March 20, 2008
Having spent so much of the last three years tracking efforts to legislate and/or censor video games, I'm eager to read The Ten-Cent Plague, a just-released book from author David Hadju.As detailed by USA Today, Hadju explores decades of struggles faced by comic book authors and publishers as a variety of politicians and culture cops sought to rein in the medium. Comparisons to today's situation with video games are all too obvious. From the USA Today coverage:
In an age of video-game violence and the nearly-anything-goes Internet, it's instructive to read that once upon a time, not that long ago, Congress was concerned about what was widely viewed as a serious menace to American youth: comic books.
David Hajdu's is both cultural history and cautionary tale about censorship. It's a well-written, detailed look at how comic books became a phenomenon in the early 1950s and how authorities cracked down on the most popular form of entertainment in America.
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."
The Village Voice also offers a review of Hadju's book:
David Hajdu offers captivating insights into America's early bluestocking-versus-blue-collar culture wars, and the later tensions between wary parents and the first generation of kids with the buying power to mold mass entertainment...
Hajdu's thorough research documents public comic-book burnings... and identifies the nuns and scout leaders who cajoled often uneasy children into lighting the bonfires. Fanning the flames was New York psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's 1954 anti-comics tome, Seduction of the Innocent, which placed the blame for rising rates of juvenile delinquency squarely on comic books.
Comments
It's that people apparently never learn from it.
There was a time when the book “Seduction of the Innocent” was fully available on the Net, featuring text AND pictures.
I just did a google image search for Seduction + Innocent and the results were disappointingly academic, hardly any good porn at all. It's an outrage.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/03/31/080331crbo_books_...
the Jack Thompson of yesterday.
Hmm come to think of it Iraq is oddly similear to the crusades minus the swords and with more explostions. Anyways off topic.
To the topic. "These comic books are teaching kids how to do crimes! Never mind that Rock and or roll makes teens have premartial sex and they get pregnate! *bum bumm bummmmm!*"
Lets see what the blame for scocieties ill's have been. I know I'm gonna miss some and I'm going to start back before modern history, near the classic age.
Math->Science->That other guys beliefs->music->books->people who could read that wheren't rich->everything that wasn't religeon->Rock & Roll (cuz we all know that listening to the Beatles got you pregnant) -> comics (tought kids to shoot lasers out there eyes and knives out their knuckles, god those were HORRIBLE times! Lot's of fighting with cliche villians like the Joker, and that lamest super hero of all Aquaman! Come to think of it maybe the Aquaman comics should have been banned all he did was talk to fish!) -> Jews-> Communism->hippies->KISS (made people want to "rock and or roll all night on a school night! Oh the horror!)-> Punk kids who sported mohawks with diffrent colors! *bum bumm bummmm!* rap -> boy bands -> anyone who played or saw doom-> vijda games.
I know I missed a lot of blames but I threw in ones I knew the best.
When the content of games is effectively neutered (and it will be- christians and socialists are too influential in US politics), it will be the ESA to blame for their cowardly inaction.
Nah there won't be any public burnings, that's what lawyers are for.
To the topic. “These comic books are teaching kids how to do crimes! Never mind that Rock and or roll makes teens have premartial sex and they get pregnate! *bum bumm bummmmm!*”
See, even talking about comics is making you think of sex, all that talk about people's bums...
@Xlorep DarkHelm
I'd tend to agree, heavy metal got a pretty severe pasting in the media but it was fairly sporadic and mostly involved subliminal messages, backmasking & satanic swearing/images. Oh and of course Ozzy Osbourne personally ensuring that that teenager killed himself by comitting the most outrageous crime of all, recording Suicide Solution.
As for games, I doubt they could really do mass burnings of game stuff, aside from the automatic "EEK! Just like nazi germany" thing that even Faux news would pick up on (more for the hysteria value than any form of moral issue because we know they HAVE no morals), the burning of all that plastic would cause serious levels of potentially toxic fumes. If not toxic directly it'd certainly be bad for the environment & would probably be shut down on account of the emissions.
When are parents simply going to start taking responsibility for the way they raise their kids? Kids are going to get into trouble, but how much trouble is governed by a moral compass that must be instilled by the parents.
I am so f***ing sick of a country/government that thinks an assault weapon in every home is a good idea and sick people without insurance deserve to die is a fine notion, but treats comic books and video games like they're the biggest problems we face!
