Why were comic books attacked by the United States Senate in the 1950s as communist propaganda?

So I was watching this documentary a few months ago on the history of comic books on youtube, and Neal Adams, who's my favourite comic book artist of all time, talked about how comic books were attacked as being communist propaganda by Frederic Wertham and the US Senate and the House Un-American Activities Commitee.

Wertham wrote a book called "Seduction Of The Innocent"

I'm trying to find the documentary but I can't. But in it Neal goes "I don't understand- how can you associated comic books with communism?" And I'm wondering the same thing.
Stan Lee is also in the documentary talking about how it almost destroyed the comic book industry, and it resulted in the creation of the Comics Code Authority (which is like the Hays Code)

It has a connection to Senator McCarthy of the famous HUAC Communist Red Scare witchhunt- but I can't find what that is.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un-American
cbldf.org/2013/03/carol-tilley-on-her-wertham-research/
thecomicbooks.com/1955senateinterim.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Because paranoia about communism. It's like how Sup Forums says that cartoons and games are "liberal propaganda".

The same way moral panics always start. Some asshole had a book to sell managed to convince some busybodies he knew what he was talking about and it snowballed from there.
If it's any comfort and the Senate eventually decided there was no justification for government censorship but by that time the CCA was already in place

I thought it was because of Wonder Woman's lesbian bondage and Batman screwing Robin?
Nice work, DC. You deserve being second biggest company.

It was more of a deliberate attack on EC Comics.

Back then we were really afraid of the threat of communist foreigners coming over and infiltrating our way of life. So we elected a lot of officials that we're feeding into this paranoia which lead to things like this and McCarthy Era courts where they even tried to get Lucile Ball banned from tv because she might be a communist sympathizer. And this fear was so strong that the courts tried to use this power to fuck over anyone that opposed them, ie EC Comics was the most popular publishers going into the 50s was dead by 1956 because a great deal of the CCA guidelines were specifically made to harm EC and then they would just make shit up when EC fought back.

It actually wasn't necessarily about communism specifically. Wertham's book was blaming comics for teaching children violence and depravity, and at the time communism was just considered depravity.

To be totally fair, early Superman WAS communist, early Wonder Woman WAS sexually deviant, and early Batman WAS excessively violent, and still the majority of the claims were against horror and crime comics, which were absolutely incredibly violent.

Some of the main examples were pic related, a story where baseball players use the decapitated head and organs of a teammate, and some Matt Baker illustrations of Phantom Lady.

All that said, Wertham was pop psychology at its worst and created mass hysteria about comic books turning kids gay or into violent criminals with no evidence.

That lead to the excessively strict Comics Code Authority, after which some of the only surviving comics were superheroes because of how easily they could be scrubbed of any offending content.

Despite what many creators say, this was actually instrumental to the rise of superheroes in comics, because just two years later is when Flash and Green Lantern debuted and kicked off the Silver Age of comics.

>why did this happen
Because the government is a bunch of corrupt, incompetent, lazy parasites and they need to distract the people with fear-mongering and moral crusades to stop them from realizing that and making them vote them into office again next election.

Censor is literally the most loathsome thing a person can be professionally: it takes a an absolutely disgusting slime-ball to earn a living trough butchering other people's work or deciding what a person can see or not without any input from the person. Censorship is completely useless, people should be shown whatever they want to see. The only people who support it are inept parents who are too lazy to filter the media their child is consuming.

But it wasn't the courts that set the criteria for the the CCA it was the other comic publishers who saw an opportunity to put the boot in on EC.
Ironically it was EC themselves that first suggested a voluntary code of conduct.

You can't find the connection, because mostly the response was only "oh dear the comics are too violent/sexual perversion", not because of communist propaganda. In fact, you can propably find morea anti-communist comics from those times.

Remember that left was also on that, since they hadn't yet entirely drunk the sexual liberation Kool-aid and violence was obvioulsy in comics to mold future fascists.

>/comblr/ trying to move blame from Wertham and other leftie psychiatrists to anticommunism

Wertham was pretty damn liberal in modern sense. His work was instrumental in removing race discriminhation in schools (Brown vs.Board of Education), and he testified for Albert "child in every state" Fish.

He also pretty much turned his tails later, when comic books had became less anticommunistic and more like they are in modern times.

