It is widely accepted that film is an extremely powerful form of persuasion. While predominately known as entertainment, films have often been used as propaganda or political statements. One of the most blatant examples we’ve seen thus far was the film Casablanca. Casablanca, undercover as a love story, is a plea to the United States to involve themselves in the second world war and put an end to the fascist regime taking over Europe. This film, however, was not criticized for its lack of neutrality but rather celebrated for being such an important work of propaganda.

Why, then, was the blacklist later initiated in Hollywood? A ban which would not only prevent certain political statements from being made through film, but also to permanently fire any and every person defined as a communist? Wouldn’t this be a violation of the first amendment? The answer, as we would see it today, is that yes, this is a violation of the First Amendment. However, at the time, the movies did not have First Amendment protection, due to a Supreme Court decision that in 1910 defined film as only a business, not an art.  In the late 40s, the exception was made for a particular reason. The famous “Hollywood Blacklist” occurred during the 1940s and 1950s, the decade following the recent end of World War II. This was a time of recuperation but also fear for many people. A terror such as Hitler had not been seen so closely by the American people before and the fear of such a regime resurfacing was terrifying. Thus began the age of McCarthyism; any mention of communism was completely inappropriate and unpatriotic. While the Hollywood Blacklist was extreme, it was the result of trauma and fear, not necessarily a voluntary disregard of the first amendment.

Looking around at the various news stations it seems obvious that the government does not ban the production of media promoting certain ideologies, FOX being a blatant Republican channel and MSNBC being a blatant liberal channel. Some, however, would argue that film has always been modified by the government, and that a modern day blacklist still exists. As Jonathan Strong describes in his article Blacklisting is Alive and Well in Modern Day America, “The Obama administration has gone a step further in targeting Fox News in verbal attacks..the left has chosen to once again target conservative radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.” On a smaller scale John Fund describes the same phenomena happening, Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento, the state’s largest nonprofit performing-arts company, donated $1,000 to the “Yes on 8” campaign. Protests from the composer of the Broadway musical Hairspray and many other show-business people soon forced him to resign.” Do these claims prove that the blackmail list still exists? Or are these merely complaints destined to occur between two opposing parties?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330097/new-blacklist-john-fund

https://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/exclusive-blacklisting-is-alive-and-well-in-modern-day-america

I’ve noticed lately that my peers don’t seem to enjoy going to movies as much as they used to, or at least not in the same way.  The same situation occurred in my family with my parents and older sister.  Going to the movie theater used to be a treat, an event.  We would clear whole halves of our day, buy snacks and sit down to enjoy a movie almost every weekend.  Now it seems to be something that people do when they’re bored or want their kids to sit still for two hours.  I became interested in the reality of this phenomena and found out that indeed research shows there was a recent decline.  Of course, people argue that film cinema has been dead for a while, and research states that over two thirds of the over 130,000 theaters are now digital.  So what does this mean for the medium as a whole?  As Emily hinted, is every medium headed to the internet? Will our moviegoing experience be reduced to watching a new movie on a computer while eating a TV dinner?

In 2011, the moviegoers’ ticket sale number dropped from 10.6 billion to 10.2 billion, not too significant when you’re looking at the numbers but enough for the average person to notice.  However, our recent trip to the Imax headquarters and the talk with Greg Foster seemed very positive about the movie theater industry (Imax sales specifically), and that positivity rings true as well.  In 2012, the ticket sales went back up and jumped to 10.8 billion.  A large number of these sales can be attributed to Imax and 3D movies whose ticket sales have been jumping enormously, as they are the newest medium.

I was happy to see that these numbers reflect how I personally feel about movie theaters.  A few years ago I, too, felt a certain ambivalence towards the theater.  I would go months without seeing a movie or paying attention to movies and not really care.  This could be attributed to the high ticket prices or development of new platforms such as Netflix and Hulu Plus that met most of my screen viewing needs.  However, I found this year that Netflix or Hulu Plus will never take the place of the movie theater.  I’ve been going often, sometimes as often as once or twice a week, seeing almost every movie in theaters.  I don’t think it’s because ticket prices have gone down or because I have a better salary, I think it’s because I’m making a conscious decision to put my money towards what I enjoy and that happens to be movies over most other activities right now.  There’s something to be said about the experience as a whole.  Clearing part of your day for nothing but enjoying a movie is incredibly relaxing.  It’s also nice to go to a setting where everyone is there for the same thing, to watch the same movie.  Whether it’s the rowdy crowd of a midnight premiere movie, or the quiet crowd of a drama, experiencing a movie with the people around you is unmatched in any other setting than the theater.

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