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53 Excerpt from Seduction of the Innocent Fredric Wertham The Superman group of comic books is superendorsed. A random sample shows on the inside cover the endorsement of two psychiatrists, one educator, one English professor and a child-study consultant. On the page facing this array is depicted a man dressed as a boy shooting a policeman in the mouth (with a toy pistol). This is a prank—“Prankster’s second childhood.” In the story there is a variant of the comic-book theme of a girl being thrown into the fire: “Her dress will be afire in one split second! She’ll need Superman’s help!” In another story a tenement building is set afire—also to be taken care of by Superman after it is afire. Until near the end of the book, attempts to kill people are not looked upon askance, and are not to be prevented apparently by humans but only by a superman. Then the lesson that after all you should not kill is expressed like this: “You conniving unscrupulous cad! Try to murder Carol, will you!” This is scarcely a moral condemnation . The lawyer who does not share in a million-dollar swindle is praised by Superman because he “remained honest.” In fact this honesty is rewarded with a million dollars! A gun advertisement with four pictures of guns completes the impression that even if you can’t become Superman, at least you can rise above the average by using force. This Superman-Batman-Wonder Woman group is a special form of crime comics. The gun advertisements are elaborate and realistic. In one story a foreign-looking scientist starts a green shirt movement. Several boys told me that they thought he looked like Einstein. No person and no democratic agency can stop him. It requires the female superman , Wonder Woman. One picture shows the scientist addressing a public meeting: “So, my fellow Americans, it is time to give America back to Americans! Don’t let foreigners take your jobs!” Member of the audience: “He’s right!” Another, applauding: “YEAHHH!” The Superman type of comic books tends to force and superforce. Dr. Paul A. Witty, professor of education at Northwestern University, has well described these comics when he said that they “present our world in a kind of Fascist setting of violence and hate and destruction. I think it is bad for children,” he goes on, “to get that kind of recurring diet . . . [they] place too much emphasis on a Fascist society. Therefore the democratic ideals that we should seek are likely to be overlooked.” Reprinted by permission from Seduction of the Innocent (Main Road Books, 2004 [1954]), 33–40. Fredric Wertham 54 Actually, Superman (with the big S on his uniform—we should, I suppose, be thankful that it is not an S.S.) needs an endless stream of ever new submen, criminals and “foreign-looking” people not only to justify his existence but even to make it possible. It is this feature that engenders in children either one or the other of two attitudes: either they fantasy themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the submen, or it makes them submissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them—by force. Superman not only defies the laws of gravity, which his great strength makes conceivable ; in addition he gives children a completely wrong idea of other basic physical laws. Not even Superman, for example, should be able to lift up a building while not standing on the ground, or to stop an airplane in midair while flying himself. Superwoman (Wonder Woman) is always a horror type. She is physically very powerful, tortures men, has her own female following, is the cruel, “phallic” woman. While she is a frightening figure for boys, she is an undesirable ideal for girls, being the exact opposite of what girls are supposed to want to be. We have asked many children how they subdivide comic books. A thirteen-year-old boy, in a letter to a national magazine commenting on one of Sterling North’s excellent articles on the subject, named five groups of harmful comics: “Fantasy comics, crime comics, superman or superwoman comics, jungle comics (the worst, in my opinion) and comics which still pretend to be funny but throw in a lot of nudity to help them sell.” Many children have a simpler classification. They distinguish between “jokey” books and “interesting books.” The latter they also...

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