Netflix's "Hollywood"

[JuliantheUnknown]

The whole thing is blatant wish fulfillment but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, it was stretching it but plausible right up until Archie and Rock publicly came out at the Oscars. In 1949. And received basically no professional backlash and then started shooting a same-sex romance in 1949.

On the other hand...it IS wish fulfillment and I suppose Ryan Murphy thought that if he was in for a penny with changing history, then he was in for a pound. Plus, I hope things like Hollywood and For All Mankind will help push mainstream alt-history in a direction different from “look! The Nazis won WW2, how much worse would the world be if that was the case? Aren’t you happy you live here?”

 

[Deleted member 82792]

The whole thing is blatant wish fulfillment but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, it was stretching it but plausible right up until Archie and Rock publicly came out at the Oscars. In 1949. And received basically no professional backlash and then started shooting a same-sex romance in 1949.

On the other hand...it IS wish fulfillment and I suppose Ryan Murphy thought that if he was in for a penny with changing history, then he was in for a pound. Plus, I hope things like Hollywood and For All Mankind will help push mainstream alt-history in a direction different from “look! The Nazis won WW2, how much worse would the world be if that was the case? Aren’t you happy you live here?”

I agree. We need less depressing AH fiction out there.

 

[JuliantheUnknown]

I agree. We need less depressing AH fiction out there.

I’m not even negative on the idea of doing depressing AH fiction but enough with the Nazis. Ideally, we could escape to sometime before the 20th century.

 

[Eckener]

The whole thing is blatant wish fulfillment but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, it was stretching it but plausible right up until Archie and Rock publicly came out at the Oscars. In 1949. And received basically no professional backlash and then started shooting a same-sex romance in 1949.

On the other hand...it IS wish fulfillment and I suppose Ryan Murphy thought that if he was in for a penny with changing history, then he was in for a pound. Plus, I hope things like Hollywood and For All Mankind will help push mainstream alt-history in a direction different from “look! The Nazis won WW2, how much worse would the world be if that was the case? Aren’t you happy you live here?”

That is exactly what I told my friends after watching the show and then recommending it to them. Totally wish-fulfillment, but in our current environment I do not mind at all.

And I would agree with your assessment that what really breaks plausibility is the moment Archie and Rock publically acknowledge their relationship. Twenty-one years before Stonewall, the country just wouldn't be ready.

I agree. We need less depressing AH fiction out there.

I’m not even negative on the idea of doing depressing AH fiction but enough with the Nazis. Ideally, we could escape to sometime before the 20th century.

I agree that shows like this I think are great for the genre, not only because they get more general audiences used to the idea of AH fiction, but that they also get outside of a "Nazis win" AH box.

And this one basically went totally under the radar as well, so it will be interesting to see what else pops up in the near future that we weren't expecting.

 

[JuliantheUnknown]

That is exactly what I told my friends after watching the show and then recommending it to them. Totally wish-fulfillment, but in our current environment I do not mind at all.

And I would agree with your assessment that what really breaks plausibility is the moment Archie and Rock publically acknowledge their relationship. Twenty-one years before Stonewall, the country just wouldn't be ready.





I agree that shows like this I think are great for the genre, not only because they get more general audiences used to the idea of AH fiction, but that they also get outside of a "Nazis win" AH box.

And this one basically went totally under the radar as well, so it will be interesting to see what else pops up in the near future that we weren't expecting.

I think we’ve had Hollywood, For All Mankind, The Plot Against America (which is nazi-like but at least exploring it in a different way) and Noughts and Crosses (the idea of one big super-state that holds all of Africa is bleh but the set designers are the real worldbuilders here). It feels like alternate history is having a moment. We’ll see if it lasts.

 

[Eckener]

I think we’ve had Hollywood, For All Mankind, The Plot Against America (which is nazi-like but at least exploring it in a different way) and Noughts and Crosses (the idea of one big super-state that holds all of Africa is bleh but the set designers are the real worldbuilders here). It feels like alternate history is having a moment. We’ll see if it lasts.

Hope it lasts. This is the first I've heard of Noughts and Crosses. I'm intrigued and now hoping to see if I can find a way to stream it here in the States.

For All Mankind has really done a good job, and looking at more than just the technological developments, but also the social and political implications and butterflies from their initial PoD. And already renewed for a second season, though I suspect that its release will be delayed due to the virus outbreak.

Plot I enjoyed too. It did a good job of looking at a less explored aspect of the 1940s, while still courting the well-known material of the Nazis.

Hollywood isn't as good in the plausibility department but was great at doing what it set out to do.

 

[JuliantheUnknown]

Hope it lasts. This is the first I've heard of Noughts and Crosses. I'm intrigued and now hoping to see if I can find a way to stream it here in the States.

It’s a good show but the worldbuilding is a bit uneven. On the one hand, you have Aprica as a fill-in the borders superstate and their version of the n-word is less than great. On the other hand, the set design is genuinely incredible and the things you can infer from that alone are brilliant - like most of the white characters styling their hair in naturally black ways, band-aids being suited for darker skin colors, the sheer amount of African-designed influences on clothes, architecture, etc. I think it was said at some point that translation convention is also going on - nobody is speaking English and show it with the once in a while Xhosa word.

 

[Eckener]

It’s a good show but the worldbuilding is a bit uneven. On the one hand, you have Aprica as a fill-in the borders superstate and their version of the n-word is less than great. On the other hand, the set design is genuinely incredible and the things you can infer from that alone are brilliant - like most of the white characters styling their hair in naturally black ways, band-aids being suited for darker skin colors, the sheer amount of African-designed influences on clothes, architecture, etc. I think it was said at some point that translation convention is also going on - nobody is speaking English and show it with the once in a while Xhosa word.

With any of these shows, I try to give grace wit things so I don't expect perfection, and am definitely willing to forgive a lot if the world-building is good. I will definitely keep a look out for it and hopefully it will end up on Netflix or Prime or something before too long. Heck I thought about trying to buy the first episode but it's not available on iTunes yet.

 

[Eckener]

Okay, so here are some ideas I've been toying around with.

1948:

• March: Meg, starring Camille Washington, sweeps the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Actress, Bes Supporting Actress, and Best Screenplay.
• Asked a week later, President Truman says he’s seen the film and calls it a huge success. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also praises the film’s success.
• Despite the wide-release of Meg, renewed protests break out across the South after it is successful at the Academy Awards. Several prominent theaters in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Birmingham are destroyed or damaged by rioters, and there is an increased report of lynchings.
• Governor of New York and Republican Presidential front-runner Thomas Dewey refused to criticize the film as well.
• May: President Truman issues an executive order desegregating the Armed Forces.
• Strom Thurmond, Governor of South Carolina, announces that he would challenge Truman for the nomination, while Henry Wallace, former Vice President, promises to drop his own challenge.
• New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Fransisco see an up-tick in “obscenity” violations as so-called “hand-holdings” take place. The first of these were impromptu in the wake of Archie & Rock’s public hand-holding at the Oscars, but after police crackdowns, these become organized at city halls and other public places.
• July: Thurmond’s States’ Rights wing of the Democratic Party clashes with Truman supporters and Civil Rights supporters at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. In the end, Truman wins the nomination, but the so-called Dixiecrats walk out, and the day after Truman gets the nomination, Thurmond announces he is running as a third-party candidate, head of the States’ Rights Party
• August: Inspired by the actions of Archie & Rock at the Oscars, the American Society for Human Rights is established in Los Angeles, to promote discussions about homosexuality and homosexual rights. Within a year, there will be chapters in San Fransisco, Seattle, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, New York, D.C., and Boston.
• Fall Campaign: Camille Washington makes campaign stops for Truman with Elanor Roosevelt.
• November 2: President Truman wins narrow re-election, with 272 of the required 266 electoral votes, with Governor Dewey winning 189 electoral votes, and Thurmond 70 (three more states than OTL: Georgia, Florida, and Virginia). SRP members are elected to the House, keeping the Dems from an absolute majority (though they are the largest party), and the party takes over two state-houses (Alabama and Mississippi) and the governorship of Alabama as well.

1949:

• Spring: Ace Pictures greenlights Dreamland, the first-ever major motion picture to highlight a male same-sex love story.
• March 4: Martha Simpkins, a housekeeper in Mobile, Alabama, refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. Her beating and subsequent arrest shocks the nation and galvanizes the African American community in Alabama, and a major bus boycott starts in Mobile and spreads across the South. By April, bus companies in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and the Carolinas are reporting heavy losses and, one by one, begin to integrate by the summer.
• Summer: President Truman proposes legislation that would desegregate interstate travel. Such a law will be passed and signed into law in 1950.
• Major protests over the production of Dreamland breakout at Ace Pictures, as bad as those that had existed over Meg. In August, a riot breaks out when supporters of the film, many who were homosexual, clash with those protesting against the film. Discussions about postponing the picture occur, but studio exec Avis Amberg refuses to do so.
• Fall/Winter: In October, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) of Wisconson teams up with Senator James Eastland (D) of Mississippi (who had sympathies with the SRP and would end up joining the break-away party in 1950) hold a joint press conference stating that the recent slate of “immoral” films coming from Hollywood was the result of massive communist infiltration in both the movie industry and certain segments of the government. The would launch what became known as the McCarthy-Eastland Hearings that would drag into 1951, investigating supposed communists in the government and film industry, but primarily targeting homosexuals, women, and people of color. President Truman decries this action but is unable to put a stop to it right away.
• In November, director of Dreamland Henry Wilson, along with Avis Amberg, Rock Hudson, Camile Washington, and Archie Coleman are all called before the Mc-Carthy-Eastland Hearings, where both senators take turns accusing the filmmakers and actors of being communists, which they all vehemently deny.
• Due to the hearings, Dreamland’s release is pushed back to April of the following year.

1950:

• February: Massive protests in the South over the signing of the Interstate Travel Desegregation Act. Truman receives several death threats and other related hate, culminating on March 18 when members of the KKK burned a cross in Lafayette Square.
• April 27: Dreamland premiers in Los Angeles, and the following day in theaters across the nation. The release is not as big as Meg’s, and only a handful of theaters in the South play the film, but it is shown fairly wide.
• April 30: Police in Boston raid a theater on Washington Street where Dreamland is being shown, and arrest same-sex couples who were holding hands or in any way seeming to “mimic” heterosexual couples. Word spreads across Boston of the raid, and at the nearby Playland Cafe (one of the oldest gay clubs in the city), the patrons take to the streets, beginning what became known as the Playland Uprising. The American Society for Human Rights (ASHR) organizes further protests in Boston, and more and more chapters of the society open up across the nation as a result of the publicity from the event.
• June 1: The ASHR organizes what they call Playland Marches in over a dozen cities nationwide to protest anti-gay ordinances. There is a push in both Los Angeles and San Fransisco to abolish such ordinances, and in the latter, a ballot measure is proposed for November (defeated by narrow margins).
• June 25: Korean War breaks out. Early months through September go similarly to OTL
• August: 10 families file a class-action lawsuit against the School Board of Kansas City, Missouri regarding segregated schools, in what will become known as the Campbell vs. Board of Education case that would wind up before the Supreme Court in 1953.
• October: After taking Pyongyang, President Truman orders a halt to going further north, not wanting to antagonize the Chinese. General MacArthur publicly ridicules this order and initially disobeys before Truman has him sacked at the end of the month. On the 31st, Truman signals to the Chinese and the Soviets that the US would be willing to enter into talks about Korea.
• November: in the mid-terms, the Democrats continue to see losses in rural southern districts to the SRP, both in state and federal elections. The Dems go from 244 seats that they’d had in 1948 to 199, with the GOP at 187 and the SRP at 49. This slip, primarily to the States’ Rights candidates, hits hard, and there is a serious concern in Democratic leadership circles about what to do for 1952. Should the party jettison the civil rights plank and try to reconcile with Thurmond and his followers, or should they continue on course?
• December 1: Cease-Fire signed in Korea, with talks planned for 1951.

1951:

• February: Dreamland is nominated for Best Actor (Rock Hudson), Best Screenplay (Archie Coleman), and Best Score. Some feel that it should also have been nominated for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, but Ace Studio exec Avis Amberg tells reporters that, given the content, she was surprised they got any nominations at all.
• March: at the 24th Annual Academy Awards, Rock Hudson wins Best Actor, the lone Oscar awarded to Dreamland.
• April: The McCarthy-Eastland Hearings accuses President Truman and several army officers of being communists or communist-sympathizers after the way the cease-fire in Korea was handled. This is a push too far and after the hearings concluded on April 20, they do not resume, and McCarthy will lose his next election, while Eastland remains a popular SPR man.
• Magnolia Pictures is established, initially in Mobile, Alabama, funded by a consortium of southern theater owners and business interests in order to support theaters boycotting Ace Pictures and other Hollywood studios that had followed Ace’s lead in making more pictures with people of color and other such “degenerate” films. This follows the creation of Sunshine Studios in Tampa, where Magnolia will relocate to in 1952.
• April 10: Talks open in Tokyo between the United States, China, the Soviet Union, and the Koreas.
• June 1: Playland Marches take place in more than two dozen cities, demanding equal treatment for homosexuals (we start seeing the earliest instances of the homosexual community reappropriating the term “Queer,” which becomes the primary term for homosexuals used by homosexuals by the 1960s). Both Rock Hudson and Archie Coleman take part in the Playland Marches in Los Angeles.
• August 3: Tokyo Treaty signed: North and South Korea granted formal independence, with the south backed by US military presence, and the north backed by Soviet military presence, and the border is agreed to at the 48th parallel as before the war.
• October: Ace studios greenlights a movie about the Korean War that will star Sidney Poitier.

1952:

• January: Strom Thurmond again announces his plans to run for the Presidency on an independent SRP ticket (he feels confident that the party can successfully send the election to the House).
• General Eisenhower declares he will seek the GOP nomination.
• Truman announces he will seek reelection (the 22nd Amendment, having passed in 1951, did not apply to Truman as per the language of the Amendment).
• Summer: at the Republican National Convention, Eisenhower wins the nomination and former general Douglas MacArthur is nominated as VP, the Republicans sending a strong message that they don’t like Truman’s military decisions regarding Korea and his other overtures of peace and coexistence towards the communists.
• At the Democratic National Convention, Truman wins the nomination, and conservative Oklahoma Senator Robert S. Kerr nominated as VP.
• November: Truman eeks out reelection over Eisenhower. He had the support of former First Lady Elanor Roosevelt, who herself won election that year as Senator from New York, among other noted supporters who felt that his course had saved lives in Korea, preventing a drawn-out conflict, and that “peaceful coexistence” was better than constantly staring down the barrel of a communist gun. Later historians point both to Truman’s rise in popularity after the war along with MacArthur’s controversial stances as having contributed to the outcome. Despite this, we do see gains in the House for the SRP, and in the Senate, to say nothing of state races across the South.

1953:

• February: In Campbell v. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court rules that “segregation in any facility owned by the public, whether it be a school, university, library, museum, courthouse, or health facility, is inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.” Watershed moment for civil rights for African Americans, though this sparks major protests throughout the South, with governors vowing to try and foil the ruling.
• March: President Truman introduces a program to “Connect America,” a massive rail and road building effort, which will see the expansion of railway network and public transportation in cities, with a moderate expansion of highways.
• April: President Truman sets up the Campbell Ruling Commission, ordered to see that the Supreme Court’s ruling is carried out nationwide. Another burning of a cross occurs at Lafayette Square across from the White House, to the outrage of many across the country. Left-wing activists and even moderate Democrats and Republicans discuss various anti-Klan legislation.
• August: In Atlanta, the city refuses to follow CRC guidelines to integrate the schools, and Truman threatens to send in the national guard to enforce. Georgia’s governor intervenes, but heavy police presence is required. Similar scenes play out across the south
• September: Charleston, SC refuses to integrate and the governor, a friend of Thurmond, refuses to get involved, and so Truman sends in the National Guard to force integration. Unrest continues in the city for over a month before the force of the Army finally brings things to heel. Truman is criticized by many Republicans for his heavy-handedness and called much worse by SRP members.

 

[MaxGerke01]

I love your timeline and want to see more. It occurs to me that there is something that could happen earlier in this timeline that could play a big role in shaping and spurring on ths big changes-what if for some reason nationwide television is kicked off a few years earlier. It played a big role OTL in galvanizing nationwide support for Civil Rights and surely would do so as much or more ITTL ?

 

[Eckener]

I love your timeline and want to see more. It occurs to me that there is something that could happen earlier in this timeline that could play a big role in shaping and spurring on ths big changes-what if for some reason nationwide television is kicked off a few years earlier. It played a big role OTL in galvanizing nationwide support for Civil Rights and surely would do so as much or more ITTL ?

Thanks! It was a fun "quick" write with mostly stuff I knew or hand a basic handle on offhand, with a few fast fact checks with things like election results and other candidates that ran in certain elections.

I'd need to look more into TV development at the national level, and I also want to look into other minority actors that either didn't have as good a career as they should have, or had a lot harder fight to get to their places (George Takei leaps to the front of that list).

Also need to decide who would run for the republicans (and win, because it'll have been 24 years at this point) in 1956. Could be Eisenhower, or maybe the party starts to shift in a different direction. What I started going for with the Dems is that they take a more "practical" approach to communist regimes of, yeah we don't like them but they are there and we have to try and get along, with the GOP taking a sterner approach. With regards to civil rights, the GOP are going to be more laissez-faire about things, but staunchly not okay with gay rights for the time being, while the Dems are definitely becoming a more activist party in that regards. With the States' Righters being the "traditionalists" when it comes to sexuality, women, and people of color. Long term though, the SRP isn't going to be that viable, but I'm not sure what to do with them. There could be some sort of "alliance" or folding into the GOP, but I think it's going to be a more awkward fit ITTL than it was OTL, at least at first.

 

[Eckener]

Well, I started writing some more and couldn't stop. I added one event to 1953, then went all the way to 1960.

1953 (continued)

• October: After some budget-related delays, Man of Honor, starring Sidney Poitier premiers in Los Angeles, and will have a wide national release, even in the South, where the larger theaters in most medium and large cities have showings.

1954:

• Spring: In response to (and defiance of) the anti-segregationists, especially in the SRP, President Truman announces that he supports a proposed Civil Rights bill that has been floating through democratic circles, and has the support of some GOP members as well. In his state of the union address that year, the first one to be televised, and during “prime time,” the president said that it was his goal that civil rights legislation that would be in support of, and even go beyond, the implications of Campbell vs. Board of Education would be passed before he left office in 1957.
• March: Man of Honor wins Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Score, and Sidney Poitier becomes the first African American man to win Best Actor. This is another major win for Ace Pictures.
• April: the House passes Anti-Lynching Legislation, the first part of President Truman’s civil rights packages. It will be signed into law on April 30.
• May: The Truman Civil Rights Act is introduced into the House. It would entail all the provisions from Campbell, but expand them to include private establishments, including theaters, restaurants, hotels, and restrooms.
• May 25: Shots are fired at President Truman and Senator Roosevelt as they arrive to speak to members of the NAACP in DC. Truman is hit but not fatally. Senator Roosevelt is uninjured. Eyewitnesses report that the gunman, a South Carolinian who was shot dead by secret service, shouted “Long live Dixie” as he opened fire on the President. An FBI investigation soon uncovered KKK connections.
• June 1: Archie Coleman is killed by an assassin at a Playland March in Atlanta. The city erupts in a riot afterward, and smaller riots break out in other cities both in and outside the south, involving both African Americans enraged that the writer of Meg had been killed, and by members of the Queer Community, enraged that the first openly gay celebrity had been murdered. The unrest is bad enough in Georgia that the national guard is called out. Vice President Kerr, who had only addressed the nation less than a week before in the aftermath of the shooting attempt on the president, again took to the airways to call the nation to calm, but had a sterner message as well: “The KKK is responsible for attacking both national leaders and national icons, and this government can no longer stand back and look the other way. These terrorists must be brought to justice.”
• June 8: Archie Coleman’s funeral is televised in Los Angeles, and clips from are shown by news stations nationwide. A tearful Rock Hudson is seen by millions, supported by actor friends from Ace. His picture, trying to stay strong and failing as he approaches the casket, is on the front pages from coast-to-coast.
• June 12: President Truman, finally back on duty, announces that, working with the FBI, the Klu Klux Klan is to be considered a terrorist organization, and that anyone found to be involved with them can be tried for treason. “Terror is un-American. And these fiends have decided that they want to terrorize loyal Americans into backing some backward version of this country, and we will not allow this to happen.” The FBI begins a massive effort throughout the South to try and bring down the Klan. All through the summer and fall, newspapers are filled with stories of officials being arrested under charges of treason. The SRP, which sees its membership rolls gutted by the arrests, cries foul, saying the administration is carrying out a witch-hunt.
• November: during the mid-term elections, the GOP take control of the House and Senate. The SRP loses its few Senate seats, along with most of their House seats as well. The anti-Klan arrests have removed several such men from office, while others lose their seats to Republicans. Dorothea Hancock* of Illinois becomes the first African American woman elected to Congress

