Doug Ireland wrote today that Scorsese’s The Aviator deified Howard Hughes while leaving out some key aspects of the entrepreneur’s personality, especially his strong hatred for communism and unions. In The Howard Hughes Scorsese Doesn’t Tell You About, Ireland posits that Scorsese, who previously made movies hailing the Hollywood-blacklisted communist, has gone establishment and now romanticizes the eccentric inventor whose efforts were thwarted at every turn.

“It is Hughes’ role in the blacklist and the anti-Communist witch-hunt that is the most shameful–as is Scorcese’s silence on the matter in his cinematic hagiography.”

While it is our right to call bullshit wherever we see it, it is also in our best interest to look for the most admirable in ourselves. Ostensibly, Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes sugar-coated the inventor as a misunderstood crackpot, but if all we do is pooh-pooh our founding fathers for owning slaves while overlooking their feats of nation-building, it makes us very myopic people indeed. Ireland’s perspective is valid, however. Come on, someone had to say it.

This was my response to Ireland:

“It has occurred to me that quite a few innovators and businessmen back then saw communists as being against Yankee ingenuity, the true spirit of capitalism (not the uninspiring corporate fascism that calls itself ‘capitalism’ today). Also, not cooperating with HUAC meant jeopardizing their projects and need for invention.

“Not that I sympathize, but I see where they were coming from, as I see today why a lot of businesspeople (especially immigrants) vote for the Republican party. They hate the conservatives’ foreign policy and racist tendencies, but when it comes down to it, the business rises above all else.

“As a staunch supporter of Yankee ingenuity, but not what parades for capitalism today, I wish there were an American political party that supports innovation, free enterprise and the true movers and shakers, while preserving humanity and respect for others that the Republicans obviously do not possess.”