In Memory of Dr. Wertham - SOTI Images to Corrupt Our Youth

[Sqeggs]

That didn't prove any more successful than those who've endeavored to rehabilitate his reputation.

 

To my mind, there are two issues:

 

1. The particulars of Wertham and SOTI

 

2. The more general movement, of which Wertham was a part, to reign in the over-the-top PCH and crime content

 

Even without Wertham, 2. would have existed. He didn't conjure a movement out of nowhere; that many parents would have objected to PCH and crime comics seems perfectly understandable to me. They would have made their views known even if SOTI had never been written.

[Cat-Man_America]

That didn't prove any more successful than those who've endeavored to rehabilitate his reputation.

 

To my mind, there are two issues:

 

1. The particulars of Wertham and SOTI

 

2. The more general movement, of which Wertham was a part, to reign in the over-the-top PCH and crime content

 

Even without Wertham, 2. would have existed. He didn't conjure a movement out of nowhere; that many parents would have objected to PCH and crime comics seems perfectly understandable to me. They would have made their views known even if SOTI had never been written.

 

[font:Times New Roman]

Points taken.

 

Undoubtably there was a movement fueled by both reasoned concerns and irrational fears among parents groups, civic organizations and churches to curb the influence of comics on young minds. The comic reform movement was a carryover from similar concerns in the 1920s & '30s about sex scandals in Hollywood that led to an overzealous clean up the film industry via the Hayes Office. In the mid-1950's television violence would also come under the critical eye of social reformers seeking legislative action, but the popularity of the new medium inspired Congressional restraint. Comics, OTOH, were low-hanging fruit.

 

In respect to the CCA, sex and violence in comics was an outgrowth of the sensational pulp era, many periodical publishers building their comics lines on that foundation. It's worth noting that comic readership has always included both children and adults (including soldiers), reading level notwithstanding. After the war the target demographic expanded as comic publishers tried all kinds of thematic tweaks to accommodate changing civilian tastes and age groups. It was during this peace-time resettlement that well-intentioned reformers also saw their opportunity to whip the masses into a pitch-fork carrying mob ready to burn this misunderstood four-color Frankenstein without a fair hearing.

 

In many ways the Hayes Office had a similar impact to the CCA in that it's arbitrary industry cleansing guidelines chipped away adult sophistication in the name of universally acceptable family fare (tossing clever, thought provoking ideas out with the bath water). One side effect of hand-cuffing film studios with arbitrary guidelines was that it forced filmmakers to rely on morality based themes and water down or veil controversial topics until a more enlightened age-appropriate guideline system developed in the 1960's replacing the outmoded one-size-fits-all Hayes code. It's just too bad that the CCA wasn't designed along those same lines. It might've saved at least some of the PCH publishers from ruin.

 

IMO, once folks start down the road to censorship it's a slippery slope that stifles intellectual thought. [/font]

[Sarg]

wertham was a quack. i think he read to much freud or was a perv in his own. im reading "The Ten Cent Plague" right now. about a quarter of the way through. some pretty interesting history in it. if anyones interested in this time in the history of comics i highly suggest it.

 

Most of the people who vilify Wertham thus have never read SOTI or tried to understand him in the context of his times. That he appears to have been the only adult medical professional in America who actually read comics and took them seriously shows, to me, an astonishing level of neglect, but pretty typical of the "laissez-faire" approach to child raising in this country.

 

It's pretty hard to defend the picture section of SOTI.

 

Had Wertham limited his criticism to just crime and horror, he would have had a more effective case. It's when he attacks Classics Illustrated, funny animal, and superhero books that he sounds like a fanatic who wants to paint ALL comic books with the same broad brush. That comics could be an art form was beyond his comprehension, but this was a common prejudice at the time.

 

The comics publishers are equally to blame for their demise. As Wallace Wood once said about Gaines and Feldstein, they knew they were going too far, but it was like they couldn't help themselves.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]I've read SOTI and other books contemporaneous with it that denounce comics publishers participation in the popular trends of horror, erotic and crime literature. I have no compunction about condemning the scientific research Wertham theoretically conducted and relied upon to make his case against sex and violence in comics as much of it has been exposed as fraudulent (see link below).

