14 ms·

Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency (1955)

55 points by uniqueid 5y ago

blakesterz 5y ago
Really interesting stuff from other places on what's a pretty darn interesting topic... There's a nicer site from The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/congress-investigates/comic-books-and-juvenile-delinquency https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/congress-investi... A wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Subcommittee_on_Juvenile_Delinquency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Subcommit... And a longer read from The New Yorker with some interesting details: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/the-horror https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/the-horror And entire series from Comic Book Legal Defense Fund an comics censorship: http://cbldf.org/resources/history-of-comics-censorship/history-of-comics-censorship-part-1/ http://cbldf.org/resources/history-of-comics-censorship/hist...
- uniqueid 5y ago
  There's also an interesting essay about the Canadian 'Fulton Bill' here (via the last site you linked): 'Crime Comics Still Illegal in Canada' http://cbldf.org/2016/05/crime-comics-still-illegal-in-canada http://cbldf.org/2016/05/crime-comics-still-illegal-in-canad...
- tkgally 5y ago
  Transcripts of the hearings are at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/juveniledelinque54unit/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/juveniledelinque54unit/page/n5/m...
anm89 5y ago
Serious people doing serious stuff. There's a lot of them these days as well.
throwaway9561 5y ago
Maybe comic books didn't lead to delinquency but they sure led to something far worse. A non-stop stream of terrible Marvel movies and TV shows that seem to be mandatory viewing for everyone if you wanna be able to have a conversation with people nowadays
- the_doctah 5y ago
  They aren't all terrible. Black Widow is. Loki isn't.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Haven't seen Black Widow yet (I'm getting "wait 'till it's free" vibes), but opinions of Loki are... not universally good. I, for one, was skeptical about the other two shows and ended up loving both except for the last episodes (which was still OK for Wandavision, but outright bad in F&WS), while Loki was the one I was most interested in, but I've spent almost the whole time furrow-browed thinking "how is this so bad? How? Why did they make that choice? Why is this scene still going on?" What's best and what's worst in Marvel tends to draw opinions that are all over the place, excepting that rarely does anyone rank the two Guardians movies near the bottom. Like Star Wars, I guess. You can get rankings that are wildly different, except for a few things (almost no-one is going to rank Empire very low, and almost no-one is going to rank AOTC higher than the middle, for instance).
- teekert 5y ago
  You have the wrong friends ;)
- apocalypstyx 5y ago
  That's because events such as these (and subsequently the comics code authority) made it legally and financially nonviable to do anything but spandex comics for kids. Before that, the contents of comics was as varied as the films and pulp fiction of the time. Imagine if during the time of the Hays Code people were burning celluloid in the streets (look up public comic book burnings) and as a reaction studios made nothing but Laurel and Hardy and Ma and Pa Kettle films and it wasn't until the 80s that any kind of adult film-making re-emerged in the mainstream in any substantial way.
technothrasher 5y ago
"Standards for such products, whether in the form of a code of[sic] 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." Sounds like a job for the records department at the Ministry of Truth.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Didn't read the report, but it's always the same cycle: New tech creates a new medium for expression. Young people get obsessed about it, as they do. Older people get offended and think it's threatening the foundations of society, as we do. 2-3 decades later, what was new and dangerous is the now the established sophisticated art, and the former youth is aghast at what current youth is doing.
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  It depends. Superhero comics are not on a path to becoming high culture, and I agree with that. Electronic music clubs are on a path to becoming high culture (recent law change in Germany), and I also agree with that.
  - domador 5y ago
    What was the recent law change in Germany?
    - ahartmetz 5y ago
      In city planning, clubs will be classified in the same group as theaters and operas. They were previously in the same group as brothels and gambling joints. https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/clubkultur-ist-kultur-100.html https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/club...
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    I suppose it depends on how you define "high culture," but when Disney is making Marvel Cinematic Universe movies grossing past $2.7 billion, I think it's fair to say superhero comics have become something.
    - stronglikedan 5y ago
      I'd wager a very small percentage of the moviegoers have ever even seen a comic featuring their favorite movie superheroes, much less picked one up and read it.
candiodari 5y ago
It's funny how people never learn. There are 2000+ year old texts complaining about how youth's "inability" to obey their parents, and wearing Toga's "halfway" (whatever that means), will destroy the future of everyone.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Ah, the 300 BC equivalent of rebuckling your knickerbockers BELOW the knee. Scandalous!
  - m_myers 5y ago
    Is he starting to memorize jokes from Centurion Vilhelmus's Whiz Bang?
    - neonnoodle 5y ago
      Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words...like... edema
- ardit33 5y ago
  Yes... and pants were banned in Rome for a while, because it was mostly Germanic people wearing them at the time, and it was a mark of the fall of the civilization. It is like banning sneakers because there is a certain group that is wearing them.... and then retroactively find the excuse to why sneakers are not classy, etc... yet some of them cost a lot, and proper tennis shows look great.
- the-dude 5y ago
  Could you please list your sources? Because the Plato one is apocryphal ( and actually from last century ) : https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/
aj7 5y ago
Remarkable creativity. As a kid, I found Wertham’s book in a used bookstore. A plate in the book showed a grizzly baseball game. The catcher used a dismembered, decapitated torso as a chest protector.
awinter-py 5y ago
'misuse of mailing lists' section feels surprisingly modern
blairbeckwith 5y ago
If anyone is interested in this era of comic books and the society they bred, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is a smart, excellently written novel. It covers the comic book culture in NYC in WW2 and the years after, and covers a scenario very similar to this report.
anthk 5y ago
Heh, serendipity. Three days ago I began to read EC Comics compilation on Science Fiction.

