Why does this guy’s ramblings matter and why this chapter specifically? Because the complaints being made against comics were also being made against video games, with people demanding government take action often by people who didn’t know what they were talking about. The Jack Thompsons and Joe Libermans of video games were the Fredric Werthams and Sterling Halloways of comics. When a new medium comes along kids will favor the new thing but eventually older people see the potential for entertainment in it, so the creators try to cater to older audiences. But then you have the real old audiences who see this as an affront to what they kids should be doing.
And I’m not against sending the kids outside to play when it’s a beautiful day out, but I still see ads where video games always looks like the bad thing do to. The only ads I’ve seen where kids and their parents and grandparents play video games together were ads for the Nintendo Wii and Wii U, since Nintendo was looking at people who grew up with games and their kids. Rare is the ad with dad and son playing together that isn’t selling video games and even rarer with the grandparents. There’s an instant dislike to media we didn’t grow up with and someday something else will come along like comics, television, or video games that will either be written off as a fad or declared the enemies of children, and the government will be forced by their constituents to “do something about the problem”. For the children of course, but it’s really just “get rid of that newfangled thing”.
Hopefully the last time we’ll be doing this chapter.
Chapter By Chapter Special: Seduction Of The Innocent ch. 12 part 5
I have to keep reminding myself there’s only two chapters left.
Thus far we have seen that Dr. Wertham is a literary snob and that it has affected his view on comics and the rights of the publisher. And I would agree to keep the more violent and vulgar comics out of the hands of kids but when he’s lumping so many comics under his “crime comics” banner it’s hard to take him seriously. The only comic he likes is not a comic but an illustrated book. He still thinks Superman is a Nazi icon created by two Jewish men over a decade before Hitler’s rise to power. And he keep beating the same messages into the readers head to make sure you see his perspective and only his perspective.
We’re still on the subject of “dealing” with comics legally. Wertham actually suggested putting the more violent and “naughty” comics where kids won’t see them but adults will. And yet he would include Wonder Woman among those ranks because the only one he’s seen sitting with her at the breakfast table is another woman so of course they’re lesbians because….reasons. And yet kids are still getting their hands on the comics even Wertham’s supposed defenders of comics would agree is pornography. So I don’t know what Wertham wants besides “get rid of comics and read a book”, which means I probably answered my own question. Let’s try to finish this chapter today, shall we?
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 22, 2017 in Comic Spotlight, Seduction Of The Innocent and tagged book review, Chapter By Chapter, commentary, Dr. Fredric Wertham, Seduction Of The Innocent.
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