Seduction of the Innocent, Part 3

Originally published September 16, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1087

Well, I was wrong about something.

Unfortunately, my mistake is not something about which a lot of folks are going to be particularly pleased.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been discussing Seduction of the Innocent (the infamous anti-comics tract by Dr. Fredric Wertham) and the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in the United States—specifically, the subcommittee’s investigation into comics.

It has been said recently—by me and others—that the subcommittee, chaired by Estes Kefauver, vindicated comic books. That no casual connection was established between comics and juvenile delinquency, which was the chief assertion made by Wertham. That the Comics Code Authority was formed even though the subcommittee had cleared comics of any wrongdoing.

Uh uh.

I was given the original testimony from the 1950s hearings, as well as the March 14, 1995, “Interim Report” which was the Kefauver subcommittee’s findings. Report No. 62, part of the First Sessions of the 84^th Congress.

Even Wertham himself was cranky about the findings, further bolstering my initial understanding that comics were cleared of any culpability vis á vis juvenile delinquency. Not so. Oh, I now understand why Wertham was sour about the committee’s recommendations. Wertham, despite his posturing to the contrary, was a zealous advocate of censorship. So he was well and truly frustrated when in Section VII—“Where Should Responsibility for Policing Crime and Horror Comics Rest?”—the subcommittee “flatly reject(ed) all suggestions of governmental censorship as being totally out of keeping with our basic American concepts of a free press operation in a free land for a free people.”

Now of course, that much of an admission is something of a victory for comics publishers and supporters, then and down through the decades. At least there was some acknowledgement that comics were as entitled to First Amendment protection as any other printed matter.

But anyone who reads the 33-page opinion (plus appendix) and clings to that one sentence as exoneration of the horror and crime comics industry is indulging in self-delusion. Particularly considering that the aforementioned is the sixth paragraph in the section. The first paragraph, which sets the tone for the entire thing, reads as follows:

The subcommittee believes that this Nation cannot afford the calculated risk involved in the continued mass dissemination of crime and horror comic books to children.

Saying that the government should not get involved in the censoring of comics was not an endorsement of comics or even a resounding clanging of the bell of freedom. It was simply the first item in the subcommittee’s laundry list of who should be taking responsibility for subject matter that—the subcommittee made quite clear—it found appalling. This was no pat on the publishers’ heads, telling them to go off and have a good time. The decision was—as you will see—a resounding slap on the publishers’ wrists and a warning that they had a responsibility not to pollute the youth of America with “materials offered for children’s reading that fall below the American standard of decency by glorifying crime, horror, and sadism.”

Ultimately, the subcommittee placed the responsibility for self-regulation squarely on the publishers. The argument could very easily be made, then, that the CCA was in direct response to a tacit warning from the Kefauver subcommittee.

(Although, just to make it clear, I still stand firmly opposed to the CCA. I think the publishers should have told the subcommittee to kiss off rather than knuckle under to warnings, tacit or otherwise. But they were businessmen first, foremost, and only (with the exception of Bill Gaines, who charged into battle Quixote-like and was vilified for it), and their only interest was in getting back to Business as Usual. And if the CCA would allow that, then spiffy. And if it destroyed the outspoken Gaines’ Entertaining Comics, a.k.a. EC, well, then, so much the better. We’re coming up on the CCA’s 40^th anniversary. Pardon me if I don’t light candles.)

The subcommittee never cleared comics of any possible responsibility for juvenile delinquency. The closest it came was to note that “(s)urveying the work that has been done on the subject, it appears to be the consensus of the experts that comic-book reading is not the cause of emotional maladjustment in children. Although comic-book reading can be a symptom of maladjustment, the emotionally disturbed child because of abnormal needs may show a greater tendency to read books of this kind than will the normal child.”

But the subcommittee quickly went on to say, “There can be little question that research is much needed on these problems. If we are to fully understand the impact of crime and horror comic books upon the behavior of normal and emotionally disturbed children, a broad program of research much be undertaken and means for its support provided.” In other words, the subcommittee summarized a majority opinion without strongly endorsing it and recommended further study with possible causal connections of comic books as one of the aspects.

Most telling was the conclusion, which was as follows:

…the subcommittee wishes to reiterate its belief that this country cannot afford the calculated risk involved in feeding its children, through comic books, a concentrated diet of crime, horror, and violence. There was substantial, although not unanimous, agreement among the experts that there may be detrimental and delinquency-producing effects upon both the emotionally disturbed child and the emotionally normal delinquent. Children of either type may gain suggestion, support, and sanction from reading crime and horror comics.

…It is during childhood that the individual’s concepts of right and wrong and his reactions to society’s standards are largely developed. Those responsible for the operation of every form of the mass media of communication, including comic books, which cater to the education of entertainment of children have, therefore, a responsibility to gear their products to these special considerations.

Standards for such products, whether in the form of a code or by the policies of individual producers, should not be aimed to eliminate only that which can be proved beyond doubt to demoralize youth. Rather the aim should be to eliminate all materials that potentially exert detrimental effects.

…The subcommittee notes with some surprise that little attention has been paid by educational and welfare agencies to the potential dangers, as well as benefits, to children presented by the growth of the comic book industry… The campaign against juvenile delinquency cannot be won by anything less than an all-out attack upon all conditions contributing to the problem.