1955:

• January: President Truman signs the Truman Civil Rights Act into law. Protests are scattered and unorganized, with the Klan broken and the SRP fractured.
• February: the third and final part of Truman’s civil rights laws, the Voting Rights Act, is proposed to the House, now in Republican hands. Speaker Martin tells the president that the bill in its current form is as good as dead.
• March: the Voting Rights Act fails to pass the House. Truman states that he will work on rewriting the bill for 1956, but Democrats are warry of this. They fear a Republican wave in 1956 and want to try and soften the blow as much as possible. By the end of the year, the voting rights proposals are dead and will not rise again until the 1960s.
• June: Rock Hudson makes a point to be very public in the Playland Marches that year, attending both the one in Los Angeles and then in Atlanta, where he poignantly lays a wreath of flowers at the spot where Archie Coleman had been assassinated. Asked in the press about the event, President Truman said, “I may not agree with what these men and women do behind closed doors, but frankly it is not my business what they do there. Nor is it the business of the United States government, or the government of any state. And what happened to that bright and talented young man is a crime.”
• June: The State of California repeals its anti-sodomy laws, effectively becoming the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. The state also passes what became known as Archie’s Law, which made crimes motivated by hate towards another person because of their religion, gender, race, sexual preference, or nation of origin a special crime subject to higher penalties.
• June: Actor Cary Grant openly identifies as a homosexual at a special event in Los Angeles to honor the one year anniversary of the death of Archie Coleman.
• July: President Truman proposes peace talks between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Truman had been distancing his government from the ROC for some time, and made overtures to Beijing that some sort of diplomatic relations could be worked out between the USA and the PRC. This is decried by the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and some in the Democratic Party as well. In the end, the discussion of talks comes to nothing, to Truman’s frustration.
• September: Truman agrees to meet with Soviet leader Khrushchev in Switzerland. The Bern Conference is the first attempt by the Americans and the Soviets to put a thaw on the Cold War, this one being premature.

1956:

• February: Eisenhower announces that he will not run for president, due to complications from a heart attack he had suffered the year before.
• Spring: The GOP primaries saw former general MacArthur vie for the position against Earl Warren, Everett Dirksen, and Harold Stassen, among others.
• Spring: The Democrats, with no real incumbent for the first time in twenty years, have a wide-open field, especially since Vice President Kerr declines to run: Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver, and Albert Gore, Sr.
• July: Republicans nominate MacArthur, with Harold Stassen as VP (though a strong argument was made for Richard Nixon).
• July: Democrats nominate Hubert Humphrey, with a special surprise as VP: Senator Elanor Roosevelt.
• October: Humphrey and MacArthur participate in the first televised presidential debate. MacArthur dominates, despite his age (76).
• November: after twenty-four years of a Democrat occupying the White House, the Republican party won their first presidential election since 1928. He will be the oldest president in US history when he takes the oath of office in January, days before turning 77.
• November: Three openly queer candidates, two in California and one in New York, are elected: Bobby Lemar* (San Fransisco City Council), Lauren Hopewell* (Los Angeles City Council), and Henry Carpenter* (New York State Assembly).
• November: William Dawson of Illinois becomes the first African American man since Reconstruction to be elected to the Senate.

1957:

• January 20: Douglas MacArthur becomes the 34th President of the United States. In his inaugural speech, he declared: “Today, America once again becomes a true power in the world. As the scripture says, we will no longer hide our light, or our might, under a bush, but place it boldly on a hill for all to see. We will no longer kowtow to the communists, whether in Asia, Europe, or here at home. The cowardice with which the previous administration has conducted the foreign affairs of this nation are at an end. So too, we put a stop to the social engineering of the left. We Republicans, the party of Lincoln, support bringing forth to reality the promise of racial reconciliation that we have seen the past eight years. But we cannot allow the degradation of family and of women to continue. Furthermore, while racial reconciliation was needed, at what cost did it come? Riots across the land? A third of the nation experiencing martial law? Equality cannot be enforced by the jackboot! I will work to heal the wounds left by the previous administration’s carelessness and heavy-handedness.”
• February: MacArthur dismisses the legation from the People’s Republic of China that had been in DC under the last year and a half of Truman’s term.
• April: MacArthur’s administration issues new FCC guidelines for TV content, banning any and all references to queer people in fictional media (there had been, up to this point, no direct queer relationships shown on television, but there were a few openly queer secondary characters who were either single or whose partners were never shown on screen), and putting heavy restrictions on interracial relationships - the first interracial TV kiss the year before had scandalized many even if it had occurred eight years before in Meg.
• June: Under pressure from the President, DC city officials reject the permit requests for the DC Playland March. The organizers go ahead with the march and face police retaliation - which ends up on the evening news nationwide and causes even more unrest in other cities.
• July - the President gives his “Commie Menace” speech on the 4th of July, promising once again to defend the nation from all forms of communist threats, both within and without.
• July 25: The Attorney General’s office begins an investigation into several prominent people in the TV and film industry, claiming they have communist ties. A week later, leaders of the NAACP and the ASHR also find themselves under investigation. This is all done under the new Office of Un-American Activities It is during this time that writer Perry Joshua*, who works for Ace Pictures, begins to write his screenplay Jackboot.
• August: NBC takes the FCC to court over the new restrictions after the FCC fined the network for airing a new show with an openly queer (but also single) character.
• September: Ace Pictures does a limited re-release of Meg on its 10th anniversary. President MacArthur is quoted in the newspapers is calling it subversive.
• October: OUAA agents begin investigating NBC.

1958:

• February: Rock Hudson wins Best Actor for his performance in Different, Yet the Same.
• March: At an annual meeting of the NAACP, Vice President Stassen calls on the African American community to drop its support of queer Americans: “Your fight is a noble fight, one that goes back to Lincoln and beyond. Theirs? That’s the mere fight of perverts wanting to normalize their sin.” While this comment got applause, community activist Shirley Chisholm from New York stood up and challenged the Vice President, saying “No sir! The Klan killed Archie Coleman. A good black man who was also queer. The oppression of any group of people is the oppression of all people.” These remarks were also applauded, and arguably louder than the Vice President’s words.
• April: The Attorney General’s office gives charges against Avis Amberg, claiming that she has been supporting subversive films since she took over Ace Pictures. Other charges are leveled at the leaders of the ASHR, several producers at NBC and CBS, and actors Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, along with a few other lesser-knowns who had also publicly admitted to being queer. No arrests are made, but those charged are warned against leaving the country.
• May 20: Avis Amberg’s trial is the first of the OUAA investigations to go to court.
• June 1: The annual tradition of the Playland marches occur, though most such events change the name to something like “Queer Rights March” or the “Free Speech March.” At the Queer Rights March in Los Angeles, Rock Hudson gives his famous “Pride” speech, and the following year, the queer rights marches across the country start using the term.
• June 20: Avis Amberg is found guilty of subversion and sentenced to five years in prison. The Attorney General’s office also states that it encourages theaters and film collections to stop showing several of Ace Pictures more “subversive” films made under Avis, including Meg, Dreamland, Man of Honor, and Different, Yet the Same. Protests break out in LA, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Chicago, and many theaters across the nation have special “Avis Amberg Film Festivals,” featuring those proscribed movies. Avis appeals the ruling but is placed in custody.
• July 3: Senator Roosevelt compares President MacArthur to Hitler during a speech on the Senate floor, the audio of which makes its way to the evening news outlets nationwide and gets wide replay: “The current administration seems to be taking pages out of the playbook of none other than Adolf Hitler, an evil man whom my husband and his administration helped to defeat. Now we find an American tyrant using an American Gestapo to round up those that the administration find inferior. And I say shame. Shame on you Mr. MacArthur. You disgrace yourself and the office to which you were so unwisely elected to.” Documents later revealed that MacArthur attempted to have the AG go after Roosevelt, but the bureaucrats wouldn’t touch the former First Lady.
• November: Moderate blowback against the republicans in the mid-term elections. Both houses of Congress remain in GOP hands, but by the slimmest of margins. People are unhappy about MacArthur’s actions, outside the South and parts of the midwest.
• December: tensions between Taiwan (backed publicly by MacArthur) and the People’s Republic of China flair up near the end of the month, and there is a real worry that a full-blown war might break out. On the 28th, President MacArthur publicly backs the ROC, and warns China of any aggression.

1959:

• January 10: China gives an ultimatum to Taiwan - surrender by the end of the month or face full-scale invasion.
• January 14: President MacArthur reaffirms his commitment to Taiwan’s sovereignty as the “legitimate government of all China.”
• January 18: US military forces in Japan begin to make preparations for war with China, and forces in Hawaii and on the West Coast begin making preparations for deployment. Anti-war protests break out.
• February 1: with no surrender, China drops bombs on Taipei and prepares for an invasion.
• February 3: Against the advice of his cabinet, including the Vice President, MacArthur authorizes the use of nuclear weapons. The first is dropped on Shanghai, with the message sent to PRC that “if you do not leave Taiwan alone, more bombs will follow.”
• February 4: the Soviet Union issues an ultimatum: America is to withdraw from Taiwan and send all forces not in the region on January 1st back to the United States, or the Soviet Union would have to consider “sterner measures” to back up its ally.
• February 5: The President orders plans drawn up for nuking several major cities in China and North Korea, and for preparations to be made in the event of Soviet aggression in Europe. Vice President Stassen vehemently objects. Once ignored, he calls on the cabinet to declare MacArthur incapacitated. Facing the threat of nuclear war that the president started, the cabinet goes along with Stassen.
• February 6: President Stassen addresses the nation, saying that the attack on Shanghai had been the result of a mental break by President MacArthur, who had been removed by the cabinet. He went on to say that America would be meeting the soviet demands for withdrawal, and would furthermore be entering into peace talks with the Soviets and the Chinese.
• February 12: Peace talks between the three nations, along with the British and the French, open up in Athens.
• March 4: Athens Accord is signed: Douglas MacArthur will be turned over to the International Court of Justice for trial. The United States will draw down forces in South Korea and Japan. The “Republic of China” will cease to exist, replaced by the United Nations Administrative Zone of Formosa, which will be occupied for fifteen years by forces from UN members not involved in the region, namely France, Britain, Australia, Italy, and India, after which time a referendum would be held on future status. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic would be granted membership in the UN and full diplomatic status with all the nations of the security council. A promise was also made that the United States would, by law, remove unilateral strike capabilities from any one person in the nation, which was agreed to so long as the Soviet Union, Britain, and France also agreed to do so by 1962. The United States also agrees to pay close to $200 million in reparations to China for the destruction of Shanghai.
• April: MacArthur’s war crimes trial opens in The Hague, watched by all the world. The mood in America is very muddled. The nation feels humiliated and embarrassed, but thankful that President Stassen removed MacArthur before full-blown nuclear war had broken out.
• April 10: President Stassen shuts down the OUAA, and orders the charges pending against the rest of those rounded up be dropped, and issues a pardon for Avis Amberg and the officials of the ASHR that had been sentenced to prison.
• May: Perry Joshua presents his screenplay Jackboot to Amberg for approval, and get the project greenlit, with Henry Wilson producing.
• June 1: Avis Amberg is the “grand marshal” of the Los Angeles Pride March. At this event we see the first Queer Rights flag introduced, a light-purple banner with a torch of liberty in the center, with the flames being multi-colored.
• June 19: MacArthur is sentenced to life in prison in Italy.
• June 22: MacArthur commits suicide. Stassen reports that his body will be returned to the United States and to his family, where he will receive military honors for his service from WWII, but that the funeral will be private and not televised or attended by the press, and that he will not receive military honors befitting a former president.
• December: President Stassen states that he will not run for election in 1960.

1960:

• January: Senator Roosevelt announces that she will run for the Presidency. Also in the running are John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Albert Gore, Sr., and Adlai Stevenson.
• Spring: The GOP are in shambles in an attempt to find a candidate in the wake of the MacArthur fiasco. Nixon attempts a run, but having served as Mac’s Secretary of State, he was tainted. Henry Cabot Lodge entered the race, along with Nelson Rockefeller and George Bender.
• May 1: 10th Anniversary of the Playland Riots in Boston, marking the start of the Queer Rights movement, are commemorated, with a special re-release of Dreamland. Later that same month, Massachusetts becomes the second state to decriminalize homosexuality.
• June 1: 10th Anniversary of the Playland/Pride Marches, which take place in more than four dozen citizens across the United States, and a few internationally as well.
• July: The Democrats nominate Elanor Roosevelt, with John F. Kennedy as her running mate (old and new together).
• July: The Republicans nominate Lodge, with George Bender as their VP.
• October: Jackboot, a story of a free nation sliding into authoritarianism, premiers in Washington, D.C., with Ace Pictures wanting to make a political statement. It is a thinly-veiled swipe the hawkish, pro-MacArthur wing of the Republican party, and a huge success.
• November: Elanor Roosevelt is elected with JFK in a landslide, and both houses of Congress go to the Dems as well. Also of note, a total of 45 women are elected to the House of Representatives (a number not reached until the 1990s OTL), and three women senators were elected (one replacing Roosevelt). Colorado and Illinois also decriminalized homosexuality by ballot measure.

 

[JuliantheUnknown]

Poor Archie. Hopefully the rest of the gang is okay.

 

[Eckener]

Poor Archie. Hopefully the rest of the gang is okay.

Yeah I debated about that, but I found it to be a compelling event. Everyone else is doing okay, I didn't want to have them in seemingly every movie or anything like that.

 

[Blind]

What would the world look like in 2020?

 

[Eckener]

What would the world look like in 2020?

I mean, that's kind of the point of the thread, to brainstorm just what would come after the events of the show. The little TL I put together is just 12 years out from the show, more or less, and there's plenty of ways it could go from there.

Based on the events and tone of the show, I think we'd see most major minority rights milestones moved up, in some cases significantly. Keep in mind, IOTL, an African American didn't win Best Actress until Halle Berry won in 2001 (she's also the only African American to win Best Actress, to date). The show moves this up to 1948. And we have an openly gay star couple "coming out" at the same time. This is bound to impact the gay rights movement, likely acting like a jump-start.

We'd also see an earlier rise to the Religious Right as well.

But by 2020, over 70 years after the events of the show, I think we'd see greater progress on gender equality, race relations, and LGBT rights. Likely there would have been a successful ERA that would have actually passed by now. Among other things.

 

[Sevarics]

Well, I started writing some more and couldn't stop. I added one event to 1953, then went all the way to 1960.

1953 (continued)

• October: After some budget-related delays, Man of Honor, starring Sidney Poitier premiers in Los Angeles, and will have a wide national release, even in the South, where the larger theaters in most medium and large cities have showings.

1954:

• Spring: In response to (and defiance of) the anti-segregationists, especially in the SRP, President Truman announces that he supports a proposed Civil Rights bill that has been floating through democratic circles, and has the support of some GOP members as well. In his state of the union address that year, the first one to be televised, and during “prime time,” the president said that it was his goal that civil rights legislation that would be in support of, and even go beyond, the implications of Campbell vs. Board of Education would be passed before he left office in 1957.
• March: Man of Honor wins Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Score, and Sidney Poitier becomes the first African American man to win Best Actor. This is another major win for Ace Pictures.
• April: the House passes Anti-Lynching Legislation, the first part of President Truman’s civil rights packages. It will be signed into law on April 30.
• May: The Truman Civil Rights Act is introduced into the House. It would entail all the provisions from Campbell, but expand them to include private establishments, including theaters, restaurants, hotels, and restrooms.
• May 25: Shots are fired at President Truman and Senator Roosevelt as they arrive to speak to members of the NAACP in DC. Truman is hit but not fatally. Senator Roosevelt is uninjured. Eyewitnesses report that the gunman, a South Carolinian who was shot dead by secret service, shouted “Long live Dixie” as he opened fire on the President. An FBI investigation soon uncovered KKK connections.
• June 1: Archie Coleman is killed by an assassin at a Playland March in Atlanta. The city erupts in a riot afterward, and smaller riots break out in other cities both in and outside the south, involving both African Americans enraged that the writer of Meg had been killed, and by members of the Queer Community, enraged that the first openly gay celebrity had been murdered. The unrest is bad enough in Georgia that the national guard is called out. Vice President Kerr, who had only addressed the nation less than a week before in the aftermath of the shooting attempt on the president, again took to the airways to call the nation to calm, but had a sterner message as well: “The KKK is responsible for attacking both national leaders and national icons, and this government can no longer stand back and look the other way. These terrorists must be brought to justice.”
• June 8: Archie Coleman’s funeral is televised in Los Angeles, and clips from are shown by news stations nationwide. A tearful Rock Hudson is seen by millions, supported by actor friends from Ace. His picture, trying to stay strong and failing as he approaches the casket, is on the front pages from coast-to-coast.
• June 12: President Truman, finally back on duty, announces that, working with the FBI, the Klu Klux Klan is to be considered a terrorist organization, and that anyone found to be involved with them can be tried for treason. “Terror is un-American. And these fiends have decided that they want to terrorize loyal Americans into backing some backward version of this country, and we will not allow this to happen.” The FBI begins a massive effort throughout the South to try and bring down the Klan. All through the summer and fall, newspapers are filled with stories of officials being arrested under charges of treason. The SRP, which sees its membership rolls gutted by the arrests, cries foul, saying the administration is carrying out a witch-hunt.
• November: during the mid-term elections, the GOP take control of the House and Senate. The SRP loses its few Senate seats, along with most of their House seats as well. The anti-Klan arrests have removed several such men from office, while others lose their seats to Republicans. Dorothea Hancock* of Illinois becomes the first African American woman elected to Congress

1955:

• January: President Truman signs the Truman Civil Rights Act into law. Protests are scattered and unorganized, with the Klan broken and the SRP fractured.
• February: the third and final part of Truman’s civil rights laws, the Voting Rights Act, is proposed to the House, now in Republican hands. Speaker Martin tells the president that the bill in its current form is as good as dead.
• March: the Voting Rights Act fails to pass the House. Truman states that he will work on rewriting the bill for 1956, but Democrats are warry of this. They fear a Republican wave in 1956 and want to try and soften the blow as much as possible. By the end of the year, the voting rights proposals are dead and will not rise again until the 1960s.
• June: Rock Hudson makes a point to be very public in the Playland Marches that year, attending both the one in Los Angeles and then in Atlanta, where he poignantly lays a wreath of flowers at the spot where Archie Coleman had been assassinated. Asked in the press about the event, President Truman said, “I may not agree with what these men and women do behind closed doors, but frankly it is not my business what they do there. Nor is it the business of the United States government, or the government of any state. And what happened to that bright and talented young man is a crime.”
• June: The State of California repeals its anti-sodomy laws, effectively becoming the first state to decriminalize homosexuality. The state also passes what became known as Archie’s Law, which made crimes motivated by hate towards another person because of their religion, gender, race, sexual preference, or nation of origin a special crime subject to higher penalties.
• June: Actor Cary Grant openly identifies as a homosexual at a special event in Los Angeles to honor the one year anniversary of the death of Archie Coleman.
• July: President Truman proposes peace talks between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Truman had been distancing his government from the ROC for some time, and made overtures to Beijing that some sort of diplomatic relations could be worked out between the USA and the PRC. This is decried by the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and some in the Democratic Party as well. In the end, the discussion of talks comes to nothing, to Truman’s frustration.
• September: Truman agrees to meet with Soviet leader Khrushchev in Switzerland. The Bern Conference is the first attempt by the Americans and the Soviets to put a thaw on the Cold War, this one being premature.

1956:

• February: Eisenhower announces that he will not run for president, due to complications from a heart attack he had suffered the year before.
• Spring: The GOP primaries saw former general MacArthur vie for the position against Earl Warren, Everett Dirksen, and Harold Stassen, among others.
• Spring: The Democrats, with no real incumbent for the first time in twenty years, have a wide-open field, especially since Vice President Kerr declines to run: Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver, and Albert Gore, Sr.
• July: Republicans nominate MacArthur, with Harold Stassen as VP (though a strong argument was made for Richard Nixon).
• July: Democrats nominate Hubert Humphrey, with a special surprise as VP: Senator Elanor Roosevelt.
• October: Humphrey and MacArthur participate in the first televised presidential debate. MacArthur dominates, despite his age (76).
• November: after twenty-four years of a Democrat occupying the White House, the Republican party won their first presidential election since 1928. He will be the oldest president in US history when he takes the oath of office in January, days before turning 77.
• November: Three openly queer candidates, two in California and one in New York, are elected: Bobby Lemar* (San Fransisco City Council), Lauren Hopewell* (Los Angeles City Council), and Henry Carpenter* (New York State Assembly).
• November: William Dawson of Illinois becomes the first African American man since Reconstruction to be elected to the Senate.

1957:

• January 20: Douglas MacArthur becomes the 34th President of the United States. In his inaugural speech, he declared: “Today, America once again becomes a true power in the world. As the scripture says, we will no longer hide our light, or our might, under a bush, but place it boldly on a hill for all to see. We will no longer kowtow to the communists, whether in Asia, Europe, or here at home. The cowardice with which the previous administration has conducted the foreign affairs of this nation are at an end. So too, we put a stop to the social engineering of the left. We Republicans, the party of Lincoln, support bringing forth to reality the promise of racial reconciliation that we have seen the past eight years. But we cannot allow the degradation of family and of women to continue. Furthermore, while racial reconciliation was needed, at what cost did it come? Riots across the land? A third of the nation experiencing martial law? Equality cannot be enforced by the jackboot! I will work to heal the wounds left by the previous administration’s carelessness and heavy-handedness.”
• February: MacArthur dismisses the legation from the People’s Republic of China that had been in DC under the last year and a half of Truman’s term.
• April: MacArthur’s administration issues new FCC guidelines for TV content, banning any and all references to queer people in fictional media (there had been, up to this point, no direct queer relationships shown on television, but there were a few openly queer secondary characters who were either single or whose partners were never shown on screen), and putting heavy restrictions on interracial relationships - the first interracial TV kiss the year before had scandalized many even if it had occurred eight years before in Meg.
• June: Under pressure from the President, DC city officials reject the permit requests for the DC Playland March. The organizers go ahead with the march and face police retaliation - which ends up on the evening news nationwide and causes even more unrest in other cities.
• July - the President gives his “Commie Menace” speech on the 4th of July, promising once again to defend the nation from all forms of communist threats, both within and without.
• July 25: The Attorney General’s office begins an investigation into several prominent people in the TV and film industry, claiming they have communist ties. A week later, leaders of the NAACP and the ASHR also find themselves under investigation. This is all done under the new Office of Un-American Activities It is during this time that writer Perry Joshua*, who works for Ace Pictures, begins to write his screenplay Jackboot.
• August: NBC takes the FCC to court over the new restrictions after the FCC fined the network for airing a new show with an openly queer (but also single) character.
• September: Ace Pictures does a limited re-release of Meg on its 10th anniversary. President MacArthur is quoted in the newspapers is calling it subversive.
• October: OUAA agents begin investigating NBC.

1958:

• February: Rock Hudson wins Best Actor for his performance in Different, Yet the Same.
• March: At an annual meeting of the NAACP, Vice President Stassen calls on the African American community to drop its support of queer Americans: “Your fight is a noble fight, one that goes back to Lincoln and beyond. Theirs? That’s the mere fight of perverts wanting to normalize their sin.” While this comment got applause, community activist Shirley Chisholm from New York stood up and challenged the Vice President, saying “No sir! The Klan killed Archie Coleman. A good black man who was also queer. The oppression of any group of people is the oppression of all people.” These remarks were also applauded, and arguably louder than the Vice President’s words.
• April: The Attorney General’s office gives charges against Avis Amberg, claiming that she has been supporting subversive films since she took over Ace Pictures. Other charges are leveled at the leaders of the ASHR, several producers at NBC and CBS, and actors Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, along with a few other lesser-knowns who had also publicly admitted to being queer. No arrests are made, but those charged are warned against leaving the country.
• May 20: Avis Amberg’s trial is the first of the OUAA investigations to go to court.
• June 1: The annual tradition of the Playland marches occur, though most such events change the name to something like “Queer Rights March” or the “Free Speech March.” At the Queer Rights March in Los Angeles, Rock Hudson gives his famous “Pride” speech, and the following year, the queer rights marches across the country start using the term.
• June 20: Avis Amberg is found guilty of subversion and sentenced to five years in prison. The Attorney General’s office also states that it encourages theaters and film collections to stop showing several of Ace Pictures more “subversive” films made under Avis, including Meg, Dreamland, Man of Honor, and Different, Yet the Same. Protests break out in LA, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Chicago, and many theaters across the nation have special “Avis Amberg Film Festivals,” featuring those proscribed movies. Avis appeals the ruling but is placed in custody.
• July 3: Senator Roosevelt compares President MacArthur to Hitler during a speech on the Senate floor, the audio of which makes its way to the evening news outlets nationwide and gets wide replay: “The current administration seems to be taking pages out of the playbook of none other than Adolf Hitler, an evil man whom my husband and his administration helped to defeat. Now we find an American tyrant using an American Gestapo to round up those that the administration find inferior. And I say shame. Shame on you Mr. MacArthur. You disgrace yourself and the office to which you were so unwisely elected to.” Documents later revealed that MacArthur attempted to have the AG go after Roosevelt, but the bureaucrats wouldn’t touch the former First Lady.
• November: Moderate blowback against the republicans in the mid-term elections. Both houses of Congress remain in GOP hands, but by the slimmest of margins. People are unhappy about MacArthur’s actions, outside the South and parts of the midwest.
• December: tensions between Taiwan (backed publicly by MacArthur) and the People’s Republic of China flair up near the end of the month, and there is a real worry that a full-blown war might break out. On the 28th, President MacArthur publicly backs the ROC, and warns China of any aggression.

1959:

• January 10: China gives an ultimatum to Taiwan - surrender by the end of the month or face full-scale invasion.
• January 14: President MacArthur reaffirms his commitment to Taiwan’s sovereignty as the “legitimate government of all China.”
• January 18: US military forces in Japan begin to make preparations for war with China, and forces in Hawaii and on the West Coast begin making preparations for deployment. Anti-war protests break out.
• February 1: with no surrender, China drops bombs on Taipei and prepares for an invasion.
• February 3: Against the advice of his cabinet, including the Vice President, MacArthur authorizes the use of nuclear weapons. The first is dropped on Shanghai, with the message sent to PRC that “if you do not leave Taiwan alone, more bombs will follow.”
• February 4: the Soviet Union issues an ultimatum: America is to withdraw from Taiwan and send all forces not in the region on January 1st back to the United States, or the Soviet Union would have to consider “sterner measures” to back up its ally.
• February 5: The President orders plans drawn up for nuking several major cities in China and North Korea, and for preparations to be made in the event of Soviet aggression in Europe. Vice President Stassen vehemently objects. Once ignored, he calls on the cabinet to declare MacArthur incapacitated. Facing the threat of nuclear war that the president started, the cabinet goes along with Stassen.
• February 6: President Stassen addresses the nation, saying that the attack on Shanghai had been the result of a mental break by President MacArthur, who had been removed by the cabinet. He went on to say that America would be meeting the soviet demands for withdrawal, and would furthermore be entering into peace talks with the Soviets and the Chinese.
• February 12: Peace talks between the three nations, along with the British and the French, open up in Athens.
• March 4: Athens Accord is signed: Douglas MacArthur will be turned over to the International Court of Justice for trial. The United States will draw down forces in South Korea and Japan. The “Republic of China” will cease to exist, replaced by the United Nations Administrative Zone of Formosa, which will be occupied for fifteen years by forces from UN members not involved in the region, namely France, Britain, Australia, Italy, and India, after which time a referendum would be held on future status. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic would be granted membership in the UN and full diplomatic status with all the nations of the security council. A promise was also made that the United States would, by law, remove unilateral strike capabilities from any one person in the nation, which was agreed to so long as the Soviet Union, Britain, and France also agreed to do so by 1962. The United States also agrees to pay close to $200 million in reparations to China for the destruction of Shanghai.
• April: MacArthur’s war crimes trial opens in The Hague, watched by all the world. The mood in America is very muddled. The nation feels humiliated and embarrassed, but thankful that President Stassen removed MacArthur before full-blown nuclear war had broken out.
• April 10: President Stassen shuts down the OUAA, and orders the charges pending against the rest of those rounded up be dropped, and issues a pardon for Avis Amberg and the officials of the ASHR that had been sentenced to prison.
• May: Perry Joshua presents his screenplay Jackboot to Amberg for approval, and get the project greenlit, with Henry Wilson producing.
• June 1: Avis Amberg is the “grand marshal” of the Los Angeles Pride March. At this event we see the first Queer Rights flag introduced, a light-purple banner with a torch of liberty in the center, with the flames being multi-colored.
• June 19: MacArthur is sentenced to life in prison in Italy.
• June 22: MacArthur commits suicide. Stassen reports that his body will be returned to the United States and to his family, where he will receive military honors for his service from WWII, but that the funeral will be private and not televised or attended by the press, and that he will not receive military honors befitting a former president.
• December: President Stassen states that he will not run for election in 1960.

1960:

• January: Senator Roosevelt announces that she will run for the Presidency. Also in the running are John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Albert Gore, Sr., and Adlai Stevenson.
• Spring: The GOP are in shambles in an attempt to find a candidate in the wake of the MacArthur fiasco. Nixon attempts a run, but having served as Mac’s Secretary of State, he was tainted. Henry Cabot Lodge entered the race, along with Nelson Rockefeller and George Bender.
• May 1: 10th Anniversary of the Playland Riots in Boston, marking the start of the Queer Rights movement, are commemorated, with a special re-release of Dreamland. Later that same month, Massachusetts becomes the second state to decriminalize homosexuality.
• June 1: 10th Anniversary of the Playland/Pride Marches, which take place in more than four dozen citizens across the United States, and a few internationally as well.
• July: The Democrats nominate Elanor Roosevelt, with John F. Kennedy as her running mate (old and new together).
• July: The Republicans nominate Lodge, with George Bender as their VP.
• October: Jackboot, a story of a free nation sliding into authoritarianism, premiers in Washington, D.C., with Ace Pictures wanting to make a political statement. It is a thinly-veiled swipe the hawkish, pro-MacArthur wing of the Republican party, and a huge success.
• November: Elanor Roosevelt is elected with JFK in a landslide, and both houses of Congress go to the Dems as well. Also of note, a total of 45 women are elected to the House of Representatives (a number not reached until the 1990s OTL), and three women senators were elected (one replacing Roosevelt). Colorado and Illinois also decriminalized homosexuality by ballot measure.

Please take this up to the present day

 

[Eckener]

Please take this up to the present day

Thank you!

I am thinking about it. Working on a few projects at the "same" time so it may be a week or so, but It was fun to get to where I did, and be interesting to see where I could take it.

 

[WotanArgead]

I do not think that the series deserves attention - this is a set of stereotypes about "Hollywood Babylon" mixed with the dreams of modern liberals. They even referred to this dead man Bowers, who appeared to be from a yellow magazine.

 

[Eckener]

I do not think that the series deserves attention - this is a set of stereotypes about "Hollywood Babylon" mixed with the dreams of modern liberals. They even referred to this dead man Bowers, who appeared to be from a yellow magazine.

Agree to disagree. You're under no obligation to read this thread. No harm, no foul.