I’ve recently found myself pondering social panics while anxiously awaiting the moment when I have the time to buy a $10 movie ticket to see Bryan Cranston portray blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the eponymous biopic. The topic also came to the forefront of my thinking as my wife and I desperately searched for a supermarket that carried monosodium glutamate in the hopes it would make homemade beef lo mein taste better.
Sociologically speaking, it’s very hard to separate American culture from social panic. We have a rich history of it. In Dalton Trumbo’s case, the panic of Communism resulted in him and nine other Hollywood personalities (the Hollywood Ten) being blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) after refusing to testify about alleged Communist involvement in Hollywood. It was an ugly moment in American history, but not the only time American culture has succumbed to irrational fear with widespread repercussions.
When I was young, in the early-1990s, people were panicked by what they called “satanic ritual abuse.” These people were generally freaked out by teenagers who listened to heavy metal music, had long hair, wore dark clothes, and were generally outcast from the norms of society. The panic originated long before I had any recollection of it, but many lives were destroyed despite the fear being based on anecdotes and irrationality.
During the trial of Cameron Scott Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the murder by arson of his children, prosecutors painted him as a “sociopath with satanic tendencies,” based largely on the fact he had promotional posters of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin. Much of the evidence against Willingham has been questioned and discredited since.
In West Memphis, Ark., three teenagers — Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin — were convicted of the murders of three children due to the panic of satanic ritual abuse, as the three were well-known as being into heavy metal music, black clothing, and were social outcasts. All three spent eighteen years in prison, with Echols on death row, before finally getting out after entering Alford pleas. They were also convicted on circumstantial and sketchy evidence that has been refuted since.
Both the Willingham and West Memphis Three investigations were flawed and relied heavily on moral panic.
In the 1980s, 30-something-year-old women around the country panicked at the possibility that they had a better chance at being killed by a terrorist than getting married. The June 2, 1986 cover of Newsweek mentioned what was called “The Marriage Crunch” and contained an image of a graph that showed how bad things were to be in the marriage department for women who spent their 20s in school and establishing themselves on career tracks.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Americans panicked about crack babies, Dungeons & Dragons, rock music, violent video games, superpredators, recovered memories, “rainbow parties,” and AIDS, just to name a few. Each of these panics carried with them men, women, and children who lost everything because of irrational fears and a rush to judgement. Hell, just last year, large swaths of American society lost their shit over Ebola, much in the same way Americans have freaked out over bird flu, swine flu, mad cow disease, West Nile virus, and SARS.
It’s okay to be afraid of things, so long as the fear and the response are rational. Today’s conservatives find themselves staring down the barrel of change, which by its nature should bother men and women who adhere to a political philosophy that favors tradition over social changes. The reason why conservatives act like they do is because they are ideologically resistant to social evolution and find themselves panicked by it. But, the reactions to these changes are what is irrational about conservatism and what is destructive about the ideology. In a way, today’s American conservative bears little difference from those who stoked the flames of the cultural panics of yesteryear. They react to same-sex marriage, the rise of the religiously-unaffiliated, and healthcare reforms in the same way suburban parents reacted to “Darling Nikki,” Doom, and cannabis.
Congressmen like Ted Cruz, R-Texas, bear almost a striking resemblance to witch-hunters like Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, and the effects of their zealousness affect every single person in this country, much like how the zealousness of the Second Red Scare affected Dalton Trumbo and others like him.
There are a lot of aspects of American culture of which I am critical, but social panics far and away are one of the worst offenders. But, they do provide us with some interesting hindsight, such as what is showcased in the film Trumbo. Dalton Trumbo’s plight at the hands of a paranoid society is the plight of others who endured the effects of their communities looking to burn dragons. Like Dalton Trumbo, some of the victims of these panics lost their sense of privacy and security. Like Dalton Trumbo, they were charged for crimes they did not commit because society was hellbent on finding a scapegoat. Like Dalton Trumbo, they were incarcerated, finding themselves at the mercy of a corrupt justice system.
But, unlike Dalton Trumbo, not all of them would receive social restitution. Dalton Trumbo was lucky enough to have his good name restored, even if it took almost 60 years. Some of us have not been so lucky.
Featured image is in the public domain.
