I know I gave you all a warning about the Wertham article I posted on Tuesday, but this time, for real, viewer discretion advised. I found these at the same website as the article. Some of these comic book covers are in fact quite nasty. Particularly the first one.
WARNING: Contains radium, melting faces, decapitated heads, possibly zombies, bullet holes, snakes, ants, and the suggestion of women turning tricks for diamonds.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
What do you do when fiction becomes fact?
Chapters 7 though 11 of The Ten-Cent Plague take the reader through the evolution of the comic book. Hadju describes how, within just a few years, the comic book went from being focused on crime, to sex, to horror, to humor. Ultimately, Hadju argues that the hoopla over comic book censorship increased and decreased over time with these different genres; however, the legislation and ethical arguments surrounding the text and images of the comic book never fully went away...it just hibernated for awhile here and there until some new societal problem reared its ugly head and Americans needed something to point to and blame.
I have to admit, though not much of a comic-reader myself, I was shocked and upset to learn that children were practically brainwashed to burn comics by the hundreds. Once I read that even The Boy Scouts were forced to burn comics as part of their “civic duty” I immediately began to think of the book Fahrenheit 451. Having not read the book since middle school, I went to sparknotes.com to remind myself of the book’s main plot and found this:
“.. special-interest groups and other ‘minorities’ objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.”
Reading this passage made me buy into Hadju's argument even more. Censoring and/or banning the comic book so as to not risk offending or damaging members of society is to stifle creativity, and an act that ultimately paves the way for complete government control of all American rights.
I have to admit, though not much of a comic-reader myself, I was shocked and upset to learn that children were practically brainwashed to burn comics by the hundreds. Once I read that even The Boy Scouts were forced to burn comics as part of their “civic duty” I immediately began to think of the book Fahrenheit 451. Having not read the book since middle school, I went to sparknotes.com to remind myself of the book’s main plot and found this:
“.. special-interest groups and other ‘minorities’ objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.”
Reading this passage made me buy into Hadju's argument even more. Censoring and/or banning the comic book so as to not risk offending or damaging members of society is to stifle creativity, and an act that ultimately paves the way for complete government control of all American rights.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
And from out of the shadows, a hero emerges...maybe?
I was about to discuss the absence of a response to the anti-comic movement that Hajdu builds up throughout the first 130 pages. Then I read David Pace Wigransky’s letter (Hajdu 113). It was this kind of backlash that I was looking for, but did not find for the most part in the book. I cannot totally fault Hajdu for this. Maybe there was little to no response to the crucifixion that the comic industry was undergoing, but I tend to doubt that. No matter what the issue is that raises the hairs on mainstream America’s neck, there is always a group that doesn’t see the harm (usually Hollywood). The fact that Hajdu describes the cultural maelstrom as a “debate” at times implies that there were two sides to the story. Perhaps we will see the resistance as we read on, but so far it is not even on the horizon.
Granted, in any free market economy the dollar speaks louder than a Led Zeppelin encore and the comic industry was generating $72 million on roughly 90 million comics in circulation in 1948 (Hajdu 112). What I was looking for, however, was the voice of those who were arguing that the reading of comic books was not the brain melting, ethics raping, drivel that it was made out to be. Part of the problem was most likely that the two groups most noticeably on the side of the comic book industry were its writers and its readers. Its readers being mostly children did almost nothing to give voice to their opposition of the rich, old, white guys that had crept up again in national outrage. On the side of the industry’s creators, a similar problem existed in that even Will Eisner conceded that comic book creators, “lived in a bubble, and lived, breathed, and ate comic books. The world could blow up outside the studio, and the average comic-book man wouldn’t notice” (Hajdu 103). With one group lacking any real voice and the other lacking any real impulse to speak up, there was a void created where there needed to be fist, raised in defiance.
The story about how Sam Kweskin’s mother swept the table scraps onto Sterling North’s, “A National Disgrace” made me wonder where these people were on a national stage (Hadju 43). There needed to be comic book advocates that came from outside the industry. No one was going to listen to the perpetuators of such filth, and certainly not to the brainwashed children it ensnares, so a voice from somewhere else had to pick up the reins. Where was the Bono of the late 1940s? Where was the Bob Geldof of the comic book scene? Someone needed to step in and challenge Winters v. New York, and with the comic book industry’s creation of the Comics Code at the hands of its creators, it seems as though it was not going to come from within (97, 129).