It would be nice if people learned from the past. Yet it is not so.
Personnally I think that the politicians have looked at the comic book thing and are trying to emulate that. After all, look at what happened. Comics were sanatized for nearly 30 years. Isn't the goal to sanitize video games in the same way?
Sin City definatly made me think of sex when I saw those pleather outfits. But I can't be the only person who thought that. *bum bumm bummmmm!* We need someone on this board who can cue the dramitic music when we need them to.
try turning off your safe search :p LOL
Thought police is just shit on the wheel, round it goes and back it comes, no one expects the spanish inquisition - you thought that you weren't a believer ? BURN
now its belief in politicians and their magic powers to protect people via laws, stopping them from the pointless need to think for themselves.
- you thought games were good ? BURN !!
We are learning, it's just taking a while to sink in for the governmental circles, the Comic Book industry was set back years because of Governmental influence with Judicial backing, this time round, the Judicial side is having second thoughts (An interesting case study could possibly be done on differences between Governments' need for instant voter gratification compared to the Judicial cornerstone of self-analysis when it comes to judgements)
Basically, a Judge has to explain why he has come to particular decision, a Politician has no such responsibility and so can make the most ridiculous claims without ever having to provide evidence. A Politician cries 'Ban these Evil Games!', and Judges look back in their case-files at 'Ban these evil Comics! Ban this evil Rock and Roll! Ban this evil Dungeons and Dragons' and actually analyse and cross reference other examples of similar occurrences in legal history. This is, most likely, why the judges are so reluctant to allow these laws to pass, the message in this case is loud and clear, attempting to control modern media using 'decency' has always proved to be, and will always prove to be, a counter-productive act in the long term.
The struggle continues for both media.
BUH-DUM-TISH
Just for the sheer randomness and that pun making sense, you can get away with it.
Rofl if you rofl'ed
Don't knock the Joker!
Not until you've read The Killing Joke!
As for Aqua Man.....
MEH.
Criticism of games is merely the latest example of a tendency to demonise new and unfamiliar forms of entertainment. In 1816 waltzing was condemned as a “fatal contagion” that encouraged promiscuity; in 1910 films were denounced as “an evil pure and simple, destructive of social interchange”; in the 1950s rock 'n' roll music was said to turn young people into “devil worshippers” and comic books were accused of turning children into drug addicts and criminals. In each case the pattern is the same: young people adopt a new form of entertainment, older people are spooked by its unfamiliarity and condemn it, but eventually the young grow up and the new medium becomes accepted—at which point another example appears and the cycle begins again.…"
From my beloved Economist, saying once again that everything is older than we might think.
Linky is here:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8554750
I'm sure people bitched about writing too, back then.
Still a shame what happened to those comic's though :/.
when storytelling branched away from religion, it suffered the same lambasting;
when speeches began to be written down, that was decried as ruinous to minds;
when novels (as we know them) came in vogue around the Victorian era, they were blamed for young men and women acting out character roles, disobeying their parents, becoming too imaginative or crazy, and committing crimes that had always been committed
--but of course, it let bad rich parents (and parents of rotten childre) blame the novels for their teenaged and young adult children doing those things "below their class" or criminal. Hence, everyone conveniently ignored the reality that crime rates weren't higher, just more publicized with better printing and more widespread news coverage.
Not that this precisely parallels the problem we're seeing today with idiots blaming videogames for the same old crimes even as their rates and the degrees of violence diminish. Oh, wait, it DOES.
Of course, if our politicians spent as much money on education as they do on frivolous, ineffective, and unconstitutional soccer-mom-wooing, more Americans might know that. Or maybe they would at least realize that the government does NOT enforce ratings systems, and it is NOT illegal for underaged children to purchase or see ANY media form.
Then the politicians can stop trotting out "this percentage of parents want videogame ratings enforced by the government" without failing to note that the EXACT SAME number of parents believe movie ratings ALREADY ARE government-enforced, and therefore assume such legislation would put videogames on par with movies for restriction when the reality is, they already are.
George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
I like the Joker, he's the coolest villian of all time, I'm just saying he's a cliche. Such as the constant smiling even when pissed, and the clown henchmen. Still coolest villian ever.
As for Aquaman, lamest superhero EVER. "Hey, shark bite that gu..... DAMN IT HE'S OUT OF THE OCEAN!"