SSC Film Studies

How is 1950’s society similar to post 9/11 society?

In the 1950’s, there was a huge terror and paranoia that had taken over America; this was the fear of the USSR and Communism in general taking over until Capitalism was no longer the norm. This type of paranoid society mirrors the post 9/11 society we now live in.

One similarity between these two societies is that there was little to no privacy or mercy given to those suspected of being a threat to the American people. In the 1950’s, the lack of privacy stemmed from the unfair interrogations or as they were called then, trials in which anyone suspected of communism would be questioned without substantial evidence and eventually prosecuted. For Hollywood directors and screenwriters, privacy was breeched by people going through all their scripts, even the ones unpublished, and checking for what could be seen as any pro-communism/anti-capitalism messages. Those who were found guilty were then prosecuted and blacklisted from Hollywood. The lack of privacy breeched in post 9/11 society was the set up of The Patriots Act in which the government where allowed to hack into emails, phonecalls, texts etc to check for any terrorist behavior.

The paranoia with both societies was very eminent in the way the government influenced them. In the 1950s, there was McCarthy to stem the paranoia onto the American people despite the lack of any actual threat, and in post 9/11 society, there was the media always talking about how high the terrorist threat was at the time, which kept Americans in a constant paranoid state.