 

http://corabuhlert.com/2013/02/12/fredric-wertham-not-so-innocent-but-actually-a-fraud/

 

There is growing evidence that Fredric Wertham used the popularity of horror and crime comics to promote a book based on false claims and shoddy research. His real goal wasn't reform, it was achieving fame and financial rewards from national publicity. In linking the reading of comic books to juvenile delinquency Wertham went after low-hanging fruit. It was an easy target for a hustler seeking public attention (think of professor Harold Hill in The Music Man) in the cold-war paranoia of 1950's America.

 

Furthermore, SOTI's photo section lacks context which call into question the reliability of any of his conclusions. Many of the edited images used were long out of date at the time SOTI was published and the inflammatory descriptions that Wertham employed were misleading. Therefore no defense is required.

 

The fact that Gaines and Feldstein pushed the envelope in a highly competitive genre doesn't excuse overreaction and an industry wide scape-goating by politicians, church and civic groups. Rubber-stamping CCA's oversight of the industry resulted in such extreme censorship that many publishers, including EC's lucrative lines, were put out of business. There was never any justification for it.

 

It's worth noting that in his later years Wertham tried to make amends by endorsing amateur fanzines as an innovative communication tool for interaction among fans of comics. He even wrote a book on the subject praising the new medium (I've read that one as well). But for all the efforts he made to rehabilitate his image Wertham is still seen as a pariah, reviled for almost destroying the very industry that gave rise to fandom.

 

For many folks in the comic community, Wertham is beyond redemption and will never be forgiven. Food for thought.[/font] (thumbs u

 

 

Pretty much the stereotypical boilerplate reaction to Wertham. No attempt whatsoever to try to understand him in the context of his times, or engage with his criticisms, just predictable "comic fan" ad hominems.

 

"His real goal wasn't reform, it was achieving fame and financial rewards from national publicity."

 

And you know this how? Have you uncovered the Secret Diaries of Wertham? SOTI wasn't a bestseller. He kept his day job in the Harlem clinic.

 

[font:Times New Roman]No offense, but did you not read the link I provided asserting the dubiousness of Wertham's research?

 

If you need scholarship closer to the source read this:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/books/flaws-found-in-fredric-werthams-comic-book-studies.html?hp&_r=2&

 

In the article you'll note that Michael Chabon tries to put a kinder, gentler face on Frederic Wertham's intentions, but other authors analysis of his ambitions are less generous.

 

I'd recommend reading David Hadju's The Ten Cent Plague...

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Cent-Plague-Comic-Book-Changed-America/dp/B004KAB5BE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378797717&sr=1-1&keywords=david+hadju

 

...then come back and take a shot at re-welding the boilerplate. (thumbs u

 

Sarcasm aside, I've had many serious, scholarly discussions about Frederic Wertham over the years and am old enough to have been a member of a club that the late doctor himself joined in an attempt to convince fans that he was hip to the culture. That didn't prove any more successful than those who've endeavored to rehabilitate his reputation.[/font]

 

I've read Hadju's book.

 

Is Tilley's paper itself available? The link just goes to a blog post that quotes a few paragraphs.

 

I did find this interesting:

 

"Her research turned up a few other surprises: about 30 letters written to Wertham and another 200 or so sent to the Senate subcommittee by children trying to save their access to comic books."

 

I know that Bhob Stewart wrote to Wertham -- Wertham mentioned that in a letter to Squa Tront. I would love to read his original letter, if it survived.

[Sarg]

It was on the basis of Tilley's revelations that I referred to Wertham as a "charlatan." I think a researcher who intentionally fudges his data deserves that label.

 

This quote from Chabon in the NYT article captures my own reaction to SOTI when I read it years ago: "You read the book, it just smells wrong. It’s clear he got completely carried away with his obsession, in an almost Ahab-like way.”

 

In a thread a few months ago we discussed the often unappreciated role of demographics in the evolution of the comics industry. I don't think it's a coincidence that Wertham gained traction and the CCA came in at the same time that the first wave of baby boom kids reached comic reading age.

 

I can just see Junior caging some change from Mom and trotting home from the corner drugstore with a copy of CSS 22.

