Found via Maggie's Farm (where it's cocktail hour!), The View From 1776 has a great post on how Hollywood went Red in the 1930. Here's but a sample:

Collins later repented his years in the CPUSA. He unburdened himself in Confessions of a Red Screenwriter, published in the October 6, 1952, issue of New Leader. He wrote:

A Communist is always prepared. He, or rather his party, has an answer for everything. When I joined the party, I was handed ready-made: friends, a cause, a faith and a viewpoint on all phenomena. I also had a one-shot solution to all the world’s ills and inequities....Suppose our Comrade keeps up with all the twists and turns of party policy, what is his reward? Why, peace of mind, of course. Since he has an answer for everything, he has a great sensof personal security; the world is safe; everything is explained – his history and the future; and everything is also simplified – into black and white....

The party member, on the other hand, has to make only one effort. He must be “flexible.” “Flexible” means that you cheer for Earl Browder [former CPUSA head] on his birthday and the next day you despise him as a “betrayer of the working class”...

All of which is a reminder of what a huge "Nyah!" Lillian Hellman's infamous quote that "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions" was to the HCUAA. And of something that Dennis Prager wrote in 2004:

As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it's the past which is always changing."

And of course, such "flexibility" is an ever-present part of today's society and its media.

And I think that "flexibility" is one of the reasons why Glenn Reynolds is correct when he writes:

It occurs to me that the media sectors that are doing badly -- movies, music, newspapers, TV women's shows -- seem to be the most highly politicized, while the sectors that are doing well, like games, aren't.

The non-politicized sectors are under much less pressure to cut their conscience to fit this year's fashions.