Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | Celebrity | October 2, 2025
Almost 90 years ago, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a congressional body that investigated alleged disloyalty and a wide array of activities deemed "subversive," was formed under the guise of rooting out the red scourge of communism in the United States. It was an elusive specter that loomed large in the minds of politicians in the post-World War II era. Communists could be anywhere and could be anyone -- your milkman, your neighbor, your kid's teacher, or the star of the movie playing at the matinee.
Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the HUAC created such a strong atmosphere of fear about being perceived as a communist that a lot of people and organizations complied in advance by self-censoring, removing books from libraries, and declining to produce projects, instead of facing McCarthy's committee, where their names would be dragged through the mud and their careers would be ruined. Just being called in front of the committee was enough to get you blacklisted.
In 1947, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo, all Hollywood producers, directors, and screenwriters, spent time in prison and were blacklisted for refusing to answer the HUAC's questions. They became known as "The Hollywood Ten."
The 2015 Bryan Cranston film, Trumbo, examined this particular moment in American history. George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck and Robert DeNiro's 1991 Guilty by Suspicion are also about the repercussions of the committee's accusations.
The pillorying of The Hollywood Ten was the last straw for some other powerful Hollywood players who had had enough of McCarthy's nonsense. A group came together under the leadership of screenwriter Philip Dunne, actress Myrna Loy, and film directors John Huston and William Wyler to form The Committee for the First Amendment.
Some of the First Amendment Committee's more notable members included Henry Fonda, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Dorothy Dandridge, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Melvyn Douglas, John Garfield, Judy Garland, Ira Gershwin, Katharine Hepburn, Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, Groucho Marx, Burgess Meredith, Vincente Minnelli, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Billy Wilder, and Jane Wyatt.
They lost support and members after it was branded as a communist front by the California legislature. The President of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan, was a dedicated anti-communist and a liberal Democrat at the time (weird). He called them suckers for falling victim to "one of the most successful operations in [the Communists'] domestic history." But before Bogart, Bacall, Ira Gershwin, John Garfield, and Edward G. Robinson disavowed the group, they all managed to record two half-hour radio programs called Hollywood Fights Back. Speaking out against the House Un-American Activities Committee meetings was dangerous business. But the stars saw it as their duty to remind the public of the importance of the Bill of Rights and to illustrate how the HUAC was using hearsay to destroy lives.
Once again, America finds itself under the thumb of a government engaging in unconstitutional tactics to silence its critics, sow fear among its citizens and residents, and pit us against each other. And Hollywood is, once again, coming together to speak out for the importance of our First Amendment rights and to defend free speech and expression.
Led this time by the iconic Jane Fonda, The Committee for the First Amendment relaunched yesterday with announcements published by members across social media platforms.
Fonda, her father's daughter in many aspects, has been protesting since before many of us were born. Never one to shy away from a fight or to take her boot off the neck of the oppressors, she has enlisted over 550 members of the Hollywood community to join this new chapter of the Committee for the First Amendment. The membership roster includes Aaron Sorkin, Barbra Streisand, Glenn Close, Gracie Abrams, JJ Abrams, John Legend, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julianne Moore, Kerry Washington, Larry David, Lily Tomlin, Natalie Portman, Nikki Glaser, Patti LuPone, Pedro Pascal, Quinta Brunson, Rob Reiner, Rosie O'Donnell, Sean Penn, Spike Lee, Viola Davis, Wanda Sykes, Winona Ryder, and Whoopi Goldberg.
Sounds like my kind of party. Where do I sign up?
The Committee's website is a little short on plans, and, per the website, membership is limited to those in the entertainment industry for the time being. According to CNN, in the letter she sent to potential members, Fonda wrote:
"They're betting on our fear and our silence...But our industry - and artists around the world - have a long history of refusing to be silenced, even in the darkest times."
The instructions for the rest of us are to follow them on social media to stay engaged until...I don't know. Something, I guess.
It would be easy to brush this aside as performative activism. But Jane Fonda doesn't perform her activism. She has been living and breathing it her entire life. She's not afraid to lead or to damage her career by speaking out. Jane Fonda has always had a barren field of f#cks to give about respectability or the kind of protests that involve bounce houses and picnic baskets. Jane's a real one who knows how to weaponize her privilege.
America is trapped in a cult of personality. If we're going to keep worshiping celebrities and looking to them for leadership, we need people with equal or greater charisma stats than the guy in the White House to start speaking out. We don't need another 'Imagine' video. We need organizers and activists to bring together all of the people who are holding the GOP accountable, fighting for freedom and protesting the injustices that people are facing. If anyone can kick that off in a meaningful way, it's probably Jane Fonda.
Will the Committee for the First Amendment be a force for change, or just another celebrity stunt used to generate goodwill and warm fuzzies? Tune in next week to find out!
