Red Scare: Difference between revisions

 

== Comicbooks ==

* [[Marvel Comics|Marvel]] has had a huge roster of communist villains, including the Super-Apes, led by the Red Ghost. In this case they ditched the xenophobic slant by making their commie leader a simpleton, and turning the apes into simian supremacists. In general, Marvel's communist villains were divided sharply along the [[Dirty Communists]] lines and [[The Rival]].

** Being a weapons designer, Iron Man had a host of these and (inevitably) so did Captain America. Though most of Iron Man's former villains reformed, while Captain America had his time as a communist basher [[Retcon|retconned]].

** Omega Red was an [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] villain of the [[Dirty Communists]] variety.

* ''[[Superman: Red Son]]''

* Evil Commies from [[The DCU]] are a little fewer between as DC preferred more fantastic stories than Marvel in the [[Silver Age]], but some exist, such as the Red Panzer.

* ''[[Rambo III]]'' is the only one of the series to explicitly deal with the Soviet Union.

* ''[[Red Dawn]]'' has both [[Dirty Communists]] elements and [[Red Scare]] elements. The proposed remake goes with the [[Yellow Peril]] version.

* A recurring joke (and pun) in ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]''. "Communism is just a ''red'' herring."

* ''[[Good Night and Good Luck]]'' took a look at the [[Real Life]] [[Red Scare]]. Notable for having people complain that the [[Real Life]] footage of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was "[[Large Ham|over the top]] [[Your Costume Needs Work|acting]]" and accuse the producers of faking it to make him look like a [[Strawman Political]]. Another case of [[Reality Is Unrealistic]].

* ''[[Danger Man]]''.

* ''[[I Spy]]''

** Of course, this didn't prevent ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' from milking the Cold War for all it's worth with Klingons and ''The Omega Glory''.

* Occasionally a point of discussion in ''[[M*A*S*H|Mash]]'' -- although given the show's setting, this was to be expected. One episode in particular had Communism as a focal point of the plot; Margaret Houlihan was being investigated for having been friends, in college, with people who later turned out to be Communist sympathizers.

== Videogames ==

* ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'' parodies Cold War paranoia by making the citizenry brainwashed into believing all alien activity by the player character is the work of communists.

* Part of the backstory for the ''[[Fallout]]'' universe is that the Red Scare never ended, but instead of Russia, it was China<ref>Or rather, it was Russia at first, but over time, as Russia lost prominence, China because the ''de facto'' Red country, helped by the fact that the Chinese were Communists as well</ref>.

** Which gave us the awesome Liberty Prime, the one-robot anti-communist brainwashing army.

** Not to mention [[media:Commiedl.png|this comedy gold of M.A.F.I.A.A. propaganda]], which is a hoax but based on actual rhetoric.

* The biggest [[Red Scare]] was, of course, in America roughly between 1945 and 1970 (after which the doctrine of ''detente'', or peaceful coexistence, became standard for a time), and particularly during the early 1950s, when even being suspected of having Communist sympathies could get you fired for "Un-American Activities". Despite its popularity, it did have numerous vehement opponents, among whom was President [[Harry Truman]]. The big [[Red Scare]] died out along with its poster-child Joe McCarthy's fall from grace. (Though it's interesting to note that there is declassified evidence exonerating him. Doesn't make him a good guy, but it is something to think about.)

** President Truman's opposition to the HUAC was perhaps spurred by the knowledge that there were Communists, such as Alger Hiss, in prominent positions in his administration, and he wanted the chance to ease them out before this embarrassing fact was made public.

** It wasn't just a government project either. Among the creepier things that NGOs created, [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Unholy_three.png this poster] from the Keep America Committee calls the following communist: The Polio Vaccine (or, as they call it, polio serum), mental hygiene (psychology), and [[Dr. Strangelove|water fluoridation]].

*** As opposed to HUAC, which did. Alger Hiss for starters; and most of the Hollywood Ten really were Communist Party members, and had agreed to "Party discipline" (ie, obeying orders from Moscow.)

** The general intellectual level of the whole thing was summed up (unintentionally) by Sam Goldwyn. Telling a secretary to fire one of his producers, he added that the man was a communist. The secretary protested: "Sir, he's an ''anti''-communist." Goldwn replied: "I don't care what sort of communist he is! I don't want him working in my studios."

* This type of thing has been going on since the 1850s, ever since labour rights became a large issue. A good example would be the Chartist movement in England.

* A similar "White Scare" happened in Taiwan, too, except that one ended up with a lot more people in prison (it didn't help that [[Red China]] got very, very close to retaking Taiwan after the Nationalists fled there and the threat of invasion was quite real for some time).