A personal note

Many of us who work in the arts have our own story of censorship, and mine dates back to my senior year of high school, when my public high school in Westport, Connecticut, forbade me from directing a student production of the musical Falsettos by William Finn. What ensued — including a rallying by local religious leaders, the ACLU, and more — allowed the production to continue at the famed Westport Country Playhouse, followed by a rapturous run that played a small part in opening up the community to conversations that it had long kept in the dark. The experience provided me with an early lesson in the potential of culture to break through barriers, and in the small political act of telling stories and giving the stage to narratives that are sidelined. It also taught me how the oft-cited MLK phrase “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” can apply to cultural expression.

The American Playbook: From Blacklists to Boycotts

Economic censorship in U.S. entertainment didn’t begin with hashtags or FCC threats; it is woven into the industry’s DNA, evolving from moral panics to political purges.

• The Hollywood Blacklist (1940s–50s): Under pressure from HUAC and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare, studios and advertisers blacklisted more than 300 writers, actors, and directors. Dalton Trumbo, a celebrated screenwriter, worked under pseudonyms for years. Crucially, the blacklist was not statutory law — it was power wielded by studios, advertisers, and networks fearful of backlash.
• The Hays Code (1934–1968): Hollywood’s self-imposed moral guidelines stifled depictions of sex, violence, crime, and taboo topics. When the Code dissolved in 1968, “New Hollywood” emerged — partially as a result — yet the instinct toward “safe” content remained.
• Single-Sponsor Television (1950s–60s): One unhappy sponsor could pull an entire show. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was canceled amid comedy critical of the Vietnam War and establishment figures — CBS bowed to advertiser, political, and public pressure.
• From the 1990s Onward: Networks introduced V-chips and ratings to deflect criticism and preserve advertiser relationships. Meanwhile, off-Broadway or avant-garde projects dealing with race, gender, or politics often lost funding or venues when donors withdrew support.

Over 75 years, these pressures built a creeping self-censoring culture. Careers were sidelined, underrepresented voices silenced, and the range of permissible storytelling narrowed. The arc persists into today — Roseanne Barr’s 2018 cancellation after one controversial tweet is a more recent example of advertiser-driven speech restriction. Kimmel’s suspension and partial comeback reaffirm that money, distribution control, and regulatory threats remain potent silencers.

Across the Pond: Britain’s Subtler Strings

• Stage Censorship (1737–1968): From the Licensing Act of 1737 until the Theatres Act of 1968, every stage play required approval by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. Scripts were vetted for threats to monarchy, religion, morality, or empire.
• Film Censorship: The British Board of Film Censors (later Classification) routinely banned or trimmed films for political or moral objections — Battleship Potemkin was banned in 1925 for revolutionary themes; The Texas Chain Saw Massacre faced certificate refusal in the 1970s.
• Television and Satire: The BBC, though at arm’s length from government, has often faced parliamentary pressure; during the Falklands War, reporting was curtailed for “national interest” reasons. That Was the Week That Was was pulled off air during election season.
• Funding Bodies and Grants: Even absent explicit censorship, arts funding has been subject to ideological scrutiny, nudging artists to moderate or self-edit their work.

The Human Cost: How Censorship Stifles Communities

• Marginalized voices are the first to suffer. Under the Hays Code, depictions of queerness were banned as “sexual perversion.” Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour (1934) was suppressed on film until decades later.
• Communities lose representation. Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was groundbreaking precisely because so few serious plays about Black families made it to Broadway.
• Innovation withers. Silencing venues like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour narrowed the cultural conversation during a time of social upheaval.

Working in Code: Artists Who Found a Way Around

• Hollywood under the Hays Code: Hitchcock’s Rebecca masked queer subtext; Wilder’s Double Indemnity cloaked sexual danger and violence in shadow and innuendo.
• Theatre under the Lord Chamberlain: John Osborne’s A Patriot for Me (1965) was denied a license and forced into private club performances.
• African American traditions: Spirituals like “Follow the Drinking Gourd” carried dual meanings — biblical on the surface, encoding escape routes underneath.
• Cold War literature: Václav Havel’s The Memorandum (1965) skewered bureaucracy via the absurdity of an invented language.

The Lasting Scars: A 75-Year Wake-Up Call

From McCarthy’s blacklist to Kimmel’s blackout (and comeback), the pattern is clear: economic and regulatory pressures function as powerful silencers. The Hays Code marginalized women, queer artists, and people of color; politically risky satire and socially challenging plays still struggle for support.

Why This Matters to The Orchard Project

At The Orchard Project, we hold this conviction: art flourishes when space for risk and dissent is protected. The Kimmel saga reveals how fragile that space remains — even for a figure with national reach. When a network can suspend a show, when affiliates can block a comeback, when regulatory threats hang over content decisions — all without judicial scrutiny — that is a warning to artists less visible, less defended, less resourced.

• To incubate new voices free from the constraints of corporate veto
• To stand with artists whose work unsettles or criticizes power
• To remind audiences that creativity and democracy are inseparable

A Call to Keep the Stage Open

• Support unions, scholars, and free-speech advocates defending creators
• Demand transparency from networks, regulators, and funders about content decision-making
• Invest in independent infrastructure — incubators, residencies, alternative distribution

When the wallet censors the wit, we all lose the plot.

And lastly, history reminds us that culture is also where the record of resistance is kept. Plays like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible turned the paranoia of McCarthyism into enduring allegory. Films like Good Night, and Good Luck revisited Edward R. Murrow’s battle with censorship and fearmongering in the 1950s. These works ensure that overreach and silencing are not forgotten, but interrogated by future generations. It’s likely that the events of this moment — Kimmel’s suspension, the regulatory threats, the affiliate blackouts — will themselves find their dramatic analogue one day. And perhaps that is the quiet paradox: even when artists are interrupted, culture has a way of saying, in time, “as I was saying…”