Perhaps there was no one waiting in the wings. If that is the case then my hat is off to you David Hajdu, your argument is damn near bullet proof. If that is not the case, however, then where is the masked crusader ready to step in and take a stand against the beating that the industry was taking? A beating worthy of any panel in Crime Does Not Pay.
Granted, in any free market economy the dollar speaks louder than a Led Zeppelin encore and the comic industry was generating $72 million on roughly 90 million comics in circulation in 1948 (Hajdu 112). What I was looking for, however, was the voice of those who were arguing that the reading of comic books was not the brain melting, ethics raping, drivel that it was made out to be. Part of the problem was most likely that the two groups most noticeably on the side of the comic book industry were its writers and its readers. Its readers being mostly children did almost nothing to give voice to their opposition of the rich, old, white guys that had crept up again in national outrage. On the side of the industry’s creators, a similar problem existed in that even Will Eisner conceded that comic book creators, “lived in a bubble, and lived, breathed, and ate comic books. The world could blow up outside the studio, and the average comic-book man wouldn’t notice” (Hajdu 103). With one group lacking any real voice and the other lacking any real impulse to speak up, there was a void created where there needed to be fist, raised in defiance.
The story about how Sam Kweskin’s mother swept the table scraps onto Sterling North’s, “A National Disgrace” made me wonder where these people were on a national stage (Hadju 43). There needed to be comic book advocates that came from outside the industry. No one was going to listen to the perpetuators of such filth, and certainly not to the brainwashed children it ensnares, so a voice from somewhere else had to pick up the reins. Where was the Bono of the late 1940s? Where was the Bob Geldof of the comic book scene? Someone needed to step in and challenge Winters v. New York, and with the comic book industry’s creation of the Comics Code at the hands of its creators, it seems as though it was not going to come from within (97, 129).
Perhaps there was no one waiting in the wings. If that is the case then my hat is off to you David Hajdu, your argument is damn near bullet proof. If that is not the case, however, then where is the masked crusader ready to step in and take a stand against the beating that the industry was taking? A beating worthy of any panel in Crime Does Not Pay.
Monday, April 20, 2009
IT'S STILL MURDER: What Parents Still Don't Know About Comic Books
While poking around online (hoping to find the Catholic stuff mentioned in the reading, of course), I came across a "forgotten" Wertham article from the 9 Apr. 1955 edition of The Saturday Review of Literature. Follow the link below for a good time*.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF KNIVES, BEARDS, STATUES, ROPE, AND HATS.
"IT'S STILL MURDER" by Dr. Wertham
*I accept no responsibility for the actions you make take after viewing some of the comic samples. None whatsoever.
WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES OF KNIVES, BEARDS, STATUES, ROPE, AND HATS.
"IT'S STILL MURDER" by Dr. Wertham
*I accept no responsibility for the actions you make take after viewing some of the comic samples. None whatsoever.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Hide In Plain Sight: Un Travail Bien Fait!
It feels natural to advocate for today’s reading, since Buhle and Wagner accomplish what they set out to do in chapters 5 and 6, heavily supporting their claims while at the same time not forcing the reader to sift through tedious lists of examples. In chapter 5, they reveal the ways in which the blacklistees succeeded in lifting the “cultural iron curtain.” The victories they catalogue transcended the silver screen: these exiles pushed forward off-camera through press releases and public appearances in the more welcoming political climate of Western Europe.
The section I found most fascinating was the description of the Hollywood victims’ experience abroad. As someone who loves the French language and culture, I was particularly interested in the French reaction to the American blacklistees. I was surprised to learn that while the English reception was at best lukewarm, the French accepted the blacklistees with open arms, offering them a “hero’s welcome!” (137). It seems counterintuitive for a few reasons – not only did the French have a language barrier not faced by the English, but it’s a generally accepted truth that they look down upon American culture. Buhle and Wagner dispel this myth of French cultural superiority with their accounts of Hollywoodites mingling with famous artists like Picasso and Braque and (incredibly awesome) poets such as Jacques Prévert!
