Red Rose Film Club Hal & Craig

It's the final episode of our series The Reds, White, and Blue, looking at films about the red scare and a fear of a communist menace. This time, Hal & Craig watched Armando Iannucci's (Veep, In the Loop) satire "The Death of Stalin". We discuss Stalinism, how it diverges from Leninism, and whether or not the film is an effective satire. Discussions also include:
Some new movies we've been watching: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Last Stop in Yuma County, Monkey Man, and Unfrosted; The recent tornados that swept through the American southeast; A look at last year's anti-union legislation passed in Florida; and What makes effective satire? GoFundMe to Support Railroad Square Business affected by the May 10th Tornados: https://www.gofundme.com/f/poststorm-recovery-for-rrsq-businesses 
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Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod Follow our Facebook Group Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd Sources & Links
More info on Stalinism & Communism: https://www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/index.htm  https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism  https://www.marxists.org/archive/chamberlin-william/1929/soviet-russia/ch13.htm  https://www.marxists.org/archive/young-harry/1943/russia_religion.htm  https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/s/t.htm#stalin  https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1921/jan/05.htm  https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/index.htm  https://www.marxists.org/archive/malenkov/1949/12/21.htm  Wheatcroft, Stephen G. “Understanding Stalinism: A Reply.” Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 7 (2006): 1141–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20451292. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. “New Perspectives on Stalinism.” The Russian Review 45, no. 4 (1986): 357–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/130466. Reichman, Henry. “Reconsidering ‘Stalinism.’” Theory and Society 17, no. 1 (1988): 57–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/657663. Matt Zoller Seitz review of "Unfrosted": https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/unfrosted-2024 

We continue our series on the Red Scare with Phillip Kaufman's 1978 adaptation of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" starring Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum. In our previous episode, we discussed the machinations of the Red Scare, and in this episode we talk about the paranoia and lives ruined in the wake of the Communist Panic. Discussion also include:
The Kendrick Lamar v. Drake beef; The continued crackdown on Pro-Palestenian college protests; Irving Adler, a communist math teacher, who stared down the House Un-American Activities Committee; Weird right-wingers finally found the cure for wokeness: Sydney Sweeney. Follow us online!
Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod Follow our Facebook Group Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd Sources & Links
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust-in-government-1958-2023/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/books/irving-adler-author-of-science-and-math-books-for-the-young-dies-at-99.html https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1261/ContagiousCultures-Carriers-and-the-Outbreak Jenkins, J. Craig, and Craig M. Eckert. "Channeling black insurgency: Elite patronage and professional social movement organizations in the development of the black movement." American Sociological Review (1986): 812-829. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/5/dozens-arrested-in-us-campuses-in-another-weekend-of-pro-palestine-protests https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/342/485/ https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1952/3/8/the-feinberg-law-ptheoretically-when-the/  

In this episode, Hal & Craig discuss John Frankenheimer's 1962 political thriller THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and Janet Leigh and the cynical, political use of a vague Communist Menace. We discuss the history of the Red Scare, the legacy of McCarthyism, and the lives upended in its wake. Discussion also includes:
Craig finally watched Hal's favorite movie: THE DEVILS; Our favorite right-wing moron, Steven Crowder, is still having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day!; Good news on Florida's terrible Don't Say Gay Bill; We read (and laugh at) Armond White's 2023 Better-Than List. Follow us online!
Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod Follow our Facebook Group Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd SOURCES & LINKS
McCarthyism and the Big Lie by Milton Howard (1953): https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735061657866/viewer#page/1/mode/2up  Last issue (January 1958) of the Communist Party’s Daily Worker newspaper: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/v35-n007-jan-13-1958-FINAL-ISSUE-Daily-Worker-Q.pdf  Info on the McCarran Act: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/mccarran-internal-security-act-of-1950/  McCarthy: https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-and-army-mccarthy-hearings.html https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures//investigations/mccarthy-hearings/communists-in-government-service.htm https://www.senate.gov/about/oral-history/watt-ruth-young-oral-history.htm https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/house-un-american-activities-committee#materials https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45037 https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/political-affairs/index.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/youngsocialist/index.htm   https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-red-baiting-crusade-collapsed-in-SF-courtroom-10907115.php

We welcome Daniel Harper and Jack Graham, co-hosts of the excellent anti-fascist podcast I Don't Speak German. We watched Spike Lee's incendiary 2018 thriller BlackKklansman. We discuss the history of the Ku Klux Klan, Hollywood's complicity in its rise, and Spike's reckoning with making a quasi pro-police film. Discussion also includes:
David Duke's bizarre diet and exercise regiment; We discuss the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Virginia and Daniel and Jack give us an update on the rally's most notorious nazi dorks; The harrowing sound editing of Jonathan Glazer's THE ZONE OF INTEREST; and Can there be a movie about cops that isn't copaganda? Daniel's Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/danielharper
Jack's Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/jackgraham 
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Follow us on Twitter/X: RRFC Podcast: @RedRoseFilmPod I Don't Speak German Podcast: @idsgpod  Hal: @shestructured Craig: @KegFreighter Daniel: @danielharper Jack: @_Jack_Graham_ Follow the RRFC Facebook Group Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd Sources & Links
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan  https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-duke  

Hal & Craig watched EARTH MAMA, the debut feature from writer-director Savanah Leaf. Discussions include
The United States history of using Child Protective Services to police low-income and black Americans The OSCARS (we talk OPPENHEIMER, Lily Gladstone vs. Emma Stone, and Jonathan Glazer) We celebrate Hal's birthday by discussin their favorite directors; Our favorite films from A24 Follow us online!
Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod Follow our Facebook Group Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd SOURCES & LINKS
"Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism" by Patricia Hill Collins: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4640115  "About CAPTA: A Legsilative History": https://cwig-prod-prod-drupal-s3fs-us-east-1.s3.amazonaws.com/public/documents/about.pdf "Child Protective Service Workers Share Their 'Secret Truths That Haunt'”: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/child-protective-service-cps-social-worker-truth-telling-abolish/

Hal & Craig watched John Sayles 1987 film Matewan. The film, starring Chris Cooper and James Earl Jones, tells the true story of the fight between West Virginia coal miners and union busters whose tactics grow increasingly more violent. Discussions also include:
Aaron Bushnell and his remarkable protest against Palestinian genocide; Hal's new obsession THE FLOOR, the Rob Lowe hosted game show; Our recent watches: Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Barry Lyndon, and The Lighthouse; Anti-union violence and America's history of union busting. Follow us online!
Follow us on Twitter at @RedRoseFilmPod Follow our Facebook Group Follow Hal on Twitter at @shestructured Follow Craig on Twitter at @KegFreighter Follow Hal's Letterboxd Follow Craig's Letterboxd Sources & Links
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-02-26/spirit-awards-2024-protester-previous-winner-merawi-gerima https://x.com/kylebuchanan/status/1761886578073559498?s=20 https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/28/movies/film-john-sayles-s-matewan.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/03/17/fron-m17.html https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/introduction-to-the-west-virginia-mine-wars.htm