The Effects of Career Blacklisting: Evidence from the Film Industry in Argentina

• In Event: Surveillance, Repression, and Technology in Autocratic Politics

Abstract

This paper explores the individual-level effects of a common form of repression: career blacklisting. Understanding the impact of blacklisting is often difficult because of lack of data on career trajectory. To overcome this, I draw on online movie database pages for film and television crew that appeared on the Argentine dictatorship's artistic blacklist, which limited career opportunities for those with alleged communist sympathies between 1976 and 1982. Comparing them to others working in film and television, I explore the long-run career impacts of being placed on the blacklist. As a comparison case, I additionally draw on evidence from the Hollywood blacklist, which effectively prevented 300 actors, writers, and directors from working in the United States between 1950 and 1956. This research contributes to literature on the long-run impact of repression.

Author

• Jane Esberg, University of Pennsylvania