The authors go on to provide even more compelling evidence of the strong French support for the exiled Hollywood stars with the example of Eddie Constantine, an American actor “whose face on billboards would become as familiar to Parisians of decades as Humphrey Bogart’s” (138). One minor problem I had with this example was the ambiguity of the language Constantine spoke French in these films. Was he fluent in French, or was the unlikely alternative the case: that the French had embraced one who hadn’t mastered their language as a cultural icon? (This brings to mind the final scene in the South Pacific, where Nellie tries to communicate to Emile’s children in mangled French.) I ended up finding out that Constantine was indeed francophone with a little help from my trusty friends google and youtube; maybe Buhle and Wagner neglected to mention it because it’s an obvious fact to those with any shred of cinema literacy (i.e., not me).
My favorite parts of these chapters were the authors’ occasional musings on what the film industry in the 1950’s would have been like without the blacklist, since it’s something I’d never thought about before and Buhle and Wagner are probably two of the most well-qualified people to speculate on that alternate world.
The section I found most fascinating was the description of the Hollywood victims’ experience abroad. As someone who loves the French language and culture, I was particularly interested in the French reaction to the American blacklistees. I was surprised to learn that while the English reception was at best lukewarm, the French accepted the blacklistees with open arms, offering them a “hero’s welcome!” (137). It seems counterintuitive for a few reasons – not only did the French have a language barrier not faced by the English, but it’s a generally accepted truth that they look down upon American culture. Buhle and Wagner dispel this myth of French cultural superiority with their accounts of Hollywoodites mingling with famous artists like Picasso and Braque and (incredibly awesome) poets such as Jacques Prévert!
The authors go on to provide even more compelling evidence of the strong French support for the exiled Hollywood stars with the example of Eddie Constantine, an American actor “whose face on billboards would become as familiar to Parisians of decades as Humphrey Bogart’s” (138). One minor problem I had with this example was the ambiguity of the language Constantine spoke French in these films. Was he fluent in French, or was the unlikely alternative the case: that the French had embraced one who hadn’t mastered their language as a cultural icon? (This brings to mind the final scene in the South Pacific, where Nellie tries to communicate to Emile’s children in mangled French.) I ended up finding out that Constantine was indeed francophone with a little help from my trusty friends google and youtube; maybe Buhle and Wagner neglected to mention it because it’s an obvious fact to those with any shred of cinema literacy (i.e., not me).
My favorite parts of these chapters were the authors’ occasional musings on what the film industry in the 1950’s would have been like without the blacklist, since it’s something I’d never thought about before and Buhle and Wagner are probably two of the most well-qualified people to speculate on that alternate world.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Done Right
This is sort of a compare an contrast followup to my last blog post... usually I think dissenting is easy and assenting is hard but it seems this week is the opposite, because Buhle and Wagner do exactly what they are supposed to do: make an argument, then back it up convincingly, and on top of that they actually made it interesting to read.
Somewhat ironically I think they used up their best example for the Critque From the Margin chapter in the introduction, which was the analysis of Planet of the Apes as a commentary on McCarthyism and the blacklist. I'd seen Planet of the Apes before but I'd never thought to put it in a social/political context, but when Buhle and Wagner put it all together it became pretty clear, both within the text and behind it: the ties of Wilson and Serling to blacklistees, as well as the thematic component of the story, such as the power of speaking among those who are otherwise silent, and the threat that speech has to those who would like to hold on to power.
This next part goes on kind of a tangent, but Chapter 4 actually led me to make something of a modern connection to blacklistees and the critique from the margin idea. The connection comes from Joseph L Breen, the hollywood censor, and it was the name Breen which reminded me of another Breen: Wallace Breen from the video game Half-Life 2. I'll try to give a brief synopsis of the plot of the game to put things in context: Aliens from another dimension have invaded and taken over Earth, and have installed an ostensibly human-run puppet government, headed by said Wallace Breen, who appears throughout the game on TV sets making speeches about how much better off humanity is under the new alien domination, and condoning the aliens main method of oppression: some sci-fi system to suppress the ability to procreate. The part that brings me back to the Planet of the Apes comparison is one of the subtle facets of the game: while everyone in the world is very strongly characterized (for which the game won many awards) the character you play as never says anything, is silent.
