I wrote on the home page today about similarities between woke cancellations and the Hollywood Blacklist. In looking back at the blacklist era, I was struck by the firing of Jean Muir, which seems very much a precursor to the Gina Carano cancellation:
She was a minor actress who showed up in Red Channels for her alleged involvement in Communist-front activities. She was certainly a lefty, but she forcefully denied any association with Communism (and offered, once her case blew up, to testify before HUAC).
In 1950, Muir was set to appear as the mother in the NBC sitcom The Aldrich Family. The day before the sitcom was to air, word went out and people began to call the network and the show’s sponsor, General Foods, to protest Muir’s role. There may have been as few as 20 calls and two telegrams.
Nonetheless, the day the show was to air, it was canceled. General Foods said that Muir had to go because her role might “provoke unfavorable criticism and antagonism among sizable groups of consumers.” It said, crucially, that it wasn’t concerned about the accuracy of the allegations — just that there were allegations.
Sound familiar?
Everitt quotes an NBC PR executive: “There was no discussion about the validity of whether or not she would be canceled, or whether or not there was any sort of injustice. It was automatic.”
Muir was replaced by another actress on the show, which aired the next week.
The criticisms of the Muir firing also sound remarkably familiar:
The anti-Communist New Leader editorialized, “Were Miss Muir a proven Communist and a five-day-a-week coast-to-coast news commentator, the action of the enraged citizenry might be looked upon with some degree of approval, although Lord knows, it would hardly shake the walls of the Kremlin.”
Life magazine said, “We don’t approve of gullibility, but we don’t like to see it equated with subversion or treason in advance of a hearing.”
The radio editor of the New York Times warned of making accusers the de facto “dictators of the airwaves.”