Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals

Another thing when I was looking at this scene, Stephen, doing some research analysis for the film, is that the Futterman storyline, which you have mentioned, is not the strongest part of the movie.

And I wonder if it's driven by possibly this... anti-Semitic belief of this character or anti-Semitic trope is what he symbolizes, Futterman does, because John Wayne and Ward Bond and John Ford were part of this group in Hollywood called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.

And it was an American organization of high profile, politically conservative members of Hollywood.

And they were supposedly fighting against communism and fascist infiltration.

who was, you know, she was, Ayn Rand was notably a very big fan of Gary Cooper, her own producer, Hal Wallace, and other sort of screenwriters who were working in Hollywood at that time.

They're like, how do we preserve American ideas and American values on the screen? So they founded an organization called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.

of which there was essentially a board.

And my understanding is that she either served on that board or was like a consultant to that board.

And what she decided to do was write this pamphlet, the original sort of pamphlet as it was published in, I believe it was Plain Talk Magazine, was only like seven and a half pages, but essentially a seven and a half page guide for these people who are, again, very scornful of the idea that they have anything to do with politics or that philosophy has anything to do with them, that this is a guide for you to help you understand that the kinds of things that you're allowing into these films, because you think politics don't matter, philosophy doesn't matter, that's not sort of your job, that essentially you're sanctioning the very ideas um that are basically destroying the american values that you claim to defend and it's no surprise you know i just kind of brought up the whole concept of the sanction of the victim it's no surprise then that while ayn rand is doing all this work in the background while she's doing sort of this hollywood screenwriting work and also doing this work uh for the motion picture alliance i mean she's also writing atlas shrubs so these are these are the whole concept of the sanction of the victim is really at the forefront of her mind while this is all this work is going on uh in the 40s while she's working in hollywood

I'm glad you brought that up.

So the sanction of the victim, an idea many of her readers may have encountered, but for those who haven't, it's this identification about the power of the good surrendering and enabling evil, which is itself powerless.