At the time, the threat of communism was a very convenient populist tool for manipulating public opinion, sort of the way the threat of terrorism is used today.

Now granted, the threat represented by the Soviet Union and its neo-imperialist bloc was real (just as the threat of terrorism today is real), but American politicians played on the public's apprehension and used it to further their own agendas, careers, and pet causes (just as politicians do so today). Anyone who was critical of the mainstream socio-politics of the day (such as EC Comics) was conveniently branded as communist and anti-American.

TL, DR version: Same shit, different century.

But it was the CCA and the judges that continued to just make shit up to try fuck EC over with things like "you can't make this character black because reasons"

I agree with everything you say but it's important to rember that like the mpaa the code was never a government institution.
It was entirely a self inflicted injury and like the mpaa it existed mostly to lock foreign and indie companies out of American markets

>anti-communist comics from those times

The thing is there isn't a connection but back then would say there was a connection. They thought the REDS were trying to subvert our culture with sexual deviants and perversion.

Seduction of the Innocent talked about DC because that's what readers knew, but the real 'threat' was always supposed to be indie comics, not the Big Two. Tons of companies folded because they dared to show violence and sex, scarring our children.

The CCA was not a government institution. They enforced their rules through stores blacklisting non-CCA titles, it was never illegal.

Did you read the whole post where it says that them being sexy, violent and Communist didn't justify the reaction

Yeah as nice as it would be to hold it up as an example of evil big government intervention the code never had any legal authority

Not the user you were responding to, but I think it's very important to note that the CCA arose only because publishers preferred industry self-regulation over government regulation (which was the only other alternative available to them after the 1954 Senate hearings on comics and juvenile delinquency). So yeah, the CCA was not a government institution, but its creation was motivated by the threat of federal regulation.

The CCA was made up of judges which decided what would carry the seal and the seal is what would get them into stores.

>violent/sexual comics

a) Don't let kids read them.
b) Ban them.

The choice might seem obvious to an average person, but then you forget that your average moral crusader is a retard.

Yes, they existed. Even Captain America (and assorted copycats) fought communism.

Amusingly enough then Red Skull appeared to fight in side of communism.

Yeah, but the whole thing was founded by publishers within the industry.

The CCA judges weren't actual judges.

>Soviet propaganda portrays Capitalism as a system of gross income inequality where money decides everything and the working class is exploited

>American propaganda shows communists as something between vampires and the undead who just want to wipe their nation off the face of the earth

It's almost like they were afraid that if they tell the people what the communists were really about, some might support them. So they stuck with their portrayal of Russians as civil war era Bolsheviks committing war crimes.

Yeah, we all know that. Thanks for saying it 3 times even though I never said they were.
Yes they were. Charles F. Murphy was the head of the CCA and he was a New York city magistrate.

But as previously mentioned the Senate dismissed the need for official censorship and it's doubtful that any attempts to enforce it would have succeeded

When I said the CCA judges weren't judges, I don't mean none of them were judges. I know that he was a magistrate, but that didn't give the CCA any legal authority, and anybody could be a CCA editor.

Nah, they did have pretty good image what communism was about

>when I said that I didn't mean it
Take a break from posting.

Not to mention that all anticommunist propaganda wasn't like average monster mash

Looks correct

Funny how it changes - back then they were demanding comics be censored because of communism, and now we have communists demanding comics be censored.

>American propaganda portrays communists as a both military and subversive force bent on world-wide conquest, which even most communists admit

> Communist propaganda propaganda portrays capitalism as a butt-ugly satanic creature that takes everything from everyone else and gives absolutely nothing in return

It's almost like they were afraid that if they tell what capitalism is really about, people would try to migrate to a country where stores actually sell food without at least 3-hour waiting time, so they stuck with the start of 1900's robber baron who has the whole city in his pockets portrayal.

Worth noting that Wertham was anti-censorship and didn't really approve of the CCA. He didn't like that it was within the industry and what he wanted was something more like the MPAA where comics would be rated towards a specific audience.

I know so bizarre that countries that would shoot their citizens for trying to leave would resort to lying in propaganda

They're just trying to save their citizens from being mentally harmed by the decadent West! It's for their own good. Only those corrupted by capitalism would think otherwise.

...

