaganda into films. These 10 men were known after as the “Hollywood Ten”. The Hollywood Ten would neither confirm nor deny the acquisition about them being member of the Communist Party, therefore leading to them being reprimanded by the House of Representatives for lack of cooperation. One of the ten would go on to cooperate and was allowed to work again, and the rest were blacklisted, which is a list exchanged among employers, containing the names of people barred from employment because of untrustworthiness. (Dictionary.com 2016) Some that were blacklisted left the country and