The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist

by Carol A. Stabile

How forty-one women—including Dorothy Parker, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Lena Horne—were forced out of American television and radio in the 1950s “Red Scare.”

At the dawn of the Cold War era, forty-one women working in American radio and television were placed on a media blacklist and forced from their industry. The ostensible reason: so-called Communist influence. But in truth these women—among them Dorothy Parker, Lena Horne, and Gypsy Rose Lee—were, by nature of their diversity and ambition, a threat to the traditional portrayal of the American family on the airwaves. This book from Goldsmiths Press describes what American radio and television lost when these women were blacklisted, documenting their aspirations and achievements. Through original archival research and access to FBI blacklist documents, The Broadcast 41 details the blacklisted women's attempts in the 1930s and 1940s to depict America as diverse, complicated, and inclusive. The book tells a story about what happens when non-male, non-white perspectives are excluded from media industries, and it imagines what the new medium of television might have looked like had dissenting viewpoints not been eliminated at such a formative moment. The all-white, male-dominated Leave it to Beaver America about which conservative politicians wax nostalgic existed largely because of the forcible silencing of these forty-one women and others like them. For anyone concerned with the ways in which our cultural narrative is constructed, this book offers an urgent reminder of the myths we perpetuate when a select few dominate the airwaves.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Womens, Feminism

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Carol A. Stabile is Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Feminism and the Technological Fix, White Victims, Black Villains: Gender, Race, and Crime News in US Culture, and other books.

Reviews

[Ellen Cutler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this book were well--or at least better--written because the content is simply so important. Carol Stabile never gets a handle on the structure the narrative demands: the introduction of the 41 and their nemeses in the American Business Consultants and House Un-American Activities Committee; the emergence of a progressive faction in the new media of radio, film and television; the systematic destruction of that progressive faction; and the aftermath of the oppressive culture that emerged through the end of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century. As a result, the text circles back on itself, repeats episodes and information, and undermines the efforts of the reader to get a grip on the timeline.

The Broadcast 41 were the women identified and systematically attacked professionally by the anti-communist forces trained up by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and then released into the private sector where they did all manner of harm. Stabile does not focus on women simply to focus on women, but identifies the unique and exceptional danger they posed to the white "G-man masculinity" that emerged as a dominant force starting in the period just after World War I and becoming a crushing force after World War II.

Why should we care today? Because the rise of extreme conservative politics in American society today, the election of Donald Trump, the specter of a theocratic state posed by emboldened Evangelical Christians, the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, the assault on women's reproductive autonomy and the erosion of the ideals, values and rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America are paralleling and replicating that destructive era.

Stabile does a good job connecting the shared territory of civil rights and feminism under the aegis of progressivism. Where she falls down is finding a structure for that narrative that is less of a soapbox harangue and more of a reasoned indictment. I think it could have been done with a skilled copyeditor or two, with no diminution of Stabile's passion or muting of her voice.

She offers in the Prologue a "Dramatis Personae" that is just a list of names and the professions to which they are associated (the 41, a few additional black/gray-listed women, and the key anti-communists). It would have helped me enormously if those characters had birth/death dates and if they were organized in some meaningful way and not just alphabetically. A short list of scripts, films, books and radio/television series for which they are primarily known would be helpful. Despite the fact the book is about women, a list of the Hollywood Ten and some of the later male victims of the Red Scare would also be helpful, particularly as marriages in many cases meant that the suspicion focused on one was like some deadly infection passed on to the other.

The broad themes into which the book is divided--Redacted Women; A Field of Many Perspectives; G-Man Nation; Cashing in on the Cold War; Cleaning the House of Broadcasting; and Red "Lassie": A Counterfactual History of Television--just muddy things further. More and more tightly focused chapters would be a substantial improvement.

This is a lot of critique for a book I have rated with 4 stars. The book's importance, however, is in its content, the importance of the story as a suppressed part of American history, and the resurrection of the contribution of woman, many of whom are all but forgotten today. So read it.

[Chip Rickard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It's a fascinating and sad subject. However the material was written like a master's thesis. There was righteous anger but not enough heart. I would have liked to have known a lot more history of the women. While she has a great amount of knowledge about these women I would have liked to have seen the story written by someone who could elicit more feelings from the reader.

[Holly Dowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book serves as an excellent primer on FBI tactics and attitude in the 1950s. I learned a great deal about Hoover’s approach and the cultivation of a G-Man persona. The Bureau promoted a misogynistic, racist worldview and made use of media channels and friendly journalists to validate their existence. Did you know that the preponderance of police procedurals embedded in our television culture is a direct result of FBI influence?

The American Business Consultants was a private firm founded by former agents that relied on its implied ties to the FBI to stoke fear and legitimize its blacklist, profiting off said concerns and offering to “clear” the accused. Their actions ruined many a career and effectively stopped progressive programming in its tracks (with the ironic exception of children’s shows which they didn’t consider worth the effort).

While that part of the book was fascinating and detailed, I was once again struck by disappointment in that the purported focus of the book — the women — did not make up a majority of the content. The final chapter explores what media could have been like if the inclusive, creative minds that had been blacklisted had a chance to create the programming they’d envisioned. But on the whole, I learned a lot less about these women than about the FBI’s efforts during the Cold War.

Several of the women mentioned were actually part of one of my favorite reads from a few years back: How Women Invented Television by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Chronologically, it takes place before the Broadcast 41, but does an excellent job of profiling several prominent women who were shaping the industry ahead of this ideological crackdown. I strongly recommend it.

[Jennifer Mcarthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t think this structure of writing is particularly helpful for keeping interest as it is very repetitive at points and overall does not have a good flow.

BUT it was extremely helpful for my diss research and it’s such an important topic that is rarely discussed when researching anti communist tactics in the US.

I really enjoyed learning about all the women creatives and the perspectives of what could’ve been in American television and film, if only J Edgar Hoover and his little freak FBI agents had never been born.

[Cynthia Bemis Abrams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in America during this presidency has made Carol Stabile's book all the more provocative and valuable. To think that one's ordinary actions exercising free speech, like signing a petition, might be used by former G-Men to sully one's reputation... this is a lesson we cannot forget if we want to retain our liberties!

The careers of many talented women were snuffed out within months of the release of Red Channels. Stabile focuses on the political and economic impact that document had on the entertainment industry as well as what everyday activity these women had engaged in that became manipulated into trumped up charges.

Film buffs recognize The Hollywood Ten and the careers of white men that were driven underground during HUAC. But what about all these women who would have made a difference in TV, just as it was forming?

I interviewed author/scholar/fan Carol Stabile for a multi-episode series of my podcast, Advanced TV Herstory. Her research and writing style has delivered all this important knowledge (10 years of requesting government documents) to readers and scholars. It's a foundational work which I am confident will be built upon by others.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Academic treatment of a fascinating topic - the blacklisting of women media artists during the 1950's.