World War II fucked up the american psyche a bit

It was years of propaganda, followed directly by more propaganda a communist menace

The result was the 50s USA, where everything is correct, WASP values were king, societal norms were absolute and going against them could get you in trouble - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un-American , this got to the point where people wouldn't speak up if your husband diddled your kids out of fear of being shamed by the community.

Comics by the 50 were going through a big genre diversification, chief among them, horror, sci-fi, westerns, crime, romance and a little on the sidelines, porn. And stuff did happen in them, but nothing that would be new for us 21st century kids

Take this into account, and it was a boiling pot about to explode. Eventually someone noticed the murder, lewdness, and general boundary pushing material and threw a shit fit so big it nearly destroyed the industry.

Causing a moral panic with his shitty book he somehow managed to convince the biggest comic distributors in the industry to enforce the CCA, and well, the rest is history. Almost everything except westerns go down the toilet, the industry is reduced to capes and the underground comix are born.

>let's talk out of our ass

pls don't bully the khruzchev, it's not his fault he was retarded

>/comblr/ trying to move blame from Wertham and other leftie psychiatrists to anticommunism

What the fuck are you talking about? All I said is that people around here sometimes act like people did during the red scare. Might as well call these times the sjw scare.

Americans are easily butthurt over the dumbest things.

Comic books weren't attached as being communist by paranoid right-wingers, they were attacked as being fascist and racist by paranoid left wingers. Wertham was a leftist. Legman was a leftist. The democrats who were on the house committee on juvenile delinquency were leftists. Read werthams book. Read Wertham and Gaines testimony to the senate. Read the report the commuter made.

Suoerman was accused of being fascistic and naziistic. Superheroes were accused of being nietzchean vigilantes who took the law into their own hands like the Kkk. They were accused of always portraying there villains and racial minorities and sexualizing women.

Op and everyone in this thread is dead wrong

As some one who lived through the video nasty scare in the 80's I can confirm it's not just Americans

Mr. HANNOCH. Do you know anything about this sheet called, "Are you a Red dupe?

Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir I wrote it.

Mr. HANNOCH. How has it been distributed?

Mr. GAINES. It has not been distributed. It is going to be the inside front cover ad on five of my comic magazines which are forth-coming.

Mr. HANNOCH. And it is going to be an advertisement?

Mr. GAINES. Not an advertisement. It is an editorial.

Mr. HANNOCH. Do other magazines have copies of this to be used for the same purpose?

Mr. GAINES. No, Sir.

Mr. HANNOCH. You haven't made this available to the magazines as yet?

Mr. GAINES. No, sir; and I don't intend to.

Mr. HANNOCH. You believe the things that you say in this ad that you wrote?

Mr. GAINES. Yes, sir.

Mr. HANNOCH. That anybody who is anxious to destroy comics are Communists?

Mr. GAINES. I don't believe it says that.

Mr. HANNOCH. The group most anxious to destroy comics are the commies?

Mr. GAINES. True, but not anybody, just the group most anxious.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?

Mr. HANNOCH. No.

Senator KEFAUVER. I have read a number of your writings. I have read your Seduction of the Innocent. You remember a number of years ago I had several visits with you and you told you about the pressure they tried to apply on you in connection with this.
But I noticed here this thing, that anyone who opposes comic books are Communists. "The group most anxious to destroy comics are the Communists."
Then they have here the statement:

This article also quoted Gershon Legman (who claims to be a ghost writer for Dr. Frederick Wertham, the author of a recent smear against comics published in the Ladies home Journal) - This same G. Legman, in issue No. 2 of Neurotica, published in autumn 1948, wildly condemned comas although admitting that "The child's natural character must be distorted to fit civilization * * * Fantasy violence will paralyze his resistance, divert his aggression to unreal enemies and frustrations, and in this way prevent him from rebelling against parents and teachers * * * this will siphon off his resistance against society, and prevent revolution."

This seems to be an effort to tie you up in some way as Red or Communist. Is that part of a smear?
Dr. WERTHAM. This is from comic books. I have really paid no attention to this. I can tell you that I am not a ghost writer. Like this gentleman who criticized it severely, they know I don’t have a ghost writer.
Gershon Legman is a man who studied comic books. He is a man who tried to do something against comic books, so they tried to do something about him.
That is just one of time ordinary kinds of things. But, Mr. Chairman, they do something quite different which is much more serious. The comic-book industry at time present moment ─ and this is the experiment I would like to suggest to you ─ the comic-book industry at time present moment interferes with the freedom of publications in all fields

Bump because none of you retards know what you're talking about. Wertham was the Anita Sarkeesiam of the 1950s

This is gold. Everything leads to communism.

