Artists and Their Marching Orders
by Orson BeanMy old Communist girlfriend was an exotically beautiful actress whose parents had emigrated from Russia and settled in New York City. Nola went to Party meetings and kept up with the correct way to think and behave by reading The Daily Worker. This was back in the fifties. In those days, the bulldog edition of the next morning’s Times, Tribune, News, Mirror and even the Worker would appear at the news stand on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty Second Street shortly before midnight. Actors, anxious to read tomorrows review of the latest Broadway play would be waiting there, along with entertainers curious to see if they’d made it into Walter Winchell in the Mirror or Ed Sullivan in the News.
Beautiful Nola was anxious to read the review of the new Off-Broadway show she’d just opened in. The Times and Trib would be covering it but Nola wanted to see what The Daily Worker had to say. Her face fell when she read it. The play was a socially relevant drama, of course, about the struggles of the Negro. She had chosen a dazzling white suit for her wardrobe. The critic said that this was unconscious racism on her part. She had, in fact, picked the suit because it made her boobs look good.
Sometimes Nola would drag me to upper Broadway where the Thalia, a dusty old nineteen-thirties movie theater, screened Russian language films from the Soviet Union. These were not the brilliant pictures which had come out in the early days of the Revolution, but kitschy agitprop which followed the party line. In one of them an enormous white plane majestically glides down out of the heavens and lands in an airport somewhere in the Ukraine. Little girls with bouquets of flowers rush out onto the tarmac. The door of the plane opens, steps are put in place and down them and onto a red carpet strides an actor playing the part of Joseph Stalin. He is gloriously handsome and dressed in a dazzling white suit. I glance over at Nola in the darkness of the theater; she does not return my glance.
Party members in the arts back then willingly did as they were told. Their indoctrination had been total; they knew in their hearts they were doing what was right. Writers wrote about the downtrodden; actors played workers nobly, capitalists evilly. Musicians composed music of the people. To deviate from the party line was unthinkable. With the advent of the Cold War, this behavior slowly faded away. Now it seems to be back. Artists no longer take their orders from Moscow but, it appears, from Washington. Not to do so results in being shunned (or de-funded).
I’ve been around long enough to see this kind of thing come and go in our beautiful country. Let’s hope it doesn’t last as long as it did back then. This time we’ve got Big Hollywood on our side.
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64 Comments
Some things never change. The commie will demonize capitalism while making their money like…..a capitalist (and insisting on holding on to that money like a capitalist). The mantra of a commie…."only the little people pay taxes".
To tell the truth! Go, Orson Bean!
Translation: Do agitprop supporting Obama or have your NEA grant yanked. How can people not see the threat here?
No wonder then, that when someone is spinning the truth into a lie, it is referred to as a "term of art."
Artful dodgers, all.
Orson, because there was only one reason to date commie or hippy anti war chicks, the important question is, did you get her in bed?
Dear Mr. Bean:
Before this thread gets completely hijacked by folks commenting on trivialities, how did Nola's boobs look in that white suit?
hahahahaha
indeed, the most important part of the article
hahahaha
My favorite Commie artist was alwasy Berthold Brecht. During the 1920's he was in the "vanguard" of German Communism and, coincidentaly, getting his plays published and presented in the Weimar theater. When Hitler came to power he was faced with three choices. One, stay in Germany and "fight the good fight." Two, emigrate to the Workers Paradise he was always extolling. Three, travel to the blighted capitalist cesspool of the U.S.A. Good ole Berthold unhesitatingly chose #3 and settled down in Southern California amid ravishing babes and fat royalty checks. However he remained a "committed Communist" for the rest of his life and quite critical of everything the U.S. ever did. You had to love the guy.
I have been hoping you would put your two cents in, Orson, as someone who has "been there, done that, got the T-shirt". Glad you are here to see your son-in-law expose our new Amerika Ministry of Propaganda. And how far Big Government and Big Hollywood have sunk into the morass of "groupthink".
http://www.thoseshirts.com/lousy.html
Denzel Washington as Obama, coming to a theater near you.
