'The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair' - Calif Gov Race/EPIC 1934- KCET, PBS TV Oct. 1

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Last edited Sat Oct 1, 2022, 10:21 PM - Edit history (1)

When world famous author and socialist Upton Sinclair swept the Democratic primary for governor of California in August 1934--leading a massive grassroots movement--it provoked Hollywood's first all-out plunge into politics.
The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair explores how Sinclair's inspiring End Poverty in California- EPIC movement was destroyed by powerful business & political forces, with most of the Hollywood moguls lending a hand.

This is the first film to focus on revered MGM producer Irving Thalberg’s creation of the first "attack ads" to appear on a screen, a forerunner of today's media-based politics. The First Attack Ads shows how the 1934 race marked the rise of "spin doctors," false or manipulated news, and modern campaign techniques that will continue to dominate political campaigning in 2022 and beyond.
https://www.netaonline.org/episode/first-attack-ads-hollywood-vs-upton-sinclair

- UPTON SINCLAIR, Wiki, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
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*FILM AIRS SAT. OCT 1, 9 PM, PACIFIC TIME - UPTON SINCLAIR: SOCAL PBS LOCAL, KCET: FIRST ATTACK
https://www.netaonline.org/episode/first-attack-ads-hollywood-vs-upton-sinclair

- PBS SOCAL Schedule:
https://www.pbssocal.org/schedule
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- 1934 CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION ATTACK ADS - * STAGED NEWSREELS *

These staged newsreels attacking socialist Upton Sinclair during the 1934 election for governor of Calif. are considered to be the first onscreen political attack ads. Sinclair was running against Raymond L. Haight & Republican incumbent Frank Merriam. The newsreels, which feature man-on-the-street interviews, are used as a fictional plot device in the David Fincher movie Mank, which falsely implies that Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz was upset at Wm. Randolph Hearst for funding the Upton Sinclair attack ads. The movie claims this is what later inspired Mankiewicz to model his unsavory character Charles Foster Kane after Hearst. Related Article: Mank: History vs. Hollywood.

*WATCH* "Man- on -the - Street" interviews - staged newsreels, the first onscreen political attack ads.
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/video/1934-california-election-attack-ads-staged-newsreels/
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- UPTON BEALL SINCLAIR JR. (Sept. 20, 1878 – Nov. 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist & the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Calif. who wrote nearly 100 books & other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known & popular in the first half of the 20th c., & he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943. In 1906, he acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel, The Jungle, which exposed labor & sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage of the 1906 Pure Food & Drug Act & the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism & the limitations of the "free press" in the U.S.

Four years after The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor & silence".

He is also well remembered for the quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." He used this line in speeches & the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors & publishers of the major newspapers in Calif. would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions & other progressive reforms. Many of his novels can be read as historical works. Writing during the Progressive Era, he describes the world of the industrialized U.S. from both the working man's & the industrialist's points of view. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927), & The Flivver King (1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, & auto industries at the time.
The Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his "wage reform" & his company's Sociological Department, to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller Jr., & his role in the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in the coal fields of Colorado.

Sinclair was an outspoken socialist & ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Dem. Party candidate for Governor of Calif. in 1934 during the Great Depression, running the End Poverty in California, EPIC campaign, but was defeated. Gaining 879,000 votes made this his most successful run for office, but incumbent Gov. Frank Merriam defeated him by a sizable margin, gaining 1,138,000 votes. * Hollywood studio bosses unanimously opposed Sinclair. They pressured their employees to assist & vote for Merriam's campaign, & made false propaganda films attacking Sinclair, giving him no opportunity to respond. The unethical campaign tactics used against Sinclair are briefly depicted in the 2020 American biographical drama film Mank.

Sinclair's plan to end poverty quickly became a controversial issue under the pressure of numerous migrants to Calif. fleeing the Dust Bowl. Conservatives considered his proposal an attempted communist takeover of their state & quickly opposed him, using propaganda to portray Sinclair as a staunch communist. He had been a member of the Socialist Party 1902-1934, when he became a Democrat, though always considering himself a socialist in spirit. The Socialist party in Calif. & nationwide refused to allow its members to be active in any other party incl. the Democratic Party & expelled him & socialists who supported his CA campaign. The expulsions destroyed the Socialist party in Calif. At the same time, U.S. & Soviet communists disassociated themselves from him, considering him a capitalist.

In later writings, such as his anti-alcohol book The Cup of Fury, he scathingly censured communism. Sci-fi author Robert A. Heinlein was deeply involved in Sinclair's campaign, although he attempted to move away from the stance later in his life. In the 21st c., Sinclair is considered an early American democratic socialist.

After his loss to Merriam, Sinclair abandoned EPIC and politics to return to writing. In 1935 he published 'I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked.' Sinclair's line from this book "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" has become well known and was for example quoted by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth..

Writer Sinclair Lewis refers to Upton Sinclair and his EPIC plan in the book, "It Can't Happen Here" (1935)...

- More, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair