In 1887, a rancher, farmer, real estate speculator, and temperance movement leader named Harvey Wilcox laid out the subdivision for the canyons and orchards east of Los Angeles, which his wife named “Hollywood,” a place now famous around the world for being synonymous with film and star power. Since the early 20th century, Hollywood has been that unique merger of commerce and art; a place that nurtured an entirely new art form and a new type of technology for filmmakers to express themselves through cinema (from the Greek kine, which means motion; motion pictures, moving pictures) in the varied terrain of downtown Los Angeles. Hollywood had cheap land, cheap labor, was far from Broadway and had abundant and beautiful light for long days of filming. The name itself has a cache that invites tribute: Hollywood (American Cinema) spawned Bollywood (Indian Cinema) and Nollywood (Nigerian Cinema). The iteration is endless. Etching itself into the global media market, Hollywood houses one of the most influential groups and industries, due to its ability to tell stories with identifiable actors and to spin dreams within the American dream. With this star power and influence through media, comes Hollywood’s impact on politics, and ability to shape social movements.
Hollywood took all of the independent movie-making that was going on in America and concentrated it in one place with fiercely competitive studios. Bootleggers like Joe Kennedy gained a little legitimacy through in motion pictures. Immigrants and outcasts could reinvent themselves, Gatsby-like, in Hollywood. Hollywood could also be of use to the government as it became embroiled in World War I. Wartime propaganda was finely distilled through images on the big screen. This can be traced back to World War I, when Jack Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros., released My Four Years in Germany. The silent film depicted the real experiences of the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, James W. Gerald, and attempted to portray the causes leading up to Germany’s heinous reasoning for war upon the world. To paraphrase Irving Berlin, Hollywood was “so natural that you want to go to war.”
Even in the early stages of Hollywood, when film was silent, many films often had political agendas or social agendas to them, using film as a way for studio narratives. Warner’s anti-German sentiment in the film was a hit success, and resonated in the U.S., placing Warner Brothers as one of the top producers in Hollywood. Film historian Kevin Brownlow recounts in his book, “Behind The Mask”, that early American motion pictures touched upon themes that we would now see as progressive: immigration, identity, race, prostitution, alcohol and drug addiction, class struggles, industrial and farm labor issues, urban issues and the dangers of urban life, alienation, and women’s issues. But as Hollywood grew in power and influence, some of those issues became “sanitized” or “marginalized” or wholly “neglected.” “Keep in mind,” cautions Bob Montera, who teaches Film and Literature, “Hollywood was born in Jim Crow America, and American cinema, Hollywood studios, were part of that cultural segregation. Black filmmakers, like Oscar Micheaux, worked outside the studio system as ‘independent’ directors and producers. If D.W. Griffith made ‘Birth of a Nation’ in Hollywood, Michaeaux’s response to it, ‘Within Our Gates’, was made in places like Metropolis, Illinois or Charlotte , North Carolina, where he received support from Black middle-class investors and patrons of the arts.”
Then during World War II, Hollywood became a key player in war efforts; they promoted patriotism, boosted morale, and raised funds for war bonds. At the same time in the ‘30s and ‘40s– when anti-Communism politics were emerging, along with the independent trade guilds such as the Screenwriters Guild (WGA), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) –the Hollywood community was in tight internal debate over its role in the political landscape of America. This debate has stayed present even up until the present day.
Media and academics alike have argued and analyzed Hollywood’s political activism and narratives for decades, saying that it used to be conservative before switching to a more liberal ideology in the late 1970s. Screenwriter and playwright Jonathan R. Reynolds told the New York Times in 1992 that “…Hollywood today is as fascistic toward conservatives as the 1940s and ‘50s were liberals…And that goes for the movies and television shows produced.” Reynolds had been a writer since 1975, and had seen the shift in Hollywood’s political landscape firsthand. When talking about the New York theater community he said: “Any play that suggests that racism is a two-way street or that socialism is degrading simply won’t be produced… I defy you to name any plays produced in the last 10 years that intelligently espouse conservative ideas. Make that 20 years.” This idea that Hollywood, a place founded by activists and radicals who commended artistic expression and speech, who would be contradicting its mission by constricting such expression is unbelievable. Right?
Well, even going back to the ‘30s, such blacklisting was true, only it was the other way around. It used to be considered un-American to sympathize with the Soviets, which translated over to Hollywood film and activity; this led to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate Hollywood sympathizers about their “communist activities.” Even Jack Warner was brought to testify as a witness, and pointed others out for their liberal-pandering scripts. This finger-pointing led to former Soviet sympathizers like Edward G. Robinson and Sterling Hayden to do the same, keeping themselves out of trouble. This doesn’t mean that Hollywood and American media don’t have conservative-pandering films, however many major studios shy away from producing those narratives due to an overwhelming amount of scrutiny on “non-woke” media. I simply think that it is important to understand why the majority of media is more leftist in this day and age, and how Hollywood’s history has made it so.
