Originally published September 9, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1086
We were discussing Seduction of the Innocent, the 1954 book by Dr. Fredric Wertham which became the symbol of the notion that comic books were destroying America’s youth.
The Kefauver Crime Commission hearings, which found no causal connection between comics and juvenile delinquency, were treated with contempt by Wertham. He considered the Commission’s findings incomplete, and stated that henceforth he would remain “a little skeptical of investigating committees. Superman always seemed to get the best of them.”
Wertham remained undeterred in his conviction that comics were wrecking kid’s minds, driving them into a life of crime, etc. From this conviction was born Seduction of the Innocent… an alarmist tract if ever I’ve seen one.
There is no doubt that Fredric Wertham was genuinely concerned about America’s youth. Much of his experience, and observations, came as a result of his having spent extended time with juvenile delinquents. Judging by the fervency of his writings, his heart was certainly in the right place.
Unfortunately, his brain was somewhere south of that.
Wertham addresses a variety of topics in SOTI. He first endeavors to define the term “crime comic books,” and basically lumps together any book dealing with criminals. Since he focuses purely on theme, he does not address quality or stylistic differences; therefore, he lumps together (admittedly) cheesy horror stories with excessive eye-gouging in with superheroes.
Yet it’s a no-win situation with Wertham. Comics that glorify criminals are deplorable because they depict criminals and criminal acts as exciting, even glorious, where the criminal pretty much wins out even if there’s some nominal effort to bring him to justice by story’s end.
But he has nothing but contempt for Superman or Wonder Woman; even though they are the heroes and the focuses of the story, Wertham supports the notion that superheroes “present our world in a kind of Fascist setting of violence and hate and destruction.”
To the average reader (or kid, for that matter), Superman would be no more than what he was to his creators: Wish fulfillment. Seeing the world as a scary, frightening place, wouldn’t it be nice if there were some superhuman individual to fight against the forces of evil? This is hardly a new notion; heroic literature goes back to centuries-old Gilgamesh. But to Wertham, Superman and his fellows–merely the latest incarnation of heroic fantasy figures–are pernicious symbols. He claims they “engender in children either one or the other of two attitudes: either they fantasy (sic) themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the submen, or it makes them submissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them–by force.”
Wertham’s mindset is very much a product of the times, unfortunately. This country had just come out of World War II, wherein individuals who believed themselves superior to the rest of humanity had been a deadly, implacable enemy. So when Wertham was confronted with the four-color adventures of a character who was, by definition, indisputably superior to the rest of humanity, he imprinted all the sins of Nazi Germany on poor Superman.
Wertham betrays this mindset with what he may have thought was merely a throwaway joke, but winds up showing us exactly where he was coming from: “Superman (has) the big S on his uniform–we should, I suppose, be thankful that it is not an S.S.,” Wertham comments, making reference to Nazi elite forces. To an “innocent” child, Superman was a hero in tights. To Wertham, he was the incarnation of Hitler’s philosophies and, hence, frightening.
Batman, of course, doesn’t have any superpowers. One would think that makes him immune from criticism. No. Wertham instead dwells endlessly on alleged homoerotic relations between Bruce Wayne and Ðìçk Grayson.
In a chapter with the calm, scholarly title of “I Want to be a Sex Maniac!” Wertham describes the home life of Bruce and Ðìçk as “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together.”
The proof of this charge? I’ll quote it, but… be warned. The following passage displays intensely flaming homosexual activities that may be too intense for younger readers. Parents, cover your children’s eyes as the following iron-clad proof of the caped crusaders’ sexual persuasion is presented by Dr. Wertham:
“Sometimes they are shown on a couch, Bruce reclining and Ðìçk sitting next to him, jacket off, collar open, and his hand on his friend’s arm.”
Whoa! Stop the presses! Bruce Wayne was on a couch and… leaning back (rather than sitting bolt upright). And Ðìçk–my God, Ðìçk–what was he thinking? Instead of sitting indoors sporting a jacket and tie, Ðìçk had no jacket… and his collar was open!!!
How dare Bruce and Ðìçk be comfortable. How dare they not spend the day at home sitting in hardback chairs at opposite ends of the room, dressed in formal wear.
