Red Planet Mars, an Example of Right Wing Anti-Communist Propaganda, Airs Today on Turner Classic Movies

A Science Fiction Film with an Overt Pro-Christian, Anti-Communist Message

Hollywood has often been accused of having a liberal bias. In the late 1940s and 1950s, in fact, a number of men and women who had committed no crime at all were at best stripped of several years of their career and at worst destroyed to the point of committing suicide when it was determined that the First Amendment simply did not extend to espousing such values as equality and the belief that employees are just as responsible for the success of a company as the fat man in the big corner office. These men and women were accused of injecting communist propaganda into mainstream Hollywood films. Interestingly, in light of the views of people like Joe Scarborough, Rectal Noun and Bill O'Reilly, the only propaganda ever explicitly and ham-fistedly placed into Hollywood films during this time period was right wing fascist ideals.

A pretty decent example of the right wing anti-communist propaganda movie-though certainly better than such dreck as My Son John-airs on Turner Classic Move today, January 1, 2007, at 2:00 PM eastern time. Red Planet Mars is a typical low budget 50s sci-fi flick every way but one: it is concerned less with cheesy special effects and scare tactics than others. Well, let me amend that. Red Planet Mars is concerned with scare tactics, but not the same kind as you might find in The Blob. The scare tactics at play in Red Planet Mars will be instantly recognizable to many modern day audiences. It is proof that the conservatives co-opted God and Christianity to uphold their skewed ideological perspective long before Jerry Falwell or Karl Rove sat down to their first all you can eat buffet.