Honor for Elia Kazan Stirs Up Those Blacklisted in McCarthy Era

Washington Post ^ | Sharon Waxman

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Thursday, February 25, 1999

It has been nearly 47 years since Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and denounced eight colleagues as onetime Communists.

An age ago in a different world, perhaps, but not long enough for those stung by his betrayal to forgive or forget.

So, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences prepares to honor the 89-year-old director of "On the Waterfront," "Gentleman's Agreement" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" with a special Oscar for his body of work, a quiet protest is slowly gathering force in Hollywood against the planned accolade.

Some former leftists who were blacklisted during that period have vowed to picket the ceremony. Others are urging academy members to register their protest on Oscar night, March 21, by refusing to applaud when Kazan rises to the stage.

"He's being honored as if he were a hero when in fact he was a heel," said an angry Norma Barzman, a blacklisted writer who lived in France for 30 years. She is raising money for an anti-Kazan ad in Daily Variety. "It's no joke. He destroyed many, many lives."

…Kazan, who is ailing, has issued a statement that expresses thanks for the Oscar and gratitude to those who helped him, but has not addressed the controversy surrounding his Oscar. His lawyer, Floria Lasky, said those criticizing Kazan have not accounted for the high-stakes atmosphere of the time.

"It's a big subject," she said. "Why one person would decide to do it that way, and somebody else not . . . " she paused. "They show no respect for another person's point of view." She suggested that Kazan's former communist associates should answer for their own support of a discredited totalitarian system.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Old Reds never die. They just smell that way.

What is happening in Ukraine is a direct result of these traitors activities in the 30s thru the present. The Iron Curtain, the extermination of Warsaw/Poland during Ww2, the Katyn Forest Massacre, the seizure and betrayal of Yugoslavia during WW2 and China later. Not to mention the Greek communist created civil war, the red seizure of Vietnam, Laos and genocide in Cambodia, the crushing of the Hungarians in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

I could go on but my fingers are cramping with these American traitors support for communism, esp. Stalin.

Traitors are traitors, period, never heroes.

The betray of the people of Cuba, Chile and Nicaragua

[higgmeister]

John Wayne's anti-communist film

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jim_McLain

[LS]

Well, did you see this today?
The Biteme administration had to admonish its embassies in Europe “not to retweet” a tweet from the embassy in Kiev calling the “attack” on the nuclear power plant a “war crime..”

https://thepalmierireport.com/what-is-going-on-at-us-kyiv-embassy/

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks RACPE. When Kazan was honored years ago, some of the entertainment industry nitwits present staged a walkout. I mean, obviously, when you know in advance what the event is about, you don't go if you don't like the guy.