>The Civil War was about STATES RIGHTS
Yeah, good luck with that. If you repeat it often enough and loudly enough maybe it will take.

>Wertham was the Anita Sarkeesiam of the 1950s
This is bs. His opinions are moderate by todays standards. And that's ok. Anita Sarkeesiam is nonsense even in 50 years.

I actually listed original sources from the era showing this. How did you come to your conclusions?

Show me where Wertham or Kefeauver said comics were communist. They didn't, they said they were right wing vigilante trash, racist, sexual, and violent. Legman wrote for The Daily Worker.

Also, Wertham's opinions were Moderate? How is lying about comic books and faking evidence and making things up and destroying an artForm moderate?

Senator KEFAUVER. Would you liken this situation you talk about, showing the same thing over and over again until they finally believed it, to what we heard about during the last war of Hitler's theory the story over and over again?
The CHAIRMAN. The "big lie" technique?
Dr. WERTHAM. Well, I hate to say that, Senator, but I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry. They get the children much younger. They teach them race hatred at the age of 4 before they can read.
Let me give you an example of a comic book which I think is on the stand right now. It may have disappeared the last few days.
You know at the present moment New York City and other cities have a great social problem in integrating immigrating Puerto Ricans. It is very important to establish peace in these neighborhoods where friction may arise, or has a risen.
This particular comic book that I am referring to now has a story in which a derogatory term for Puerto Ricans, which I will not repeat here, but which is a common derogatory term, is repeated 12 times in one story. This greasy so and so, this dirty so and so. It is pointed out that a Spanish Catholic family moved into this neighborhood ─ utterly unnecessary.
What is the point of the story? The point of the story is that then somebody gets beaten to death. The only error is that the man who must get beaten to death is not a man; it is a girl.
Senator KEFAUVER. I think we ought to know the name of the comic book.
Dr. WERT1IAM. I shall be glad to give it to your counsel.
Senator KEFAUVER. Can you tell us?
Dr. WERTHAM. I don't have it in my head.

Also this particular story was ANTI-RACISM so it shows how dishonest Werham was. So much of what he did, from faking testimony to taking things out of context, reminds me of Sarkeesian.

The word was "spic" by the way. In his book he also took a story warning against Nativism and xenophobia and tried to say it was xenophobic and nativist because in panel a mob goes "America for americans!" This is all in his book.

>Senator McCarthy of the famous HUAC

>Senator
>(H)OUSE (U)namerican (A)ctivities (C)ommittee

Also anyone interested in the true facts of the history of comic books
I highly recommend academic Carol Tilley's report on how Wertham faked his research- she went through all his private papers and original research.

cbldf.org/2013/03/carol-tilley-on-her-wertham-research/

His work was complete Bullshit.

But that isn't a critique of communism, that's the critique of the Soviet fascist global politics. On the other hand this leaflet you posted has a nice poem on it regarding wage slavery where only the top profits — an actual critique.

I'm not pro-communist or anything, I'm just pointing out that socialism where everyone receives stability and security is always going to be more seductive to the working class than capitalism that requires you to either have capital to invest or be an exceptional individual to succeed. That's why the American propaganda machine had it harder and had to lie and embellish more.

Same basic thing dude. You morons ITT keep trying to prove these things were all completely different when comic book artists were literally forced to testify if they had ever been members of the communist party.

It was a paranoid time, you guys need to consider the Cold War context.
Back then anything different was considered communist. It was a fucked up time.

But again that had nothing to do with comic books. Comic books were attacked by liberals as right-wing.

Again, that's the opposite of what was true. Read the Senate Report.

The red scare does looks silly today but it wasn't at that time. Look at a map of that time. How many countires are commies? Alot and they grew until the 70s. You don't know the resources they have.

