Skip to main content
Got a tip?
Newsletters
Image of Chris Yogerst

Chris Yogerst

More from Chris Yogerst

What Studio Franchises Can Learn From the Rise, Fall and Rise of the Western

A powerhouse for decades, like the superhero genre of today, lost its cultural stature as audiences were saturated with product, took a detour with revisionist auteur filmmakers then broke out again in the streaming era.

How ‘Babylon’ Chases Hollywood’s Decadent Past

The Damien Chazelle film explores a real place and time and embraces Tinseltown's history, to a point.

Orson Welles‘ ’War of the Worlds’ Broadcast: Its Ominous Echoes for a Fractured Media

In 1938, when CBS aired the infamous alien invasion broadcast play on Oct. 30, national press stirred the pot to claim it caused mass hysteria while more farsighted columnists saw it as a call toward education and media literacy.

When Hollywood Was Punished for Its Anti-Nazism

Ken Burns' commendable new PBS doc series 'The U.S. and the Holocaust' overlooks a key Senate investigation that marked a crescendo of anti-entertainment-industry sentiment that walked hand in hand with America’s antisemitism.

100 Years Ago: How Hollywood’s Early Self-Censorship Battles Shaped the MPA

Pressures from social reformers during an "era of scandal" led the industry to self-regulate by creating the organization in 1922 and paving the way for a Production Code that impacted film content and satisfied many anti-Hollywood activists for nearly two decades.

‘The Hunt’ May Be a Victim of America’s Misdirected Outrage (Guest Column)

The response to the R-rated satire — including threats leveled at the filmmakers — mirrors claims hurled at prior controversial movies, writes the author of an upcoming book on the 1941 U.S. Senate Investigation into Motion Picture Propaganda.