Situation Awareness: Freedom of Speech Is Not Free

‘Dixie Chicking’: Post-9/11 Blacklisting in the Entertainment Industry
Posted on Oct 25, 2007

Ed Rampell

The HUAC/McCarthy era and Hollywood blacklist may be over, but the not-so-grand inquisitors are still among us. On March 31, 2007, activist/actor Mike Farrell, who co-starred in TV’s “M*A*S*H” and co-founded Artists United to Win Without War, told Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting’s “CounterSpin” radio program, “There’s a price to be paid for speaking out, and some have paid a fairly serious price.” Around that same time, at a March 24, 2007, anti-war Oakland town meeting called by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, actor Sean Penn stated: “we are encouraged to self-censor any words that might be perceived as inflammatory—if our belief is that this war should stop today. We cower as you point fingers telling us to ‘support our troops.’ ”

There are other examples of creative people suffering the consequences of their outspokenness since 9/11, but none are as compelling as the saga of the Dixie Chicks, the top-selling “girl group” of all time. Indeed, the red, white and bluegrass band’s name became a verb meaning censoring and punishing dissenters: “Dixie Chicking.” The Chicks’ story was turned into a documentary by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple (1976’s “Harlan County USA” and 1990’s “American Dream") and Cecilia Peck. Cecilia’s father, Gregory Peck, won the Oscar for portraying the screen’s archetypal fighting liberal, Atticus Finch, in 1962’s anti-racist “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and produced the 1972 anti-Vietnam-War film “The Trial of the Catonsville Nine,” about the Berrigan brothers’ anti-draft activities. (In August 2007, Tim Robbins’ L.A.-based Actors Gang troupe presented a reading of the “Catonsville Nine” drama as a fundraiser.)

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