Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten refers to an infamous set of Hollywood screenwriters, directors, and producers who refused to testify before Congress about whether or not they had any ties to Communism. They were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. Several of them, owing to Stalin defining "fascism" as "anything that opposes Communism" after World War II, even went as far as to tastelessly compare the attempts at investigating whether they were Communists to Nazi Germany. Many of them were blacklisted afterward.

Howard Lawson, one of the Hollywood Ten jailed for contempt of Congress, upon release told a class of student actors in Hollywood,

"Unless you portray any role given you in a manner to further the revolution and the class war you have no right to call yourself an artist or an actor. You must do this regardless of what the script says or what the director tells you. Even if you are nothing more than an extra you can portray a society woman in a manner to make her appear a villainness and a snob and you can portray a working girl in such a way so as to make her seem a sympathetic victim of the capitalist class."