Good reflection Orson. I too have had to put up with some real crackpot theory and rantings whilst pursueing hippie chicks. The distinction, I believe, is that the commies still shaved their armpits and hygeine wasn't much of an issue, but the tripe was pretty much the same.
so the difference between a commie chick and a hippychick are shaved pits? what about legs? I know hippys don't shave them commies?
You know when I went back to college, you know as an adult, It fascinated me how all these "independent thinkers" all had uniforms they wore.
they had uniformity of thought and displayed it by having uniformity of dress.
Great read Orson! The parallel with Marxist Barry and his minions are alarming. The only thing he lacks are willing military to crush the opposition. Oh yeah, he’s trying to address that with his “civilian national security force,” silly me.
It's so good to hear from Orson Bean–he has always been one of my favorite actor/comediennes. And to find out Breitbart is his son-in-law– Happy day! Keep writing Mr. Bean–I love it!!
This "I Pledge to Serve Obama" video makes me laugh and cringe at the same time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51kAw4OTlA0
I came to the conclusion early in my life that a disproportionate number of actors/entertainers owe their success to their looks, voices, and ability to pretend better than most. They've gotten through life utilizing those assets to the max but in doing so, failed to develop their minds and judgment in particular as we see repeatedly when they parrot whatever they've heard most recently from some manipulative pol or some ardent supporter of the latest trendy cause. I laugh at most of them but harbor concern about a few who are good at acting as though they are brilliant because so many of our population seem to think they are so and take their parroted words as gospel. Case in point about how deluded so many of our citizens are about the "authority" with which actors speak: Leonard Nimoy often noted with disappointment and amazement that fans expected him to opine on the most esoteric of scientific topics. "I'm an actor, for crying out loud," or words to that effect, was his reposte.
As a American artist I would never make art to be used for evil Democrat ideas.
If history is any kind of marker, I can take hope in the fact that the PLAGUE, (Obama Years) brought forth the Renaissance. Just like Carter yielded Reagan.
yeah, bean, did it get sloppy or what? ha ha. women are for sex.
I was listening to NPR on the drive home last week (Yeah. I know. Nasty habit.) and heard a segment using the music and life of Berthold Brecht to comment on 'the current crisis of capitalism.' The commentator went on and on about how Brecht 'loved' everything about the U.S. Except, I guess, those things that made it different from Europe or the USSR. It was one of those NPR-listening moments when you have to seriously wonder if the people on the other end of the speaker are actually crazy.
Communism is very seductive to those who don't like to think to deeply on issues. They'll make all the innocent poor, rich, and make all the evil rich, poor. They'll end pain and suffering, and every one will be free and equal.
And you too can be part of configuring the world into a perfect Utopia. Hell, get in on the ground floor now, and you can be at the ruling table.
Reminds me of Bob Dylan's autobiography Chronicles I read a couple of years ago.
He just wanted to be a singer/song writer/performer to earn a pay check and raise a family. Yet an entire generation insisted he be their messiah. One day he's getting his kids breakfast, getting them ready for school, and the radio news is spouting something about a huge traffic destroying protest outside his apartment building. he looks out the window, and the streets are clogged with hippies and teenagers waiting for him to descend upon them and direct them on how to save the world. He freaked.
It's not that being a star gives anyone any additional insight or intelligence. It's the audiences who do that. It's not hard to see how some moderately intelligent star could easily get caught up in their own legend.
Thank you, Orson. Good to see you again. I remember my youth and following your Reichian writings. Now I understand you are a committed Christian. I am happy for you. And I, from being an Alinsky praising Leftist, am now a conservative, happy to have my critical thinking skills active once again.
OMG I felt my lunch coming up watching that. I know they were trying to come off as sincere but they all just seemed smug and phoney.
Where they paid scale for that ?
By the way, the movie Mr. Bean is referring to with Glorious Leader Stalin was called "The Fall of Berlin" and it's a hoot. You can get it at
http://ihffilm.com/22855.html
I'd love to see more of these campy propaganda movies available.
