American witchhunt: how the McCarthy blacklist annihilated the Hollywood left

A retrospective at the Locarno film festival looks back at the era of Huac’s domination of US culture, uncovering some sobering lessons for now

In September 2025, Disney and ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel and his late-night talkshow would be taken off the air indefinitely, after a conservative backlash against the host’s comments about the murder of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk. President Donald Trump personally championed the decision, calling it “great news for America”. He further called for other programmes critical of his administration to be removed. Though Kimmel’s suspension was reversed within a week, many commentators viewed this concerning development not as a sudden escalation of crisis, but a continuation of Hollywood’s habitual acquiescence to authoritarian pressure.

In a guest essay for the New York Times, journalist and Trump biopic] The Apprentice screenwriter Gabriel Sherman explicitly linked Kimmel’s cancellation to the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s, during which hundreds of film workers were accused of communist sympathies and unpatriotic subversion, barred from practising their craft, some forced into exile. “Each time, studios claimed they had no choice,” writes Sherman. “Each time, they did – and they made it.”