 

Do you have access to Tilley's paper? Is it online?

[Sarg]

The NY Times article linked above links to a News Bureau Illinois article about Tilley and a link to the magazine she writes for, Information & Culture: A Journal of History, that doesn't have anything on it. I haven't found any links to her paper itself.

 

From the NY Times article:

 

"While Wertham has been criticized for decades by scholars and authors who say he vastly overstated the connection between comic books and criminal behavior, Dr. Tilley said, 'I don’t want to join the people who are trying to heap him onto some bonfire of how awful he was.'"

 

 

The News Bureau Illinois page has some good info.

 

"Within a few months, Tilley ... was digging through the dozens of boxes of “Seduction” files."

 

Dozens of boxes? Just on SOTI alone?

 

“From a contemporary standpoint, ‘Seduction’ is horribly written because it’s not documented,” she said. “There are no citations, no bibliography. He quotes a lot of people, refers to lots of things, but there’s no really good way of knowing what his basis is for any of this.”

 

Again, the key word here is "contemporary." It's irrelevant how SOTI fits into a current perspective. Any 1950s social science book is "horribly written" from a 2013 perspective. Tilley apparently is unaware that there was a bibliography in SOTI, and Wertham could have included citations, but those would have been irrelevant to the popular readership for whom the book was intended. The publisher's lawyers warned about being too specific about certain books or characters.

 

 

[Sarg]

That didn't prove any more successful than those who've endeavored to rehabilitate his reputation.

 

To my mind, there are two issues:

 

1. The particulars of Wertham and SOTI

 

2. The more general movement, of which Wertham was a part, to reign in the over-the-top PCH and crime content

 

Even without Wertham, 2. would have existed. He didn't conjure a movement out of nowhere; that many parents would have objected to PCH and crime comics seems perfectly understandable to me. They would have made their views known even if SOTI had never been written.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the Senate Subcommittee hearing was scheduled before SOTI came out. So there would have been hearings on crime/horror comics regardless.

They seem to have found the decapitation cover of Crime Suspenstories all by themselves.

[Cat-Man_America]

 

Again, the key word here is "contemporary." It's irrelevant how SOTI fits into a current perspective. Any 1950s social science book is "horribly written" from a 2013 perspective. Tilley apparently is unaware that there was a bibliography in SOTI, and Wertham could have included citations, but those would have been irrelevant to the popular readership for whom the book was intended. The publisher's lawyers warned about being too specific about certain books or characters.

 

 

[font:Times New Roman]Excusing shoddy scholarship on the basis of whether an author's work meets contemporary standards is a straw-man argument, IMO (apologies to Billy Parker). Whether SOTI was horribly written or well written doesn't improve the quality of the research.

 

The bottom line: if the facts he asserts were cooked (i.e., research misrepresented) in order for Wertham to make his case to the public, then SOTI can only be read as a work of fiction. My [/font]

[Sqeggs]

 

It's just too bad that the CCA wasn't designed along those same lines. It might've saved at least some of the PCH publishers from ruin.

 

I think that's a good point (I made it myself in an earlier post ). Comic publishers left themselves vulnerable by how out of step they had become with the content of other "family entertainment" venues -- e.g., films and television. By the early 1950s, the Hollywood production code had been in place for two decades and the television networks had "standards and practices" offices that were at least as strict.

 

Iirc, comic publishers did put together a code in the late 1940s but never enforced it. Rather similar, I think, to what happened in Hollywood where the Hayes Office was initially toothless until the production code actually began to be enforced in 1932/33, as a result -- I think -- of public pressure.

 

One other thought: I remember as a kid the period after the Hollywood production code had effectively broken down but before the MPAA ratings system was introduced. There were at least a couple of times when my preteen friends and I were turned away from the box office because the ticket sellers were enforcing (unstated) age restrictions on some films.

 

I wonder whether anything of the kind took place in the early 1950s at drug stores and newsstands? Would most places selling comics in 1954 have allowed 10-year old Johnny to buy a copy of CSS 22?

