For over half a one C , the comical record industriousness has been dogged by the workplace of one human , the anti - comics reformist and psychiatrist Fredric Wertham . His bestselling 1954 book The Seduction of the Innocent convinced parents and politicians alike that comics were a direct drive of ferocity , drug use , and homosexuality among young people . It led tothe restrictive editorial code issued by the Comics Magazine Association of America , and a national front to keep comic away from youngster and teens .
Though Wertham claimed his evidence came from thousands of eccentric studies , it move around out that he was lying . A new investigation of Wertham ’s papers byUniversity of Illinoisinformation studies professorCarol Tilleyhas divulge that the head-shrinker fabricated , enlarged , and selectively edited his data point to bolster his line that comics get antisocial behavior . Here is what Tilley discovered , and why it still matters today .
publish last workweek inInformation & Culture , Tilley ’s work is based on unprecedented approach to 200 cartons of Wertham ’s individual papers at the Library of Congress , which were under sealskin until 2010 . Over a period of close to two hebdomad , Tilley pored over everything from Wertham ’s commensurateness with fellow to the extremely detailed notes he kept on interview and sessions with the stripling he worked with throughout most of his life . It was when she started reading these notes that Tilley realise that there were some pretty big variant between what Wertham show in them , and what he compose in Seduction of the Innocent .
What ’s touching about Wertham ’s situation is that he had been a tireless advocate for inadequate and marginalise child his whole spirit . Most of the research he did for conquest was at Lafargue Clinic in Harlem — the first psychological clinic in the country — which Wertham set up at the urging of the keep African American author Richard Wright . He authentically believed that the underprivileged shaver he worked with were being cook into offense by violent and sexual images in comics .
Like many of his fellow anti - comedian crusaders , Wertham was in particular incensed by adult crime funnies of the era , which often fell into children ’s hands . recall , the late 1940s and former fifty , when he research Seduction , came decently before the rise of television . At that time , as Tilley compose , “ more than 90 percent of nipper and more than 80 pct of teens in the United States read comics , often avidly . ”
Wertham was all too glad to fault these comics for violence and other issue his clinic do by , including what Tilley characterize as “ ‘ unwanted habits ’ ( e.g. , masturbation and nightmares ) , ‘ personality trait ’ ( e.g. , castle in the air and restlessness ) , and ‘ undesirable behavior ’ ( for instance , hooky and noncompliance ) . ” These children were troubled , but few suffered from what we ’d call genial sickness today .
Some of Wertham ’s case study , however , turned out to be stories he ’d heard 2d - hand from fellow worker . A famous anecdote about a teen identify Dorothy who was obsessed with Sheena was actually cobble together out of what he ’d get word about the girl from another doctor . Writes Tilley :
harmonise to the book and the case notes , Dorothy read jungle comics with strong females like Sheena as well as criminal offense comics , including Penalty , which she regret never showed the criminals bring away with their crimes . Wertham quoted Dorothy saying about hobo camp comics , “ I like to see the way they jump up and kick Man down and kill them ! . . . Sheena get a large hobo camp she lives in and multitude down there wish her and would do anything for her . ”
In the case notes , Wertham commented that the range of a function of strong woman reinforced “ violent retaliation fancy against men and mayhap make these violent anti - men ( therefore homosexual ) phantasy . . . . Sheena and the other comic book cleaning lady such as Wonder Woman are very bad ideals for them . ” Yet Wertham omits from Seduction — and on the face of it from his analytic thinking — a revealing floor about Dorothy ’s everyday reality . In the case notes , she related an incident in which her aunt was accost by gang appendage , taken to a rooftop , and soak of less than one dollar . Wertham also declined to mention in Seduction that Dorothy — in addition to being habitually truant - was a runaway and a gang member , was sexually alive , and had both a reading disability and dispirited normal intelligence . On the final Sir Frederick Handley Page of Dorothy ’s casing notes , Wertham or else wrote : “ She would be good and non - aggressive if society would let her — Comic Books are part of bon ton . ”
Wertham invariably omitted relevant item about these kids ’ lives .
