By Cliff Potts

Hollywood has always loved a sequel, so of course they rebooted McCarthyism. Only this time, it’s got better lighting, worse actors, and a hashtag budget. Forget Reds under the bed—now it’s canceled careers on demand, courtesy of the Cancel Culture Royal Family and their ever-loyal studio eunuchs.

The New Cast of Characters

  • The Studio Eunuchs: You know the type—Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Every boardroom full of suits who couldn’t write a knock-knock joke but can sniff out a trending hashtag at 500 yards. They don’t create culture; they panic-manage it. The second a Twitter mob sneezes, they grab the nearest actor and sacrifice them like virgins at a volcano. “We value diversity,” they say, while quietly ghost-firing you through your agent.
  • The Cancel Kings & Queens:
    • Alyssa Milano, once famous for “Who’s the Boss?,” now mostly famous for asking, “Who can I cancel next?” She’s the hall monitor of Hollywood, except with worse acting and more hashtags.
    • James Gunn, who was canceled for edgy tweets, then immediately resurrected because, surprise, he made Disney money. Proof the blacklist isn’t about morality—it’s about box office receipts.
    • Kimmel & Colbert, the corporate clowns. They’ll joke about canceling people between car commercials, while conveniently forgetting they both spent years punching down until the mob came for them. Funny how quick the “edgy” comedians found religion in neoliberal orthodoxy.
    • Shonda Rhimes, Queen of Woke PR, whose shows are basically soap operas with corporate training wheels. Step out of line on her watch and you’re toast—unless, of course, your streaming numbers are bulletproof.
  • The Social Media Inquisitors: BuzzFeed rejects turned TikTok “journalists,” grinding careers into dust for likes and Patreon subs. They shout “justice!” while they milk outrage for ad clicks. They’re not watchdogs—they’re pigeons. Loud, dirty, and impossible to get rid of.

Same Circus, Different Clowns

Back in the ’50s, people like Sterling Hayden ratted out their colleagues to HUAC just to keep the checks rolling (Ceplair & Englund, 1980). Today’s rats just have ring lights and an Etsy store. The mechanics haven’t changed: accuse, destroy, profit. The Hollywood Ten should’ve taught us what blacklists do (Navasky, 1980). Instead, Hollywood framed it as an inspirational Oscar montage and then kept right on doing it.

The hypocrisy is filthier than a studio casting couch. Harvey Weinstein? Protected for decades. Kevin Spacey? Whispered about for years. Nobody lifted a finger until the stink became unbearable. But god forbid a character actor from a CW show makes a dumb joke in 2012—banished forever!

The Rotten Punchline

The audience loses. You get stale oatmeal “content” pumped out like Soylent Green—bland, safe, algorithm-approved. Hollywood execs pretend this is about “progress.” No—it’s about cowardice and control. And every time a studio caves to a hashtag mob, McCarthy smiles in hell, knowing his blacklist got a 21st-century upgrade.

So yes—Hollywood’s still blacklisting. Always has, always will. The only thing that changes is the target. Today it’s neoliberal cancel clowns instead of trench-coat FBI rats. Tomorrow? Whoever the mob decides to feed on next.

References

Ceplair, L., & Englund, S. (1980). The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–1960. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.

Navasky, V. (1980). Naming Names. New York: Viking Press.

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