I enjoyed your musings and your round-up of sources and details is admirable. My mother was a Hellman fan and I came to Hellman through her when I was about 12. I think I read Julia before the movie--and I of course believed the story. I had read all of Hellman's work before I was 20 and then I learned about the great unraveling a couple years after that.
In grad school, I did my Master's on hardboiled American detective fiction which understandably involved a lot of Hammett. That too is now a long time ago but I've often idly wondered how much of what Hellman says about Hammett is accurate. I know some of it is not, but I haven't really investigated. I'm no longer convinced that Hellman was the model for Norah--although the hard drinking witticisms probably are.
Finally--and I think this is the most important takeaway--it seems quite obvious now--Hellman was a communist. She seeded all of her writing with communist ideas. She was a hardline Stalin supporter. Cast in that light the battle between McCarthy and Hellman takes on mythic proportions--Catholic McCarthy v. atheistic Hellman, Patriot v. Communist. I think Hellman's work is propaganda. It probably didn't help either that both Joseph and Mary shared the same last name.
Thank you for your comment, and this fine meta-analysis! I didn't even consider it, but seen in the light of what we now know so well about media and propaganda in the 20th century, your proposal re Hellman as Communist propaganda agent is entirely credible. Boy, were so many of us naive ignoramuses bamboozled, too!
And it also makes sense to think that, after the unmasking of her mendacity, the mainstream liberal media have been doing all they can since then to distance themselves from her, as there was no way to do proper damage control after the misbegotten lawsuit. That could be an example of "the cunning of reason," as (Catholic intellectual) E Michael Jones mentions all the time -- when an unexpected and unwise move by an actor (in a carefully crafted fake narrative) only serves to bring the truth to light.
Yes - there's that coincidental McCarthy name common to them as well! And how about that odd juxtaposition of "Joseph and Mary" in a different sense, too - the names of the parents of Christ Himself!
Many thanks for bearing with the long post, and chiming in with excellent thoughts!
I enjoyed your musings and your round-up of sources and details is admirable. My mother was a Hellman fan and I came to Hellman through her when I was about 12. I think I read Julia before the movie--and I of course believed the story. I had read all of Hellman's work before I was 20 and then I learned about the great unraveling a couple years after that.
In grad school, I did my Master's on hardboiled American detective fiction which understandably involved a lot of Hammett. That too is now a long time ago but I've often idly wondered how much of what Hellman says about Hammett is accurate. I know some of it is not, but I haven't really investigated. I'm no longer convinced that Hellman was the model for Norah--although the hard drinking witticisms probably are.
Finally--and I think this is the most important takeaway--it seems quite obvious now--Hellman was a communist. She seeded all of her writing with communist ideas. She was a hardline Stalin supporter. Cast in that light the battle between McCarthy and Hellman takes on mythic proportions--Catholic McCarthy v. atheistic Hellman, Patriot v. Communist. I think Hellman's work is propaganda. It probably didn't help either that both Joseph and Mary shared the same last name.
Thank you for your comment, and this fine meta-analysis! I didn't even consider it, but seen in the light of what we now know so well about media and propaganda in the 20th century, your proposal re Hellman as Communist propaganda agent is entirely credible. Boy, were so many of us naive ignoramuses bamboozled, too!
And it also makes sense to think that, after the unmasking of her mendacity, the mainstream liberal media have been doing all they can since then to distance themselves from her, as there was no way to do proper damage control after the misbegotten lawsuit. That could be an example of "the cunning of reason," as (Catholic intellectual) E Michael Jones mentions all the time -- when an unexpected and unwise move by an actor (in a carefully crafted fake narrative) only serves to bring the truth to light.
Yes - there's that coincidental McCarthy name common to them as well! And how about that odd juxtaposition of "Joseph and Mary" in a different sense, too - the names of the parents of Christ Himself!
Many thanks for bearing with the long post, and chiming in with excellent thoughts!