"I hate Communism most for its cold-blooded murder of the truth! Pravda doesn't mean truth. Pravda means whatever serves the world Communist revolution."
-Robert A. Heinlein
I'd have to read it again, but in "The Forgotten Man" this is what FDR did during the Depression. We just never seem to learn.
Funny how those straight party line, indoctrinated Communists like the lovely Nola don't mind reaping the rewards of the brutal and oppressive capitalist system. After all, where in Mother Russia could Nola have bought a boob enhancing white suit? Or enjoy the company of the affable Mr. Bean who, I'm sure, bought her many a nice dinner with his grubby dollars made in an evil capitalist way.
BTW, Mr. Bean, do you know where Comrade Nola is today? My guess? Selling handmade jewelry and purses in San Bernadino or is a retired massage therapist with 10 grandchildren in Asheville, North Carolina.
Hoo, boy, yes. Just walk into any WPA-built post office from the Thirties, and check out the obligatory Heroic Workers and Farmers mural.
Of course, he did come up with one witty line that struck to the heart of leftist thought, whether he fully understood it (or wanted to) or not: "It has been announced that the people have lost the confidence of the government. Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people, and elect another?"
At least Nimoy knew enough not to pretend to be an expert on more worldly topics, which is more than one can say for the leading pinheads in Hollywood today.
Another beautiful piece – and thanks for reminding me about the Thalia movie theater!
Communism is taught in our public school system, by communists. Therefore our schoolkids learn all about the evils of slavery and the Jim Crow era, they learn about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a wee little bit about the Holocaust, and nothing about the history of communism.
No wonder someone like Cameron Diaz buys and wears a Mao bag, in ignorance of this mass murderer's history, and is confused when people are outraged.
At the library i saw a book displayed called : "Mao and Me."
It was written from the perspective of how Mao was this wonderful father figure to little Chinese kids everywhere. This in 2009! It's unthinkable.
During the height of the Red Army in China, up to 1 Million people per year were being executed!
Josef Stalin to Paul Robeson to Frank Marshall Davis to Barack Obama to You
I'm going to hazard a guess: Spectacular!
Debbie, one thing I've noticed about the mental disorder of liberalism is a complete illiteracy or disregard for history. That is why this stuff happens. Most libs think FDR was a success and Reagan a failure, how do you deal with people that think that way? A task all normal people face.
This article presents a classic learning example of respecting the experiences and wisdom of our elders, and to respect an understanding of history. Every parent with teenagers should have them read this. Or, if you have liberals in your circle of acquaintances, make them read it.
I had a renegade teacher my senior year in High School. He was most subversive. Every morning one of us had to recite the preamble of the Constitution. We learned the Bill of Rights. We even learned how to fill out our tax forms. I never did learn his party affiliation.
I will Never! forget this man.
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Sadly, that was then. Now it's HippyDippyville.
I stopped reading after "The critic said that this was unconscious racism on her part. She had, in fact, picked the suit because it made her boobs look good."
Did Nola's boobs look good? : )
Did she later become a conservative because she has great boobs?
.
Orson, father in law of Breitbart, and introduced America to the Gaboon Viper, is still looking good.
Speaking as an art director and professional artist/judge from California; – It is difficult on Conservative Artists, many of whom are MORE talented than these schlubs, to adjust to government the subsidized crap. It has always been thus with ANY grant, just not as overt and “in your face”.
Conservatives make it on their talent. Period.
I believe the caption to that picture is "Perfect! Wrap him up; I'll eat him tonight."
Thanks for reminding us that things that come, also can go. Fingers crossed for it to happen again.
But is the mess they leave behind ever cleaned up?
Have you noticed sections labeled "New History" in book stores?
I second that.
Denzel Washington is too old to play Obama. Better someone like JayZ, Kenya West, or Fitty cents!
I've been reading up on the Maoist regime in China and I find it breathtaking that even back then 30s and 40s people were "re-educated" for being labelled "rightists." Rightists. Right-ist meaning, of course, anyone who didn't subscribe to every facet of the Communist Party including saying something as innocent as "my freedom."