Here is the Senate report on comic books after the hearings.

thecomicbooks.com/1955senateinterim.html

A Communist magazine, printed in East Germany and devoted to bitter criticism of the United States, appeared under the name. "USA im Wort und Bild" (USA in Word and Pictures). The publication ridicules comic books and similar American attempts to present the classics in simple form. Some of the phrases read:

Shakespeare in Yankee dialect is the latest "cultural triumph" *** The "cultural" achievement of the publishers is expressed on the jacket of the pamphlet: "You can quote the best quotations of Shakespeare and impress your friends, without reading the play."

One example of racial antagonism resulting from the distribution of American-style comic books in Asia is cited by the former United States Ambassador to India, Chester Bowles, in his recent book, Ambassador's Report. He reports on page 297 the horrified reaction of an Indian friend whose son had come into possession of an American comic book entitled the Mongol Blood-Suckers. Ambassador Bowles describes the comic book as depicting a-

superman character struggling against half-human colored Mongolian tribesmen who has been recruited by the Communists to raid American hospitals in Korea and drink the plasma in the blood banks. In every picture they were portrayed with yellow skins, slanted eyes, hideous faces, and dripping jaws.

At the climax of the story, their leader summoned his followers to and attack on American troops. "Follow me, blood drinkers of Mongolia," he cried. "Tonight we dine well of red nectar." A few panels later he is shown leaping on an American soldier with the shout, "One rip at the throat, red blood spills over white skins. And we drink deep."

Ambassador Bowles commented

The Communist propagandists themselves could not possibly devise a more persuasive way to convince color sensitive Indians that American believe in the superior civilization of people with white skins, and that we are indoctrinating our children with bitter racial prejudice from the time they learn to read. 12

12 Bowles, Chester, Ambassador's Report, New York, 1954, p. 297.

Soviet propaganda cites the comic book in support of its favorite anti-American theme- the degeneracy of American culture. However, comic books are but one of a number of instruments used in Soviet propaganda to illustrate this theme. The attacks are usually supported with examples drawn from the less-desirable American motion pictures, television programs, literature, drama, and art.
It is represented in the Soviet propaganda that the United States crime rate, particularly the incidence of juvenile delinquency, is largely incited by the murders, robberies, and other crimes portrayed in "trash literature." The reason such reading matter is distributed, according to that propaganda, is that the "imperialists" use it to condition a generation of young automaton who will be ready to march and kill in the future wars of aggression planned by the capitalists.

Fucking retard this wasn't the red scare it was the blue scare. It was 1950s New York intellectuals like Legman.

If I was a communist spy I wouldn't go with comics, if they can read — it's too late. I would sponsor a children's program with puppets and people in costumes and promote the core tenants of communism: sharing and class equality by having all sorts of kids from different social backgrounds work towards a common goal. Good thing the communism never thought of that, huh?

Cause calling shit commie propaganda is how you went after what you wanted gone then.

>What? Soviets don't like comics?
>Shut it down!
>From now on, we only indulge in forms of entertainment that USSR approves of!

If I was a communist spy I'd call people who enjoyed Superman fascists, white supremacists, jingoistic, nazis, racists and attack the book as AmeriKKKan vigilante wish fulfillment.

McCarthyism was part of the red scare and this lated until the 50.

When did they call comics commie propoganda?

i dunno i'm not op.

That's more or less what happened.
Comic books were even made by illegal in Canada for a time. The senators who did so were leftists.

But that has nothing to do with comic books.

But that has nothing to do with comic Books.

Legman, one of the main anti-comic
Book writers and crusaders, was literally a communist, he wrote a column for the daily Worker.

They didn't, they called them an instrument of moral degradation of youth that would weaken them to degenerate ideas like communism. Kind of like SJWs are trying to portray comics nowadays as instruments of moral degradation leading to sexism and chauvinism.

It does. It was the zeitgeist. Comic books wasn't the only medium that was "commie infested".

Except that never happened. Show me where they wrote that.

I've listed like 3 or 4 sources in this thread disproving that.

What led you to that conclusion? Why do you believe that? Show me some evidence from contemporary sources.

Why would Legman or Werthan call comic books communistic when they themselves were symapthetic to communism?

This book actually does a good job of explaining 5he situation. Basically, horror and crime comics were seen as degenerate and sometimes too overtly political, and we're seen as "downer" stories that were a tively bringing down the post war good times and corrupting the youth.

Which you could say was a bunch of baloney and they were just hokey comics, but if you actually read any of these stories, holy shit s lot of them were hardcore as fuck. And considering there wasn't a rating system a lot of kids did get their hands on it. Wether that was a negative thing is up to debate.

