Hollywood agents dropping clients over ugly statements on Hamas-Israel conflict is not a new McCarthy Era
Yesterday Rolling Stone published a piece detailing a recent, and modest, trend of Hollywood agents dropping a few clients here and there (and of clients dropping agents) because of impolitic statements they’ve made about the Hamas-Israel conflict. The piece makes a claim that I’ve seen floating around a lot: “The ways Hollywood leaders have retaliated against any criticism of the Israeli government during the current conflict could start to resemble a new Hollywood blacklist.”
Could it, though? The Hollywood Blacklist, in place in various forms during the height of the McCarthy Era and the anti-Communist Red Scare, destroyed or severely damaged the careers and lives of hundreds of extremely talented people, most famously Dalton Trumbo, but also Lillian Hellman, Paul Robeson, Dorothy Parker, Ruth Gordon, Dashiell Hammett, Judy Holliday, Garson Kanin, Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Miller, Frances Farmer, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Wright, and countless others. Many of the silently “accused” had done nothing more vicious than attend a union rally, or some low-rent Southern California pinko house party, or maybe donated some money. Most likely, they simply sympathized with working people. Most of them did nothing at all. And a lot of them were, not surprisingly, Jewish.
At the moment, the career toll for the new “blacklist” is: one high-profile CAA agent, who has not lost her job and retains the support of her most prominent client Tom Cruise, Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon, and, most prominently, young Melissa Barrera, the star of the last two ‘Scream’ movies, who has received word that the franchise will no longer require her services.
Spyglass Media Group, which produces the Scream movies, fired Barerra after she posted on social media that Israel is guilty of “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. She also reposted an article from “Jewish Currents” which said that the West “distorts the Holocaust to boost the Israeli arms industry.” A Spyglass spokesperson told Variety’s Tatiana Seigel, whose reporting on this issue has been excellent: “Spyglass’ stance is unequivocally clear: We have zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
Whether Melissa Barrera committed an act of “hate speech” or just didn’t fully understand an issue that didactic but well-informed political observers like Glenn Greenwald and Ben Shapiro bat around like a Ping-Pong ball every day on X, the fact that she no longer will be starring in Scream 7 hardly constitutes a “blacklist.” She openly made a statement of questionable value, her producers openly disagreed with her, and she lost her job. What made the 1950s blacklist so insidious is that studios conducted it as an open secret. They forced actors and writers to snitch on their friends, and not everyone had the backbone to resist. Nothing even remotely like that is going on now. We know full well which side people are on.
In another high-profile incident, UTA jettisoned Sarandon after she said, while wearing a ridiculous Simpsons jacket at a pro-Palestine rally, “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”
Can we really be shocked and appalled that her agents don’t want to work with Sarandon after hearing her say this? If Sarandon had criticized Israel in, say, July, or last year, no one would have even noticed. But after October 7th, it is an enormous moral failing to accentuate and even mock the terror that ordinary Jews around the world are experiencing after the Hamas attacks.
Jews do not run Hollywood. But it’s not news that there are a lot of Jewish people who work in the entertainment business in Los Angeles. A pro-Hamas college professor murdered an innocent 66-year-old Jewish man who was waving an Israeli flag during a rally in the San Fernando Valley. If Susan Sarandon wants to be on that side of the war at home, I’m sure Hamas would welcome her face in one of their propaganda videos. She is not on a “blacklist.” She publicly said something anti-Jewish, her Jewish coworkers and their allies didn’t like it, and now she needs new coworkers.
Then there’s the case of Maha Dakhil, co-head of film at CAA, who wrote on Instagram, “What’s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.” This caused no less a liberal personage than Aaron Sorkin, the kind of guy who definitely would have been blacklisted in the 1950s, to leave CAA for the less anti-Jewish waters of the William Morris Agency. But even in his parting letter he called Dakhil a “great agent.” Dahlia then apologized on social media and still has her job as of this writing.
Three incidents of speech that colleagues don’t like much do not constitute a blacklisting trend. Critically, the federal government supported and tacitly enforced the 1950s Hollywood blacklist; Washington specifically created the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate alleged subversive activities on the part of private citizens, particularly those making entertainment in Hollywood. A government-sponsored investigation with subpoena power is far more chilling than the good judgment of people who don’t want to work with those who spew objectionable ideas.
But this conflict is definitely showing us who in Hollywood is made of what stuff. Some signed open letters calling for a “ceasefire,” while others signed open letters calling for the release of hostages. But the pro-Israeli Hollywood types are not about to start setting up star chambers for the ceasefire types. They all have to work together on superhero movies. And ordinary L.A. Jews are too busy hiding their mezuzahs and trying to decide whether or not to send their B’Nai Mitzvahed children to the anti-Semitic hives that American universities have become.
Dakhil still has her job, awkward as her lunch meetings may be from now on. Sarandon still has her millions and her Academy hardware. As for Melissa Barrera, she’s still young. I’m sure she’ll find redemption in a Hallmark Christmas movie in the coming years. And then the press can report how she bravely overcame being the only person on the new Hollywood blacklist.