It’s like the Music Man causing parents great consternation by hysterically demanding, “Do your children rebuckle their knickerbockers… below the knee?!” At least then it was supposed to be funny. Here, though, no one is laughing, as Wertham goes on to condemn Robin thusly:
“Robin is a handsome, ephebic boy, usually shown in his uniform with bare legs. He is buoyant with energy and devoted to nothing on earth or in interplanetary space as much as to Bruce Wayne. He often stands with his legs spread, the genital region discreetly evident.”
Never mind that everyone in superhero comics stood with their legs spread. Never mind that Bruce Wayne and Ðìçk Grayson displayed devotion no different than any father and son (or adoptive father and son, which they were in everything except legal status.) Wertham claims that “The Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious.”
Wertham’s very big on that: Unconsciousness. The notion that comic books are so insidious, so underhanded, so evil… that they’re ruining children’s minds, and the children don’t even know it. He has to take that approach because he has absolutely no evidence whatsoever of his basic thesis: That comics are causing children to act in an antisocial manner.
In fact, on page 10, he has reason to believe the exact opposite, as he states: “At no time, up to the present, has a single child ever told me as an excuse for a delinquency or for misbehavior that comic books were to blame.” Yet despite that little lack of evidence, Wertham goes on to claim that “It is our clinical judgment, in all kinds of behavior disorders and personality difficulties of children, that comic books do play a part.”
What quantitative evidence does Wertham present to back up this charge?
None.
What formal studies?
None.
What analysis of control groups?
None.
In short, what scientific method is displayed to support this rather unique theory?
Aw… you guessed.
SOTI is page after page of anecdotal evidence from discussions with kids who were already troubled. These troubled kids read comics. Wertham therefore makes the jump that the comics caused the problem.
He does make mention of the notion that these kids had lots of other problems and influences that they may have caused them to go wrong. But he holds to the notion that the pre-eminent negative influence is comic books. The fact that this is unsupported by anyone else in his field does not deter him… indeed, it only reinforces it. The logic train is simple, and consistent with his earlier reasoning (or lack thereof): Juvenile delinquency is a problem that no one has solved. No one thought of comic books as being a factor. Therefore, now that Wertham has targeted comics, we can do something about juvenile delinquency… through the simple expedient of getting rid of comic books.
But he doesn’t prove cause and effect: The notion that kids who are not already in trouble, who are not in trouble with the juvenile authorities, are picking up comic books, reading them, and being transformed into troublemakers. Proving that J.D.s read comic books is indicative of nothing more than that comics were widely distributed. Now if Wertham had proven that honor students were reading True Crime, and immediately going out and knocking over convenience stores, then he might have something. But he doesn’t… perhaps because he didn’t bother, or perhaps because he simply couldn’t.
Typical of Wertham’s methods is Chapter V, “Retooling for Illiteracy,” in which he tries to make the case that comics have a deleterious on children’s reading ability. How does he undertake this proof? He studies kids who scored low in reading and discovered that they read comic books.
A kid has trouble with reading words. So, for cheap entertainment, he read stories with lots of pictures. This isn’t exactly a shock.
What Wertham should have checked–as a researcher, should have been obliged to check–was whether kids who scored high in reading tests were also reading comics. Considering that comic books were distributed in the millions back then, the chances were that they did… which would have blown a major hole in Wertham’s cause-and-effect theories.
Or he could have studied a control group wherein kids with no reading problems were introduced to comics, and then their reading habits over the next year or two were closely monitored.
Wertham, naturally, didn’t bother with any of that. Kids with reading problems read comics, so the comics are the cause of the problems. Q.E.D.
This is scientific reasoning on par with the 1950s seer, Criswell, in Plan 9 From Outer Space. “Prove that it happened?” intoned Criswell portentously. “I say… prove that it didn’t!”
SOTI is replete with stuff like this: Loopy, unfounded and unsupported theories interspersed with anecdotal evidence, all lumped together and presented to parents as reason to be concerned that comics were destroying their children’s minds.
Typical of Wertham’s histrionics and worst-case scenarios is the following:
“Take a peaceful American family on a quiet evening. Papa rests from his work and is reading Mickey Spillane. Junior has just come home from a movie with a ‘DOUBLE-SHOCK SHOW: The Vanishing Body and the Missing Head.’ He settled down to look at one of those good crime television shows where a man is beaten up so mercilessly that he is blinded for life. His older sister, just this side of puberty, is engrossed in the comic book Reform School Girl!, which lends sex, violence and torture in its context… Mama (is reading) two recent books on psychology. One has the title Children Who Hate, the other is a psychological textbook with twenty-five chapters in which the only psychological subject to which a whole chapter is devoted is ‘Hostility.’”