[rjpb]

I wonder whether anything of the kind took place in the early 1950s at drug stores and newsstands? Would most places selling comics in 1954 have allowed 10-year old Johnny to buy a copy of CSS 22?

 

I'm sure plenty did, and the concern about comics contributing to juvenile delinquency was as much about impressionable young teenagers as it was about younger kids.

 

While the early 70s was a much looser time, items we had no trouble purchasing at some corner stores in the suburban midwest when we were 13 or 14 included cigarettes and skin magazines, pretty much anything except beer. We also knew which movie theaters didn't enforce age prohibitions.

[Marty Mann]

I wonder whether anything of the kind took place in the early 1950s at drug stores and newsstands? Would most places selling comics in 1954 have allowed 10-year old Johnny to buy a copy of CSS 22?

 

I'm sure plenty did, and the concern about comics contributing to juvenile delinquency was as much about impressionable young teenagers as it was about younger kids.

 

While the early 70s was a much looser time, items we had no trouble purchasing at some corner stores in the suburban midwest when we were 13 or 14 included cigarettes and skin magazines, pretty much anything except beer. We also knew which movie theaters didn't enforce age prohibitions.

 

I know that during the early 50's I was unable to even find, let-alone buy any EC's

off the newsstand...they just didn't sell them. But I was able to put together a good

number of remainder copies that were available for 5-cents apiece at my corner cigar

and candy store. He kept them in a box behind the counter.

 

mm

[RareHighGrade]

Sarg,

 

If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you listen to Wertham's Senate Committee testimony, which is available on line. I was surprised to find that he sounded every bit like the biased zealot that his critics accused him of being.

[Jimmy Linguini]

Sarg,

 

If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you listen to Wertham's Senate Committee testimony, which is available on line. I was surprised to find that he sounded every bit like the biased zealot that his critics accused him of being.

 

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/neh-preservation-project/2012/aug/27/senate-subcommittee-juvenile-delinquency-ii/

[Sqeggs]

I wonder whether anything of the kind took place in the early 1950s at drug stores and newsstands? Would most places selling comics in 1954 have allowed 10-year old Johnny to buy a copy of CSS 22?

 

I'm sure plenty did, and the concern about comics contributing to juvenile delinquency was as much about impressionable young teenagers as it was about younger kids.

 

While the early 70s was a much looser time, items we had no trouble purchasing at some corner stores in the suburban midwest when we were 13 or 14 included cigarettes and skin magazines, pretty much anything except beer. We also knew which movie theaters didn't enforce age prohibitions.

 

You rascals!

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

I'm not sure if this has been posted or not but I happened to come across this audio link of one of the Kefauver hearings today. I haven't listened to it yet as it is over two hours but it looks to contain audio from William Gaines and Walt Kelly among other comic notables. Enjoy!

 

Kefauver Hearing

 

 

 

 

[Griff]

Thanks for that link !

[Griff]

I'm not sure if this has been posted or not but I happened to come across this audio link of one of the Kefauver hearings today. I haven't listened to it yet as it is over two hours but it looks to contain audio from William Gaines and Walt Kelly among other comic notables. Enjoy!

 

Kefauver Hearing

 

 

 

Thanks for that link ! \:\)

[Buzzetta]

Question for some of the SOTI collectors:

 

Have you guys seen any art or storyline in today's modern mainstream Marvel or DC comics (Not Marvel MAX) that you feel went over the top even in relation to society's changing views on sex and violence in the media.

 

SOTI is written in a time period where we never see Ricky and Lucy or Ralph and Alice snuggled up in bed with one another. Lucy is not even allowed by the network censors to use the word 'pregnant' on TV. Obviously, one look at today's TV programming demonstrates how todays criteria for what is acceptable has changed. However, have their been any comic book plot lines or artwork which takes it further than what is deemed acceptable at 10PM by today's standards.

 

The only thing I can possibly think of is the "girls in refrigerator" Green Lantern issue. I am not asking to address the question of whether or not violence portrayed in the media contributes to real life violence.

 

I am basically asking if today's 'shock value' is by the long time collector standards more shocking in comparison to what was deemed shocking by yesterday's standards.

 

 

[Triston Pence]

No doubt this GEM stirred up a little contraversy: