Some of these questions were addressed by Laura Z Hobson in her 1946 novel, Gentleman's Agreement. Some of the others were answered when the film came out the following year. Hobson, the writer, and Darryl F Zanuck, the crusading Hollywood producer, set out to teach the US a lesson about its failure to live up to its own standards. The results teach us a lot, over on this side of the millennium divide – about how the 'thin end of the wedge' can be used to pry open the hard core of prejudice, and about how the backlash against such an attempt can be ferocious.
In 1946 all Laura Hobson had to do to set the cat among the complacent pigeons was to write a novel with a simple premise: an agnostic Christian pretends to be Jewish – simply by saying that he is. Then the character, and the author, sit back to watch the feathers fly. The result was not only edifying, but electrifying for readers in the post-World War II US. The book sold 1.6 million copies and was translated into 13 languages. The film version won Best Picture of 1947, arousing a response from liberals whose eyes were opened to the subtleties of antisemitism, and fierce alarm on the part of guardians of the status quo, who began taking a closer look at the dangers presented by Hollywood intellectuals.
