April 7, 2008
A few weeks back, GamePolitics mentioned David Hadju's new book The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. Hadju's work has obvious implications for the modern debate over video game content.On Friday, Slate's Jeet Heer considered Hadju's book in relation to a detailed look at the most famous of the comic book censors, Fredric Wetham (left), author of Seduction of the Innocent:
Wertham... [argued that] comic books stultified the imagination of normal kids (giving them a taste for blood and gore...) and severely damaged the socially vulnerable, contributing to juvenile delinquency.
For Wertham, even the most beloved comic-book heroes were suspect: Superman reminded him of Nazi Germany's SS (a cadre of self-styled supermen), the adventures of Batman and Robin had homoerotic overtones, and Wonder Woman threatened to turn healthy young girls into lesbians.
But, Heer writes, Wertham has his defenders:
Chief among these... is Bart Beaty, a Canadian communications theorist [who] argues that the psychiatrist's work has been unfairly dismissed... Beaty contends that Wertham had legitimate questions about the social impact of art on socially vulnerable children.
Wertham was particularly concerned about the violence, misogyny, and racism that were endemic in comics... He wasn't wrong on this point. Many of the comics now nostalgically celebrated... were extremely unsavory in their social attitudes...
Finally, Beaty notes, Wertham actually never advocated censorship: He wanted a rating system to keep the most violent of comics away from kids... The comic-book crackdown, according to Beaty, was caused by unscrupulous publishers who were unwilling to regulate themselves until forced to by a huge public backlash...
Who is right, Heet wonders - Wertham's defenders or his detractors?
Much of what Wertham thought was harmful could be seen as nurturing. Take Wertham's contention that stories about Batman and Robin have an unhealthy homoerotic subtext... Wertham was half-right... There is something "campy" about Batman and Robin... But for many of us today, that's an argument in favor of Batman. Isn't it good for gay kids to have a role model like the Dark Knight?
...Wertham shouldn't be mocked as a simpleton or censor, but he was rather prissy and uptight. As terrible as many comics were, they had a wildness and vitality that he couldn't appreciate. Comics had a raw, visceral power, reflecting the plebian underside of American culture...
Comments
Yeah, there were so many cartoons in the 90's that I can imagine being edited somewhat for today's mindset. Animaniacs, somewhat. Rocko's Modern Life, definitely. Cynics attempting to reveal their views and point them out to a younger audience isn't constructive. It's more like revealing a huge "spoiler" that dampens a kid's wholesome view on the world.
That, or they know full well that comics could get people questioning the world around them instead of just accepting what’s fed to them.
Reminds me of being in a private catholic school. I questioned the bible and was almost suspended.
As Terry Pratchett once said, it's lovely to hear kids playing, as long as you aren't sitting close enough to actually hear what they saying....
Speaking about television, Wertham was initially enthusiast about it (in "Seduction of the Innocent", he referred to it as a "miracle of technology" compared to the "degenerescence of a technique" that were comic books). But his enthusiasm quickly vanished, and in the end of the 50's, he wrote a anti-TV book entitled "The War Against Children". However, it wasn't published because it never found an editor.
I also recommend the reading of a debate between Beaty and his colleague Craig Fischer : http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/commentary/3607/
James E. Reibman is responsible of the Wertham Archives. He published many articles and book chapters in order to defend Wertham, including "Fredric Wertham : A Social Psychologist Characterizes Crime Comic Books and Media Violence As Public Health Issues" in the collective book "Pulp Demons : International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign" (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses, 1999). Excerpts :
« ... The publishing history of [Seduction of the Innocent] and vilification Wertham personally endured are anything but democratic. For example, the Book of the Month Club selected [Seduction of the Innocent] as an alternate choice and planned to run in its club newsletter a favorable review by Clifton Fadiman. However the Club abruptly cancelled both the offering and the review. »
« More disturbing was the news Wertham received from many bookstores and outraged book buyers who found their copy of [Seduction of the Innocent] had pages 399 and 400 missing. These pages contained the bibliographical notes where Wertham has listed the publishing sources for the book's illustrations. Apparently, Wertham's own publisher, Rinehart and company, succumbed to pressure from both comic book publishers and distributors and agreed to have the offending pages excised. Thus, a finished book was mutilated, neither with the knowledge nor the consent of the author. »
« Today both the vilification of Wertham and the harmful effects of violent comics continue. (...) Eclipse Comics published in November 1985 a lurid series of books under the cover title Seduction of the Innocent ; and vicious caricatures (2) of Dr Wertham appear in many comic books. » (Pulp Demon, op. cit., p. 252-254)
About Patanella, I have much less details. I just know he wrote the article « The Persuasive Techniques and Psychological Validity of Seduction of the Innocent » in the International Journal of Comic Art (vol. 1, n° 2, fall 1999, p. 76-85.).
Finally, there is also Amy Kiste Nyberg, who wrote a critically acclaimed book about the history of Comics Code (Amy Kiste Nyberg, "Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code", University Press of Mississippi, 1998). She doesn't really defend Wertham, but she concedes he may have had some good points.
As for Batman having homo-erotic overtones, well, that's just an old-time version of Thompsons' 'Homosexual acts in Bully' crap...
And I was something like 5 years old at the time and this was some TV re-runs that were still going on in the early 90s.
Now Wonder Woman turning young girls into Lesbians????
I thought he might have been more conserned about young boys being turned on by Wonder Woman....
But yet again, I was young around the age of 6 to even see old re-runs of Wonder Woman and yet my puberty hit me when I was 12.
While some critics have their points, even anti-gamers have their valid points, But the real thing that not many of them have understood that sometimes children see things differently than what adults do.
What an adult might see something as harmful to their child's development might be so innocent in the kid's eyes.
I hope I am not like that when I have kids.
I think that is part of the problem, many of these programs were designed on 2 'levels' to appeal to both younger and older audiences, I enjoy Batman far more for it's self-satire than the 'action' as an adult, but enjoyed it purely for the crime-fighting when I was a child, adults forget that children don't see the world through the same cynical eyes as we do, and that they often don't see things that are 'obvious' to us.
I used to watch a TV program called 'Are You Being Served?' when I was a child, now there was a program that was designed to operate on two levels, as a child you laugh at the more obvious jokes, as an adult, you suddenly realise the more subtle 'adult' humour is not only there, but is far funnier than the 'obvious' stuff.
So basically it can be said that some objectors to a medium are only going on about the backchannel in the story, the subtext that is to appeal to outside of the primary demographic.
Apparently he didn't notice that the creators of Superman were Jewish themselves, a heritage the shared with a surprising number of the creators of the great comic book superheroes (just to mention a few: Stan Lee, Bob Kane and Will Eisner).
Sounds strangely familiar...
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Papa Midnight
Nor that Superman was created in 1936, well before most of the world knew what was happening in Germany.
Quoth Reibman & Patanella "Today both the vilification of Wertham and the harmful effects of violent comics continue"
So I guess I can't presume these folks are anything resembling an objective source? Hell, we've got Ann Coulter trying to rehabilitate McCarthy, why the heck not?
As for me, I don't give a tinker's damn what Wertham's good intentions were. In fact, I think they should stand as object lesson in what we actually get when people call for "just a label".
That, or they know full well that comics could get people questioning the world around them instead of just accepting what's fed to them.