I mean, jeez, Doc. Isn’t it just as likely that maybe they’re playing Scrabble? Cards? Maybe watching Texaco Star Theater? The Honeymooners?
Wertham is all extremes and no moderation. In searching for easy and quick answers, he winds up with alarmist claptrap that nonetheless still sends occasional shivers through the collective spine of the comic industry.
It isn’t helped when we have ill-informed people like Stefan Kanfer, author of the badly-researched Self magazine article, keeping the flame of Wertham’s inept methodology burning brightly… bright enough to toss comics onto, so they can go up in smoke.
First Amendment? Don’t make Wertham laugh. “(F)reedom to publish crime comics has nothing to do with civil liberties,” claimed Wertham. “It is a perversion of the very idea of civil liberties.” The classic argument of the censor: the First Amendment exists to protect only those materials that the censor finds unobjectionable. It’s only objectionable material that should be wiped out.
Notice that censors rarely say, “I’m in favor of censorship.” Instead what they will usually say is, “I am not in favor of censorship, but…” and it’s the rest of the sentence that puts the lie to the first part.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, will conclude this dissertation next week with thoughts on imitative behavior, plus some forgotten figures from the 1950s.)
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I’ll paraphrase Steve Bissette (which is who I heard it from…it may not have been original with him):
I’ll believe that censorship is valid when I hear about censors going berserk and killing people. After all, they’re allowed to see all the things that are too dangerous for normal people.
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Yeah, that’s what I always found so idiotic about con artist “Christian” groups like the AFA and such. They’re protesting TV shows, movies, books and comics because they have an undesirable effect on the people who watch them and may lead to violent or criminal actions by the consumers of such products.
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So they decide what is and isn’t okay by watching every single thing they claim makes you unhinged and they enlist their families to do the monitoring as well in some cases. So in their world I can’t be trusted to be a responsible viewer of the occasional show that they object to without it having undesirable affects on me, but they, their families and their employees can be trusted and considered fine and upstanding individuals after years of steadily watching pretty much all of the stuff that’s “bad for you” pretty much all of the time.
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Riiight…
I suppose it’s Jesus. Jesus protects them from any harmful effect from watching this stuff. By the way, that would be a cool tactic to convert people: “Accept Jesus as your personal saviour, and then you can watch all the sexy and violent movies you want without endangering your soul.”
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Joking aside, I think these AFA freaks have a lot in common with regular fandom these days. I mean, “fans” that read every issue of a comic they hate, just to post monthly in the internet about how much it sucks? And every website I’ve seen dedicated to any TV show has a big part of the “fandom” that seems to be dedicated to badmouth the show weekly, down to the most minute detail, so they’re possibly watching every episode multiple times of something they hate.
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So the AFA freaks don’t look so strange after all.
Heck, Rene, there’s at least one entire website devoted to such an approach, under the guise of “reviews” and “recaps:” Television Without Pity.
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A friend of mine kept raving about how he kept up on shows that he liked, but missed episodes of through TWOP. So, I checked it out.
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Each and every “review” and “recap” is filled with, at the very least, snark, if not outright venom at the shows being discussed. The characters were referred to by sarcastic nicknames instead of any name used on the show. And these were shows that the “reviewers” supposedly LIKED. I’d hate to see how they responded to shows they disliked.
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After a few visits to the site, thinking I might have just hit some anomalies, I just couldn’t take it anymore…had to stop going there.
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–Daryl
Daryl, may I recommend any recaps by the recapper known as Jacob? (Can’t remember his last name for the life of me, but he’s the only Jacob on there.) Note especially his recaps of Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica. Caution: it helps, in the BSG recaps, to have a passing knowledge of comparative Terrestrial religions, especially Gnostic Christianity, ancient Greece, and ancient Egypt.
As for the others, well, the site’s motto is “Spare the snark, spoil the network” – it started off as recaps of Dawson’s Creek, then expanded under its original name of Mighty Big TV…
I am glad that I’m not really familiar with Television Without Pity. I heard of it, of course.
