" Overall it is evident that his books were considered popular culture because Americans embraced what he was writing about, since Americans were swept away by anti-communism. Subsequently, since Spillane's fiction was filled with anti-communist ideals it is obvious why it was so popular among the American public.
Additionally, books that would normally be considered politically incorrect, and even offensive became very popular, simply because they were anti-communist. For example, in Mickey Spillane's novel One Lonely Night, the main male character, Detective Mike Hammer " realizes that Ethel Brighton has continued to associate with the scum and perverts who comprise the Communist movement. So he strips and whips her." This overt and graphic abuse of females is acceptable only because the female was a communist, this type of brutality towards women would normally not be acceptable to the status quo. Therefore it is clear that this type of aggressive and abusive behavior became acceptable in America as a result of the Cold War, and Americans fear of communism.
The American Communism scare of the 1950s also affected Broadway. Arthur Miller, author of the play Death of a Salesman, recalls the scrutiny he underwent as a result of his play's storyline. Miller recalls that "Death of a Salesman questioned the ethos of the business civilization, which the play intimates has no real respect for individual human beings so to put a play on where somebody who believes in the system, as Willy Loman does to his dying minute, ends up a suicide, it was rather a shock." Therefore because this play questioned American life, it was considered "un-American", and not popular. This is a good indication of the influence that the Cold War had on American popular culture. For example this play became a masterpiece of American literature after the cold war anti-communist paranoia had deflated, and likely would have been embraced as a work of art at the time had the Cold War not had such a heavy influence on Americans.