Of course in Communist China, "re-education" included such things as being electrocuted, having skin put on fire, being put into dark isolation tanks, and then followed up with a stint in "Labor" (slavery) camps–which, by the way, exist even today.
Apparently, alot of people have forgotten the history of Communism in the 20th century…
During the Depression, the WPA commissioned artists to paint things such as murals for public buildings that depicted things of historical significance and other loke works of art. This wasn't done to push a political agenda, however.
This article reminds me of the fine, overlooked Billy Wilder comedy, One Two Three! (1961, James Cagney),
set in East Berlin, with funny arguments about Communism vs Capitalism.
Also the moment in The Front (1976), in which Zero Mostel's character, a popular comedian, is being grilled by anti-communism agents about his having once attended a meeting of the communist party. He protests that his only interest was in this one particular "Communist with a great ass!"
As for Orson's friend Nola in the white suit, let's hope there's never a trend of discouraging a display of good cleavage because it is deemed an 'incorrect' political statement … ha ha ha
When the first Obama for president posters showed up, I knew there was trouble. The rays of light, the stunning profiles, the penetrating gazes.
You know, my grandfather lived outside outside Asheville. I can remember when it was a somewhat back-road American country city, filled with hardworking farmers and railway workers who listened to George Jones and Roy Acuff.
Now it's an Appalachian version of an Oregon commune.
If you watch VH1's Seven Ages of Rock, Michael Stipe (of REM) pretty much says the same thing. He was outspoken on a few things back in the early 90s and suddenly people were expecting him to have, in his words, "encyclodedic knowledge" of all these causes he was talking about — and he didn't.
Which is pretty much why we haven't really heard a peep from him for a few years now, thank god.
My daughter, at a private parochial school, loved her Global Studies teacher, so did I. She said the only people students were allowed to call worse than Hitler, where Stalin and Mao.
Party affiliation doesn't matter. They're fighting the good fight either from the outside or the inside, but they're fighting!
If you're a Dylan fan, I recommend the book. He says that's why he put so much crap out during the early 1970's. He still needed to attract enough people to make a living, but he wanted to demolish the myth.
If I remember correctly, he wrote he threw everything he could think of at the wall, and if it stuck, he released it. And then he picked up what fell and released that.
It was an interesting insight to his thinking. It was like 'this stuff sucks, I can't be your messiah.'
Listening to Michael Savage (racking wine carboys, and he came on after Hannity, who comes on after Rush, beats NPR), and some times I just want to grab these people by their Brooks Brother's lapels and shake them and scream WAKE UP!
He's babbling something about saving an elephant, and laments how conservation became a liberal issue, and not conservative. How can some one get that many PhD.'s and miss this?
When it comes to conservation, modern liberals haven't won the issue, what they won was changing the premise and the terms of the debate. They haven't won squat.
Modern liberals have framed the debate under the premise, they are correct, and so the debate becomes 'since we're right, and you don't agree with us, it proves you're wrong.' They don't defend their ideological positions, they defend their assertion that we don't agree with them. That's why they 'won' the issue. They changed the debate, and no one seems to notice.
This is exactly what they do. Trust me, I used to be one of them. I know how it works. That's why I left.
Or did I right?
I'm too old to know or care who those people are.;)
I think that Berthold Brecht did not write the music for his shows, it was Kurt Weil.(sp.?)
Kanye West has the biggest grudge against white people so I believe he would be best fit.Although not sure he could put down the cristal long enough for a scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlkPkJInUmU&fe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIFcnctnHsE&fe...
Obama is an Chavez wannabe who is using Alinksy's playbook.What's scary is when u see how many goals are already accomplished are in play now.Oh yeah there 3.5 years of this left too.Here comes the early grey hair.
Thanks for sharing Orsen.
But why should we listen to the wisdom of our elders, when we have young, naive college students to tell us what to do and how to think?
Wonderful! Thanks for the impromptu laughing you just put me through. Excellent.
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