Assessing Dr. Wertham: Friend or foe

The Beat reports on a debate in Canada's Globe and Mail over the legacy of Dr. Frederic Wertham, who famously made the the claim in his book "Seduction of the Innocent," back in the 1950s that comic books were responsible for juvenile delinquency, which ultimately led to Congressional hearings and the Comics Code--an episode recounted in a new book by David Hajdu: "The Ten-Cent Plague."

In the Globe piece, Bart Beaty, author of "Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture," criticizes Hajdu's book (which I've not yet read), saying:

Hajdu’s portrayal of Wertham substitutes a stereotype of the uptight German intellectual in place of the facts. In order to portray Wertham as a censor, the author ignores his long history as an anti-censorship expert witness. To present him as a dilettante obsessed with comic books, he has to mask his accomplishments as one of the foremost psychiatrists of his day. Most important, to depict him as a foe of children, he has to entirely ignore the monumental role Wertham’s research played in public education reforms, in particular desegregating U.S. schools in the 1950s.

These are the facts that work to undermine Hajdu’s thesis, and which made me a “defender” of the man.

Certainly, if you read a little about him, Wertham was not all bad. As Louis Menand notes in his review of Hajdu's book published recently in The New Yorker:

[Wertham] worked at Bellevue, and then at Queens Hospital Center as director of psychiatric services. In 1946, he opened a clinic in Harlem, the Lafargue Clinic, which charged twenty-five cents if the patient could afford it—the first effectively free psychiatric facility in the United States for people of color. In 1947, he started the Quaker Emergency Service Readjustment Center, devoted in part to the treatment of sex offenders. He was a prolific writer on subjects of social importance.



I really think Wertham did have the well-being of children at heart. But, at the same time, his crusade against comics was wrongheaded, self-promotional and based on sketchy science.

And, whether or not Wertham was anti-censorship or not, or whether he supported the Code or wanted to put comic book publishers out of business, his crusade resulted in those things happening.

It's also true that Wertham took aim at comics with a wide barrel. He didn't just go after crime and horror comics, but the whole medium--reading sexual subtext into harmless super-hero books, as well.

I know it's not hard to read such subtext into the comics of that day from our modern perspective. But does anyone really believe--campy as those comics may be in retrospect--the writers of Batman had a "homosexual agenda"? Or that reading Batman would "make" you gay? This notion shows that Wertham was being irresponsible and wrongheaded in his arguments--stretching his thesis to make comics as whole into something evil. (Not to mention, playing into the prejudicial and narrow-minded thinking of those times .)



The bottom line is that, what happened back then concerning comics was not black and white. Wertham did have a point about some comics--particularly the hyper-violent horror and crime titles of the day--not being appropriate for young children. They weren't.

Then, as now, many parents need a wake-up call about what kids are putting into their heads, whether its comics, movies or video games. I have nothing against people speaking up and advocating for such awareness. In this way, Wertham was providing a service.

But I don't support the labeling or censorship that resulted, or similar measures that are in use or, from time-to-time, get proposed today. Parents need to be responsible for their own kids, and that means paying attention to what they're ingesting pop-culture-wise. And, if you deem something inappropriate for your child, don't let him or her ingest it.

If Wertham forced publishers to think about the messages they were sending to kids, that's good. No doubt, publishers knew that violent, exploitative materials were reaching children, and they profited from that fact.

Publishers do need to know their audience, and they should act responsibly. The stuff that comes out in mainstream super-hero comics today, in titles that for decades were appropriate for children, is often ridiculously inappropriate.

But, at the same time, publishers shouldn't be censored or forced to abide by an authoritative code that enforces guidelines and limits on what can be said in a creative medium.

See? It's decidedly not simple or black and white, then or now.

As a sidelight: One of the most best things I've ever read about the whole 1950s comic book panic is the title piece in Mark Evanier's collection "Wertham was Right!," which takes a succinct, balanced look at the man and exposes a very little-talked-about fact about the doctor--one that hasn't been mentioned at all in any of the discussions I've seen about Hajdu's book--which is: Wertham, late in life, became incredibly interested in, and supportive of, science fiction and comic book fandom.

Back in the late 60s, the doctor contacted comic book fan clubs, subscribed to fanzines and even wrote a book about the whole phenomenon, "The World of Fanzines," which was very positive about people coming together, writing about, and being enthusiastic about--of all things--comic books!