Oddly enough, the third Reich had a similar code with the press, for them to avoid writing "defeatist" articles that bring down the morale of the country, as it had effectively done during the end of the first world War in germany.

>The Kefauver investigation into television and juvenile delinquency in the mid-1950s led to an even more intensive investigation in the early 1960s.

>The new probe came about after people became increasingly concerned over juvenile violence, and the possibility of this behavior being related to violent television programs.[4]

>His progressive stances on the issues put Kefauver in direct competition with E. H. Crump, the former U.S. congressman, mayor of Memphis and boss of the state's Democratic Party, when he chose to seek the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1948. During the primary, Crump and his allies accused Kefauver of being a "fellow traveler," and of working for the "pinkos and communists," with the stealth of a raccoon. In a televised speech given in Memphis, in which he responded to such charges, Kefauver put on a coonskin cap and proudly proclaimed, "I may be a pet coon, but I'm not Boss Crump's pet coon."

Yeah sounds like a real McCarthyist you morons.

>Kefauver stood up for civil liberties and supported labor unions by voting against the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.
Kefauver was a defender of civil liberties and populist therefore he sometimes took unpopular stances on issues in the post-World War II years. When Kefauver ran for the United States Senate in 1948, the state Democratic political boss, “Boss” Crump, worked very hard against Kefauver. Crump had paid for advertisements that pictured Kefauver as a secretive raccoon-like instrument of the communists. At a speech in Memphis, Crump’s stronghold, Kefauver put on a coonskin and said, “I maybe a pet coon, but I’m not Boss Crump’s pet coon.” Kefauver became the second person to challenge Boss Crump for a statewide position and win. Cordell Hull was the first in the 1920’s. Kefauver was the only member of the senate in 1954 to vote against a measure to make it a crime to belong to the Communist Party. Kefauver stood against the ideas of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Bump because all you faggots got blown the fuck out. And got caught spreading made up bullshit.

>Anonymous
>caught

For l we know, you're one of the above posters and are same fagging to cover your non existent ass

And ever wondered why Soviets had those "fascist global politics" ? Because they were communist, and according to Marx, Communism fails if it can't control the whole world.

And it's stupid to think that critique of Soviet "fascism" isn't critique of communism. Do you think that people who are doing revolution just suddenly decide "oh wait, i'm going to be evil now" and suddenly stop being communists, and such all their misdeeds will not have any relation to communism.

Also about wage slavery; what is it compared to a system where you have to do the job to not feed yourself or aquire money, but because it's your duty as "a member of working class" and to avoid punitive measures.

No I was the one who proved that the comic book scare was leftists like Kefauver, Wertham and Legman paranoid about le evil right wing comics.

EC comics weren't right wing, the last comic they published wasn't even supposed to go out with the CCA seal on it because of it's generic "Racists are the real savages" message. It was about how they glorified violence and people being worried comic books would hurt kids ability to read.

Again, you're just saying things that are incorrect, without any sources or explaining why you came to believe it. Provide evidence.

As I've already shown in this thread Wertham took things out of context in order to "prove" comic books were racist and fascist. Read the Senate testimony, read his book, read the Senate Interim Report

The story about EC comics isn't wrong. It's a well known story about the comic Judgment Day. CCA rejects it because the astronaut is "too sweaty" Gaines tells the CCA guy to go fuck himself, CCA guy backs down, Gaines publishes it, then closes shop. If you need a citation the story is from Tales from the Crypt the Official Archives a biography about Gaines during the senate trial.

So if the CCA was made to target Racism in comics it must have failed since they were trying to censor a black astronaut in a story about how humanity would eventually overcome racism.

Here's your answer OP.
>Moral Panic
>A feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society. A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media. "The media are key players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic.

Thank you for the completely useless reply that gave us no information, no detail, no sources, and obfuscated the issue. You are great at starting the obvious while adding nothing, congrats.

Wertham was a left-wing SJW who made shit up because he thought he was helping society and saving us from McCarthyism and Right-Wing Extremism brainwashing in comics. Period. It's the same thing as when Alejandro Innaritu refers to superhero movies as "right-wing" and "cancer."

You are applying 21th century rethoric to something that happened in 1950.