In another celebrated passage from Seduction , Wertham evoke that Batman and Robin inspire homosexuality in young proofreader who identify with Robin . As grounds , he bid the history of a young man who translate Batman and basically became festal afterward . Not surprisingly , the realness was more complicated . Tilley write :
As part of his evidence for this identification , Wertham shared the insights of a young homosexual man who state , “ I think I put myself in the position of Robin . I did want to have relations with Batman . ”
The young man from the anecdote was really two men , ages sixteen and seventeen , who had been in a sexual family relationship with one another for several year and had realize they were homosexual by the age of ten . Wertham combined their statements , bomb to indicate that the seventeen - yr - old is the one who observe , “ The only suggestion of homosexualism may be that they seemed to be so close to each other , ” and leave out the phrase that followed , “ like my Quaker and I. ”
Further , Wertham did not make any mention that the two teens had find the Submariner and Tarzan to be expert issue than Batman and Robin for their former titillating fantasies .
In another slip , Wertham charge Batman funnies for the “ homosexual ” crimes of a boy who had piddle in another male child ’s mouth . What he go out out was the fact that the male child had previously been raped by the boy he attack . He also left out that the boy was actually a much bigger lover of Superman than Batman .
When it came to violence inspired by comics , however , Wertham ’s greatest source was a 15 - year - old work party member named Carlisle . Wertham had carefully transcribe at least 15 pages of interview transcripts with Carlisle , and in the process of save Seduction injure up attributing Carlisle ’s words to a successiveness of fabricated new hoi polloi . He ’s split into two different boys in one section , and later Carlisle ’s watchword regain their way into the mouths of two more boys , ages 13 and 14 . So one informant became four . This is part of a general rule where Wertham hyperbolize the scope of his research . Though he testified to the Senate that he ’d examined 500 untried people per year for class , the archival evidence shows that for the 10 geezerhood he worked at the Harlem clinic , only 500 citizenry under 17 were admit .
Tilley also come up grounds in the Library of Congress paper that Wertham ’s observance that he ’d check children “ vomit over mirthful books ” was actually taken from a study from the psychiatrist ’s admirer , the folklorist Gershon Legman . Wertham also lay claim in Seduction that he ’d seen comics for sale to children in stores where cocotte peddled their wares . This was really from a story given to him by his colleague Hilde Mosse ; Wertham never witnessed any sporting lady at amusing book shop .
Though the extent of Wertham ’s lies and exaggeration is only now coming to light , his work has do under mistrust before . Even in the 1950s , critic questioned his research method acting — and the psychiatrist was make out for his snippy replies . Writes Tilley :
When the executive editor of Woman ’s Home Companion wrote to inquire about the source of Wertham ’s evidence for an anecdote in Seduction that featured the magazine , his response was a single , teasing judgment of conviction : “ I ’m terribly sorry you have n’t keep open your record book because , as you well know , a Dr. is not at impropriety to give away his generator . ”
The repudiation of Wertham , many decades after the damage he did with Seduction of the Innocent , should serve as a warning . Today , many crusaders make the same claims about videogames that Wertham did about comics . Violence and drug use are routinely blame on gaming , in part because of the former “ research ” that Wertham did . But now we know that Wertham buried evidence that his subjects were often violent and sexual long before they read comedian . And more importantly , they suffered from societal and ethnic disadvantage that no doubt contributed far more to their troubles than Batman did .
In e-mail , Tilley tell me that she hop more scholars will go back to Wertham ’s report now that they are available :
I would encourage scholars with greater profoundness in psychological science / psychopathology / social oeuvre to examine what ’s available in Wertham ’s papers , as I cogitate they ’ll aid shed a lot of spark on historical practice . My main goal at this point is to utilise the materials to avail support my current project examine kid ’s comedian version ; in particular I desire to reclaim some of the interpreter of the millions of fry who read comic during the forties and 1950s .
Looking to the future , let ’s hope we do n’t make the same mistake that hoi polloi did in 1950s America . fury among untested people is n’t triggered by comics or videogames ; it ’s make by a complicated array of factors , not least of which is the violent beau monde that surrounds them . And alas , we ca n’t pick Batman for that . We have to take responsibility for it ourselves .
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