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Mar. 25th, 2008 05:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrAn article on comic books and censorship back in the day. Excerpt:
“It is my opinion,” Wertham told the senators and the cameras, “without any reasonable doubt and without any reservation, that comic books are an important contributing factor in many cases of juvenile delinquency.” The child most likely to be influenced by comic books, he said, is the normal child; morbid children are less affected, “because they are wrapped up in their own fantasies.” Comic books taught children racism and sadism—“Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry,” he said. In his book, he said that “Batman” comics were homoerotic and that “Wonder Woman” was about sadomasochism. He was even critical of “Superman” comics: “They arouse in children fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing other people punished over and over again while you yourself remain immune,” he testified. “We have called it the Superman complex.”
The Horror: Congress Investigates the Comic Book
“It is my opinion,” Wertham told the senators and the cameras, “without any reasonable doubt and without any reservation, that comic books are an important contributing factor in many cases of juvenile delinquency.” The child most likely to be influenced by comic books, he said, is the normal child; morbid children are less affected, “because they are wrapped up in their own fantasies.” Comic books taught children racism and sadism—“Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry,” he said. In his book, he said that “Batman” comics were homoerotic and that “Wonder Woman” was about sadomasochism. He was even critical of “Superman” comics: “They arouse in children fantasies of sadistic joy in seeing other people punished over and over again while you yourself remain immune,” he testified. “We have called it the Superman complex.”
The Horror: Congress Investigates the Comic Book
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Date: 2008-03-25 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 06:18 pm (UTC)Toodles! I'm off to get me some Batman comics!
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Date: 2008-03-26 09:36 am (UTC)Congress held televised hearings on what was described as the link between comics and juvenile delinquency… In 1954, comic-book publishers adopted a code that banned the words “terror” and “horror” and declared that “policemen, judges, government officials and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority.”