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I get tired pretty easily of the endless snark you can find in the Internet regarding pretty much everything.
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I’ve limited my participation in many message boards because I couldn’t take so much negativity about stuff one is supposed to be a fan of.
Why I am not surprised?
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Most of Wertham’s spiritual descendents are the same too, confusing cause and effect. It’s always video games or rock music or Dungeons & Dragons that causes kids to become poorly socialized.
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I wonder why it never occurs to them that the kids that are poorly socialized in the first place, for a variety of complex reasons, will then look for this stuff to have vicarious experiences. They’re the symptoms, not the cause, dumb-áššëš.
The latest news on this front is a study of troubled youth, showing that children who display addictive behavior concerning video games also tend to have issues with anxiety and depression. The authors of the study never seem to ask the question, “Are these anxious, depressed children turning to video games as an outlet?” Instead, the assumption is that the games are causing the depression and anxiety.
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Wertham may be gone, but his concepts live on…
Oh boy, what a kook. He’s certainly a poor example of a psychologist. He doesn’t seem to get that juvenile delinquents read comic books because, back then, almost all kids read comic books. In the ’50s, finding a kid who read comics was like finding a penny in a wishing well. It wasn’t particularly hard.
I want a T-shirt that says “I Want to be a Sex Maniac!”
I don’t need such a t-shirt: I’m livin’ the dream!
On the Fascist imagery thing – remember that WW2 was only recently over, and that Wertham was a Jew, born in Munich, who had only left Germany in 1927.
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That could affect his world-view.
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But, really, it isn’t far from the superhero (or the fast-gun Western hero, or Rambo and his ilk) to something that approaches Fascism – it’s a matter of interpretation, as much as anything. Wasn’t that part of what Watchmen was about?
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As a friend of mine once remarked about characterisation in comics – “It’s archetypes. Or stereotypes. Depends whether you like the story or not, a lot of the time.”
I think it’s one thing to produce a superhero work that endeavors to take the genre to such extremes that one wonders whether they’ve tripped over the line into fascism, as was the case with “Watchmen” (not to mention “Judge Dredd” and “Marshall Law,” which leads one to wonder just what in God’s name our friends in Britain have against superheroes.)
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By the same token, I think Wertham would have been hard pressed to find anything salacious in the likes of Wendy Darling, Dorothy Gale and Alice, but Moore managed to subvert them into soft-core pørņ. So you find yourself saying, is it characters? Or is it the writer?
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And even if you allow the notion that it’s possible to lay a fascistic overtone onto superhero stories that others would find innocuous at best, there’s a long way to go from that to proving that reading such comics will turn kids into facists or promote deviant sexual behavior.
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PAD
Given that Superman has largely been portrayed as something of an independant superhuman emergency response worker, rather than specifically a crime fighter, I think you’d be hard-pressed to lay fascistic subtext at his feet.
No – the difference between a superhero and fascism is one of degree, not of kind.
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In a non-comics/superhero context – are you familiar with the Western novels of British author J.T.Edson?
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Edson writes the classic American Western formula – the Good Guys who are faster on the draw than anyone else, can fight better, etc. – altogether admirable fellows.
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Except that they treat anyone they consider less than righteous (which includes blacks, Indians other than the tribe one of them is descended from, gays and left-wing politicians) in exactly the manner that the Bad Guys treat the “righteous”, “upstanding” folk.
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And Edson (and presumably the readers that made him a best-selling genre author in England and (to some extent, here) sees nothing wrong with it and laud it as noble.
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(Edson also plagiarised several pages from Dan Mannix’s memoir “Step Right Up”for one of his “Rockabye County” Westerns … but that’s a different matter.)
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This is an extreme, granted – but it’s not unusual in kind, just in degree.
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Then, of course, there’s Spinrad’s novel “The Iron Dream”…
Gray64 says:
“Given that Superman has largely been portrayed as something of an independant superhuman emergency response worker, rather than specifically a crime fighter, I think you’d be hard-pressed to lay fascistic subtext at his feet.”
To me the problem of using Superman as an example against or in favor of the “superheroes/facists” argument is that it is a character that has been around for so long and written by so many different writers that it is probably easy to find arguments supporting both sides.
mike weber says:
“No – the difference between a superhero and fascism is one of degree, not of kind.”
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I would agree that the difference is a matter of degree up to a certaing degree (pardon the pun). Eventually I would no longer consider the character a superhero but a superbeing. And a superhero can be written in a way that the degree of facism is zero. To use Gray64’s example a superpowered independent rescue worker with no secret identity that would ask the victim if he/she wants help before doing anything like they teach people in CPR class.
Don’t know if there’s been any reply to my last – had to post in a hurry and take off to drive Kate to work and pick Maggie up at here Pre-K.
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So i cut is hort; i’ll try to come back and expand.
“…Then, of course, there’s Spinrad’s novel “The Iron Dream”…”
I liked “The Iron Dream!” Like “Venus on the Half Shell” and “Bored of the Rings,” I interpreted that book as a brilliant pastiche that explored two concepts that have been lumped together by their detractors: Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and classic pulp “Scientifiction” works that featured lantern-jawed heroes, shapely and scantily-clad damsels-in-distress and bespectacled scientists of the type written and edited by Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell. Norman Spinrad even wrote a dummy biography at the end of the story to bring the joke to its logical conclusion. If that’s where you were driving at, Mike, OK. If not, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Mike, first I’d tell Wertham that Superman (and most superheroes) were created by jews and were used in anti-fascist propaganda.
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Second, it’s very hard to create continuing adventure stories that aren’t about above-average people using violent effort to solve problems. In this way, all adventure stories have “fascist” undertones.
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It’s millenia-old storytelling tradition that has (unfortunately) been co-opted by some unsavory political movements.
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I try to imagine a non-fascist Bruce Wayne. “Traumatized by the senseless murder of his parents, young Bruce Wayne vows never to resort to violence; he uses his fortune to promote social progress in Gotham City; follow his pulse-pounding adventures in Philantropist Comics.
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I dunno, but it lacks something. 🙂
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I had an argument with a former friend in the 1990s. Honestly, he was a teenage Liberal áššhølë. I was running a superhero RPG game. And he didn’t want to make a heroic character, because he didn’t believe in the fascist heroic ideal. “Fine, what kind of character you want to make?” He did a superhuman with a rebellious attitude that used his powers to kill and maim to satisfy his own pleasures. In short, a Lobo sort of character.
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I don’t know why, but usually people that complain about heroic fascism present depressing nihilism as an alternative. Either with violent anti-heroes or stories about ordinary people powerless to solve any problem in their lives (i. e. mainstream literature).
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I think I prefer “fascism.”
After reading, “…therefore, he lumps together (admittedly) cheesy horror stories with excessive eye-gouging in with superheroes,” I wondered if The Secret Six regularly sets the good doctor to rolling in his grave. It’s showed a fondness for both eye gouging and superheroes.
To me, the weird thing is that the imposing of fascist ideas on superheros has come up again recently. The director of the Green Hornet movie had this to say about comic book fans.
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“Their values are fascistic. All those people marching around in capes and masks and boots. The superhero imagery is totally fascist!”
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http://www.muveez.com/news/550/green-hornet-director-calls-comic-book-nerds-fascists
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I get it if he thinks that some fans are overprotective and react badly to any changes from the source material. But all superhero fiction is fascist? Because of their clothes? Capes are not fascist imagery. When I think of capes outside of superheroes, all I can come up with are kings, queens, and Liberace. I generally don’t think of Liberace as a fascist icon. (Elvis wore a cape also, but that’s kind of a circular argument since he was a massive Captain Marvel Jr. fan and probably wore it because of that.) Boots are worn by construction workers and cowboys, so that doesn’t work so well, either.
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In Gondry’s case, I hope he was just being overly sensitive because he was worried about how fans would receive the movie.
I tend to think you’re right: He was likely speaking out of anger because the fans have been so relentlessly negative. Imagine you were working on a project for well over a year and one of your target audiences was just hammering away at you incessantly, announcing your film was going to suck before even a frame of it had been shot. At some point you just say, “Screw them all; my film is for ‘normal’ people.” Normal people being, of course, people who will see trailers and either say, “Wow, I’ll check that out” or “Eh, not for me.” Rather than people who react to everything from casting to leaked photos as further proof that “it’s gonna suuuuuuuck.”
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I have to admit, I–who have no affiliation with the film at all–have been taking great pleasure in seeing a film so reviled by the fans proceeding to perform solidly at the box office while getting generally good reviews and positive word of mouth. I love seeing the fans proven wrong yet again. I haven’t seen this much of a misfire in fan perceptions since they screamed that Heath Ledger was completely wrong for the Joker and that leaked on-set photos “proved” that “Dark Knight” was going to be terrible.
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PAD
“I have to admit, I–who have no affiliation with the film at all–have been taking great pleasure in seeing a film so reviled by the fans proceeding to perform solidly at the box office while getting generally good reviews and positive word of mouth.”
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Well, not really. It’s made $63 million, a little more than half of its $120 million budget, which it probably won’t make back. And it has a rotten score of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Really? Green Hornet is doing well? Huh. I’ve only read one review and it pretty much said the movie was very mediocre and it’s biggest flaw being the main star, Rogen, while its biggest asset was the co-star, the guy that plays Kato.
… Well, I’m not a fan of Hornet so I won’t be seeing it, but there is something to learn about second opinions there, I suppose.
PAD: I have to admit, I… have been taking great pleasure in seeing a film so reviled by the fans proceeding to perform solidly at the box office while getting generally good reviews and positive word of mouth.
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If “showdenfreude” is schadenfreude over a show, then let’s call this “fandenfreude.”
Robert, It’s made $63 million so far, but that’s better than a lot of people expected. Historically, that’s pretty good for a superhero/comedy. Plus, that’s the total after just 10 days. At the rate it is going, it will probably top $100 million before it leaves the box office and might even get close to its $120 million budget.
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That’s just domestic. The foreign box office often rolls in more slowly as a movie is released in various territories. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if the box office in the rest of the world added up to as much as the US take, doubling overall gross.
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That’s just box office. These days movies generally make twice as much after they leave the theater as they did in ticket sales. DVDs, licensing to cable and network outlets, etc. That’s not even counting the money that the movie draws in for merchandising.
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So yes, the movie is performing solidly. It’s doing better than it was projected to do and it is looking like it will be decently profitable. It won’t make that profit at the box office, but it will come much closer than any superhero/comedy to come before it.
He was sensitive after the fact. A lot of people walked out on the movie at Comic Con, shortly before the interview took place.
The movie is doing better than many expected (some thought it would be this years THE SPIRIT) and may turn a small profit when all is said and done. It is unlikely to do well enough spawn a franchise though, which is, sadly, how many in Hollywood measure success. And, in fairness, when you commit 120 million for one film that is 120 million not available for other films. They could have made 30 films like THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT for that money and if even a few of them were any good they could have made much more.
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(Of course there are no guarantees that they would not have ended up with 30 movies even Redbox would not take)
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Regardless, it’s stupid for the fans to root against any genre movie that isn’t BATMAN AND ROBIN.
Regardless, it’s stupid for the fans to root against any genre movie that isn’t BATMAN AND ROBIN.
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Or anything directed by Uwe Boll.
“Or anything directed by Uwe Boll.”
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I thought Rampage was a genuinely good movie. I was shocked.
Jason M. Bryant: Boots are worn by construction workers and cowboys, so that doesn’t work so well, either.
Luigi Novi: I had no idea that I was a fascist every time I went outside to shovel the snow in front of my house.
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I was also unaware that superheroes “march around”.
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Peter David: I tend to think you’re right: He was likely speaking out of anger because the fans have been so relentlessly negative.
Luigi Novi: Maybe. But then perhaps he should’ve directed his ire at them, instead of the imagery from which his own film is derived, since his characters wear masks and boots too.
I think it’s shortsighted to blame all of comics fandom for the vitriol of it’s noisiest, most cynical members. I mean come on, by now everyone must know that talkback threads on movie/comic sites are a haven for the worst type of downbeat naysayers who get their jollies by deriding any potential creative endeavor by anyone as utter crap. This is in part inspired by the anonymous nature of online commentary, but it’s also abetted by the fact that comics fandom is pretty insular, and is used to outside elements completely disrespecting beloved concepts.
In Gondry’s case, didn’t his anger stem from people walking out of a Comic-Con showing of his film? In which case they HAD seen the finished product and their response was an honest one; to call comics fans fascists for not liking his film or its treatment of the Green Hornet seems a bit childish. Oh, and I think it’s clear from the article the quote appears in that by “normal people” Gondry means “non-comics fans.”
The “proof” reminds me of the false cause-and-effect relationship that used to be applied to DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: “He played D&D, and later in life he did something bad, therefore D&D is to blame!” As someone pointed out, since D&D came out most people played it at least once, so using that as proof of anything is quite tenuous. I’d bet all serial killers have drank milk, probably for years if not their whole lives, but that doesn’t mean drinking milk causes serial killing, even if it is a common factor among the killers.
(Incidentally, does anyone else find it sad and ironic that after weeks of back-and-forth arguing that Jared Lee Loughner (sic?) wasn’t inspired by rhetoric or the media to go on his shooting spree, some news stories ran that suggested video games were to blame for his rampage? Apparently that whole “personal responsibility” thing is once again off the table…)
Well, some of that is fear, too. People want there to be a formula that creates these psychopaths so that, if only they deprive their kids of the ingrediants, their kids will turn out to be healthy, well adjusted adults and not psycho killers. It is not particularly comforting to tell the public that sociopathy and mental illness don’t always ahve any specific cause, and can hit, well, anyone really. It’s true, but not comforting. People looking for easy answers will latch on to any old scapegoat that comes along, be it comics or video games or what have you. I’ll bet Loughner wore underwear, right? I’ll bet most, if not all, serial killers wore underwear too. Y’all can see where I’m going with this…
Gray64 said, “People looking for easy answers will latch on to any old scapegoat that comes along, be it comics or video games or what have you.”
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Along similar lines, there was an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam leaped into Lee Harvey Oswald. Al believed Kennedy was not killed by a lone gunman, but was assassinated as part of a conspiracy, and felt sure this leap would prove that. However, as more time went on, he began to re-evaluate that belief. At one point he told Gushie something like, “it’s easy to believe in conspiracy theories, because if one nut can kill Kennedy, what chance to the rest of us have?” I’d have to watch the episode again to get the exact quote.
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I suspect that had Oswald gone to trial, there would still have been those who would have believed in a conspiracy, regardless of whether Oswald would have plead guilty or not guilty; and if he’d plead guilty, regardless of whether he said he’d acted alone. They wouldn’t want to accept that one man could have been able to kill the president.
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I’m no expert on the Kennedy assassination, but as I understand it, no one knows exactly why Oswald shot him. True, it may have something to do with Oswald’s political leanings; but it could also have had to do with the fact that he just wanted to kill someone important, so he could feel important. Or maybe he’d been aiming at Connolly. Doubtful, but I suppose it’s possible.
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Whatever the case, if Oswald had been apolitical, I’m sure the pundits of the time (and ever since) would have sought an “answer” in his choice of hobbies (past or present), what he read (or didn’t read), what sort of music he listened to (or didn’t), TV shows he watched (or didn’t), etc.
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As to Wertham, unfortunately his “methodology” will probably always be with us. I suspect that Wertham only saw what he wanted to see, and wasn’t acting out of deliberate malice. But he’s not that far removed from those who do or would. As the Doctor said in “The Face of Evil”, “You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.”
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Rick
You make an excellent point! A few of them, in fact. Most of the people I’ve met who say they don’t like Superman say it’s because they think he’s too “goody-goody.” I just seems really sad to me when people can’t understand altruism. They get Batman just fine, as they feel he’s out for revenge (I’ve always felt Batman’s out to keep other’s from suffering the same tragedy he did, but that’s me). It calls to mind an episode from the Simpsons where Homer’s a papparazzi, and he ends the episode by dressing down Springfield’s celebrities, and schooling them on how they can improve their behavior. One of the things he says is “support a charity that benefits a cause that doesn’t effect you or a family memeber personally”. Too bad so many people can’t understand a superhero fighting crime when crime hasn’t effected him personally.
Sorry…the above was in response to Rene’s post. Seems I hit the wrong button.
Thanks, Gray64.
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Strangely enough, I think it’s many times a biological phenomenon. Most people go through a phase in their lives when they’re insecure in their place in the world, and like to challenge conventions. Any conventions.
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As I got older and mostly associate with older people, I don’t find that kind of sharp-edged cynicism as much.