Title: McCarthyism\, Media\, and Political
Repression: Evidence from the Hollywood Blacklist
Authors: Huiren Tan
(NUS) and Tianyi Wang
Abstract:
From the late 1940s through the
1950s\, the Communist witch-hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy created wi
despread political repression and infringement on civil liberties in Americ
a. Among the many targets of McCarthyism\, hundreds of professionals in Hol
lywood and the entertainment industry were accused and put on a blacklist f
or their alleged Communist affiliations. This paper assembles a unique data
set to study the impact of the Hollywood blacklist on individual careers an
d film content. Using an event study design\, we find that the accused acto
rs and writers experienced a large and significant decline in their creativ
e output\, which lasted for almost a decade until the late 1950s when McCar
thyism started to fade away. Exploring potential mechanisms\, we provide ev
idence that the effects were primarily driven by supply- rather than demand
-side forces. Moreover\, through film content analysis\, we show that the b
lacklist produced a chilling effect on the types of films being made: write
rs and directors who had previously collaborated with a future-blacklisted
co-worker made fewer films with progressive themes\, such as those dealing
with class\, race\, and labor issues.