The screen writer (Apr-Oct 1948)

Collectivism, The Atom, The Writer FREDERIC WAKEMAN fVell-knoiun author of The Hucksters and The Saxon Charm, FREDERIC WAKEMAN has just completed his fourth novel, The Wastrel, for early publication. WHEN I was younger I used to admire writers, and I would hang around places where they talked. In those days the talk was always about the writer in some or another age. The age would always be a changing age, and according to them we were just at the end of one age and at the beginning of another age, usually a proletarian age. And the talk would be about the writer's debt to society, and how it was up to the writer to stop one group from pushing another group around, or how to prevent wars (this was before the war) or how to help the havenots win their war against the haves. Writers seem to enjoy clotting together in little groups to talk about some age. So I have ample precedent for my title, which is "The Writer Faces the Atomic Age." Provocative, isn't it? I admit I don't know anything about the atomic age, except what I hear from H. V. Kaltenborn, Raymond Swing, and the like, but then apparently, neither does Atlee, Truman, or Stalin, the U. S. Senate or the Heavy Brass. Come to think of it, nobody seems to know anything about the atomic age, except the writers. But if you think this is going to be about the writer's position in the atomic age, you're crazy. Maybe, a little later on, I'll throw in an offhand remark about what writers should really do in this atomic age, but right now, since I've got my title taken care of, I'll pursue another, and less interesting subject. I shall pass a few remarks about the nature of writers. And when I use the term writer, I mean that unhappy fellow who considers himself Significant with a capital S in the production of Literature with a capital L. That in itself is enough to keep him off any reputable best-seller list, what with all these women writing about splendid hussies of a bygone day. But all things considered he does fairly well with his novels and plays, despite the cold shoulders of Warner Brothers and the women's magazines. And when our hero, the writer, is lucky enough to break into the bestseller lists, he becomes just like the man who is lucky enough to make a million dollars in real estate, soda pop, or machine tools. Both consider themselves geniuses in all matters, including international law, atomic fission, labor relations, and the (excuse me) Southern problem. Some of them even think they know how to make speeches. But the mighty man of business doesn't let his opinions interfere with his work, and I'm afraid that's exactly what many writers are doing today. Take a writer, for example, whose book sells a million copies because he dreamed up the notion, complete with four letter words, of the hotblooded Southern boy who defies his family's racial prejudices by seducing an Eskimo girl through the artful device of luring her into a quick freezing plant. Why should that writer, after the first royalty check has proved his great artistry, start getting all worked up about the current global clambake? With what authority does he take his pen in hand to solve world matters? I don't know why, but you can just bet that his next work will have a hero who is a manifesto wired for sound. Then he will throw in for good measure a Negro, and a senile old man who is obviously a fascist. Yes, the minute the author breaks into Winchell's column, he starts paying for his fame by becoming socially conscious. I wouldn't want you folks to think I am against people who go around noisily doing good in the world. I think it's fine. But there's no denying that social consciousness has been responsible for a lot of bad writing. After all, I have some deep social ideas too. And why not? Didn't I write a book about some Navy drunks and another about some radio drunks — both of them smutty? Yes, I too am a deep thinker. And like everyone else, I think that any other person who holds a belief different from mine is completely insane, intolerant, and of courst, a dirty fascist. So that is what I'm going to talk about next. Myself. The Screen Writer, April, 194 15