55 points by uniqueid 5y ago

Really interesting stuff from other places on what's a pretty darn interesting topic... There's a nicer site from The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/congress-investigates/comic-books-and-juvenile-delinquency https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/congress-investi... A wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Subcommittee_on_Juvenile_Delinquency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Subcommit... And a longer read from The New Yorker with some interesting details: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/the-horror https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/31/the-horror And entire series from Comic Book Legal Defense Fund an comics censorship: http://cbldf.org/resources/history-of-comics-censorship/history-of-comics-censorship-part-1/ http://cbldf.org/resources/history-of-comics-censorship/hist...

uniqueid 5y ago
There's also an interesting essay about the Canadian 'Fulton Bill' here (via the last site you linked): 'Crime Comics Still Illegal in Canada' http://cbldf.org/2016/05/crime-comics-still-illegal-in-canada http://cbldf.org/2016/05/crime-comics-still-illegal-in-canad...
tkgally 5y ago
Transcripts of the hearings are at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/juveniledelinque54unit/page/n5/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/juveniledelinque54unit/page/n5/m...

anm89 5y ago

Serious people doing serious stuff. There's a lot of them these days as well.

throwaway9561 5y ago

Maybe comic books didn't lead to delinquency but they sure led to something far worse. A non-stop stream of terrible Marvel movies and TV shows that seem to be mandatory viewing for everyone if you wanna be able to have a conversation with people nowadays

the_doctah 5y ago
They aren't all terrible. Black Widow is. Loki isn't.
- handrous 5y ago
  Haven't seen Black Widow yet (I'm getting "wait 'till it's free" vibes), but opinions of Loki are... not universally good. I, for one, was skeptical about the other two shows and ended up loving both except for the last episodes (which was still OK for Wandavision, but outright bad in F&WS), while Loki was the one I was most interested in, but I've spent almost the whole time furrow-browed thinking "how is this so bad? How? Why did they make that choice? Why is this scene still going on?" What's best and what's worst in Marvel tends to draw opinions that are all over the place, excepting that rarely does anyone rank the two Guardians movies near the bottom. Like Star Wars, I guess. You can get rankings that are wildly different, except for a few things (almost no-one is going to rank Empire very low, and almost no-one is going to rank AOTC higher than the middle, for instance).
teekert 5y ago
You have the wrong friends ;)
apocalypstyx 5y ago
That's because events such as these (and subsequently the comics code authority) made it legally and financially nonviable to do anything but spandex comics for kids. Before that, the contents of comics was as varied as the films and pulp fiction of the time. Imagine if during the time of the Hays Code people were burning celluloid in the streets (look up public comic book burnings) and as a reaction studios made nothing but Laurel and Hardy and Ma and Pa Kettle films and it wasn't until the 80s that any kind of adult film-making re-emerged in the mainstream in any substantial way.

technothrasher 5y ago

"Standards for such products, whether in the form of a code of[sic] 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." Sounds like a job for the records department at the Ministry of Truth.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Didn't read the report, but it's always the same cycle: New tech creates a new medium for expression. Young people get obsessed about it, as they do. Older people get offended and think it's threatening the foundations of society, as we do. 2-3 decades later, what was new and dangerous is the now the established sophisticated art, and the former youth is aghast at what current youth is doing.

ahartmetz 5y ago
It depends. Superhero comics are not on a path to becoming high culture, and I agree with that. Electronic music clubs are on a path to becoming high culture (recent law change in Germany), and I also agree with that.
- domador 5y ago
  What was the recent law change in Germany?
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    In city planning, clubs will be classified in the same group as theaters and operas. They were previously in the same group as brothels and gambling joints. https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/clubkultur-ist-kultur-100.html https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/club...
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  I suppose it depends on how you define "high culture," but when Disney is making Marvel Cinematic Universe movies grossing past $2.7 billion, I think it's fair to say superhero comics have become something.
  - stronglikedan 5y ago
    I'd wager a very small percentage of the moviegoers have ever even seen a comic featuring their favorite movie superheroes, much less picked one up and read it.

candiodari 5y ago

It's funny how people never learn. There are 2000+ year old texts complaining about how youth's "inability" to obey their parents, and wearing Toga's "halfway" (whatever that means), will destroy the future of everyone.

bitwize 5y ago
Ah, the 300 BC equivalent of rebuckling your knickerbockers BELOW the knee. Scandalous!
- m_myers 5y ago
  Is he starting to memorize jokes from Centurion Vilhelmus's Whiz Bang?
  - neonnoodle 5y ago
    Are certain words creeping into his conversation? Words...like... edema
ardit33 5y ago
Yes... and pants were banned in Rome for a while, because it was mostly Germanic people wearing them at the time, and it was a mark of the fall of the civilization. It is like banning sneakers because there is a certain group that is wearing them.... and then retroactively find the excuse to why sneakers are not classy, etc... yet some of them cost a lot, and proper tennis shows look great.
the-dude 5y ago
Could you please list your sources? Because the Plato one is apocryphal ( and actually from last century ) : https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/

aj7 5y ago

Remarkable creativity. As a kid, I found Wertham’s book in a used bookstore. A plate in the book showed a grizzly baseball game. The catcher used a dismembered, decapitated torso as a chest protector.

awinter-py 5y ago

'misuse of mailing lists' section feels surprisingly modern

blairbeckwith 5y ago

If anyone is interested in this era of comic books and the society they bred, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is a smart, excellently written novel. It covers the comic book culture in NYC in WW2 and the years after, and covers a scenario very similar to this report.

anthk 5y ago

Heh, serendipity. Three days ago I began to read EC Comics compilation on Science Fiction.