The interest of our young citizens would not be served by postponing all precautionary measures until the exact kind and degree of influence exerted by comic books upon children’s behavior is fully determined through careful research…

In the meantime, the welfare of this Nation’s young makes it mandatory that all concerned unite in supporting sincere efforts of the industry to raise the standards of its products and in demanding adequate standards of decency and good taste. Nor should these united efforts be relaxed in the face of momentary gains. Continuing vigilance is essential in sustaining this effort.

The subcommittee concludes with a promise to issue a further report about other media which “will have further bearing upon the problem of crime and horror comics.” I haven’t read that one yet but I am extremely skeptical that the subcommittee reversed its findings and declared, “Aw, the heck with it. Go buy your kids a subscription to Crime Does Not Pay. It’ll do ’em a world of good.”

The 1950s and the comics hearings were, indeed, a wild and terrifying time for comics publishers. There were the detractors, like Wertham. There were the supporters, such as Gaines. And Dr. Lauretta Bender, Senior Psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, employed for the princely sum of $150 a month by National Publications (DC Comics) as an advisor.

Dr. Bender credited children with being able to pick and choose the images they discerned from comics (as opposed to, say, being uncontrollably compelled to commit criminal acts as a consequence of them) and considered Disney films to be more dangerous, claiming, “The mothers are always killed or sent to the insane asylums in Walt Disney’s movies.”

Actually, I had to think long and hard to figure out what she was talking about. I mean, obviously, Bambi’s mother was killed, but—insane asylum? Then I realized. She had to be referring to Dumbo’s mother being put in a cage with the sign “Mad Elephant” as being locked in an insane asylum. That’s a stretch.

In truth, publishers could have done better than Bender as a defender; she was more of a fender bender. Particularly considering, as BID reader Leonard pointed out in a paper on the topic, Bender also offered the notion that children were not damaged by sexual encounters with adults and that, indeed, it could even be a positive experience. Uh, gee, thanks for those words of wisdom, Lauretta. We’ll get back to you on that.

So.

What have we learned, boys and girls?

When all is said and done, the argument still boils down to this: Do comics affect children?

The answer is: Of course they do. What a silly question.

“Oh, my God!” scream protectors of children. “Then we must do something about it immediately!”

There’s a couple of problems with this.

You see, a brouhaha about whether comics affect children come from a wild adult conceit: the notion that children are vulnerable to various stimuli and must be singled out for protection.

As if adults are impervious to influence.

If that were the case, Madison Avenue would have folded up its tent, and advertising would have collapsed, long ago.

How many women wore pillbox hats before Jackie Kennedy? How many wore them after?

Everybody is influenced by everything, all the time.

To try to say—as some comics defenders did—that children are not affected by comics is to hold an unreal position. Why should children be any more exempt from influence than their parents?

That’s why any protests that children cannot possibly be influenced by the stories they’d read in horror comics never rang true. If one says that no child will ever act in imitative behavior of some horrific deed he or she sees in a comic book, then one kidding oneself. A child might, indeed, see someone get rammed through the eye with a needle and then run out and do the same to another child.

But the question becomes: Would the comic book prompt a child who would not do such a thing under any other circumstances to take such an action? Wertham said yes; I say no.

I say that children are a lot brighter than people give them credit for. I say that children, who routinely straddle the lines of fantasy and reality, are eminently capable of distinguishing between the two. And that if a child were genetically or societally of a mind to mutilate a fellow child, it wouldn’t take a comic book to teach him how. Cain didn’t need to read Thrilling Bible Stories to know how to kill Abel.

The focus on children and comics is, ultimately, a waste of time. Focus instead on the influence of the written word (or printed images) on humanity as a whole, and you will quickly see the hopelessness of trying to regulate word, thought, and deed.

Take Catcher in the Rye. To most teenagers, the disaffected Holden Caulfield was a symbol of teen angst and frustration. His dismissal of almost everyone as a phony said to the majority of readers that their own sense of isolation and impatience was not unique to them. They took security in Salinger’s anti-hero.

When the authorities arrived at the Dakota to scrape the remains of John Lennon into an ambulance, Lennon’s assailant was found at the scene, calmly leaning against a lamppost and reading a paperback book—a book that he cited as a primary influence on his life: Catcher in the Rye.

So do we get rid of Catcher in the Rye in hopes of protecting George, Paul, and Ringo?

How many people have read the Bible and taken solace in it?

On the other hand how many people have died because of what others read in the Bible? How many people have died in the name of God? If a guest at a Best Western snaps and blows away a desk clerk shouting “Jesus loves me!” would a subcommittee recommend the banning of Gideon Bibles?

How far do we take it?

Ultimately, we’re afraid of ideas. To paraphrase the NRA: Ideas don’t kill people. People kill people.

We find ideas and philosophies perfectly tolerable, as long as we think they won’t hurt us. But humans are an extremely paranoid race, and we fear that which might wind up injuring us in some way, shape, or form.

That’s why the founding fathers put in the First Amendment—because they realized how all-consuming and frightening that paranoia can be.

“What are we afraid of?” Bill Gaines demanded of the subcommittee. “Are we afraid of our own children?”

No, Mr. Gaines. Not quite.

We’re afraid of ourselves.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, is writing this at a Best Western, and at this very moment the Gideon Bible is saying, “Kill someone in my name.” Then again, the desk lamp is singing “La Bamba.” I gotta cut back on the caffeine.)