Now maybe I'm making a big stretch here and there really is no connection, but after reading these sections I can't help but think that the censorship/Breen theme had an influence.
Somewhat ironically I think they used up their best example for the Critque From the Margin chapter in the introduction, which was the analysis of Planet of the Apes as a commentary on McCarthyism and the blacklist. I'd seen Planet of the Apes before but I'd never thought to put it in a social/political context, but when Buhle and Wagner put it all together it became pretty clear, both within the text and behind it: the ties of Wilson and Serling to blacklistees, as well as the thematic component of the story, such as the power of speaking among those who are otherwise silent, and the threat that speech has to those who would like to hold on to power.
This next part goes on kind of a tangent, but Chapter 4 actually led me to make something of a modern connection to blacklistees and the critique from the margin idea. The connection comes from Joseph L Breen, the hollywood censor, and it was the name Breen which reminded me of another Breen: Wallace Breen from the video game Half-Life 2. I'll try to give a brief synopsis of the plot of the game to put things in context: Aliens from another dimension have invaded and taken over Earth, and have installed an ostensibly human-run puppet government, headed by said Wallace Breen, who appears throughout the game on TV sets making speeches about how much better off humanity is under the new alien domination, and condoning the aliens main method of oppression: some sci-fi system to suppress the ability to procreate. The part that brings me back to the Planet of the Apes comparison is one of the subtle facets of the game: while everyone in the world is very strongly characterized (for which the game won many awards) the character you play as never says anything, is silent.
Now maybe I'm making a big stretch here and there really is no connection, but after reading these sections I can't help but think that the censorship/Breen theme had an influence.
Hide in Plain Sight: Primary Sources?
Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner’s Hide in Plain Sight is really difficult for me to dissent because it is, for me, one of the most interesting and historical texts we’ve read this semester. Despite my own interest in science fiction and fantasy as vehicles for social commentary I must put away my pom-poms and cast the death ray of cynicism. As a genealogy of blacklistee work, the book is very successful, so I only have a few points that I feel would make it more effective. Since it is considered a film studies book (per the category printed on the back), I think inclusion of more primary sources and figures is important to grounding their argument. My own knowledge base in much of the things they cover is minimal, so I cannot say whether or not they are stretching or coloring their information to make a point that isn’t there. It does seem however, that the sections we’ve read so far are more storytelling than textbook; while the conversational style makes it a fun read, it does lend to questioning where they come up with some of their claims.
In Chapter 3, there is a discussion of Irving Rapper’s The Brave One’s international filming. They make the claim that a scene that “takes place in a schoolroom where the boy learns about the history of his Mexican people and how illiterate Indians won a nation’s freedom from the armies of European aristocrats. So appealing are the boy and the story that no on […] saw through the plot to the didactic crypto-Marxist center” (90). While I have no reason to necessarily dispute their argument, or their assertion that this was “a true internationalization of film,” they don’t offer any evidence beyond their own argument. As a survey or textbook, I am compelled to see evidence from a primary source to support their claim. Though they may have information that supports their claim, it would be more effective (and less disputable) to have that source clearly in the text. I see the importance of documenting the groups of blacklistees that formed, and the implications of the projects they undertook, but when they jump to make claims about the INTENT of the filmmakers without evidence, they lose me. I’m also more curious about the mention of low-cost filming in Spain and Yugoslavia that they gloss over and never mention in any depth.
Maybe it’s just my hypersensitivity to the hard-boiled and noir (because of the courses I’m enrolled in this semester), but I think that looking at the influence of hard-boiled as a means for social commentary, and its influences on science fiction, horror, and fantasy would have strengthened their argument. They focus their attention across the pond, at noir made in France by blacklistees, without much mention of the origins of American noir, or the process of being defined as noir by the French after the war. I guess whether or not such information is necessary depends on the intended audience of this book. I get the impression that it is very much a survey, so I think that the inclusion of a bit more background would help that purpose. If this book is intended for people with more background in film and television than I have, I suppose it would seem redundant or unnecessary.
Finally in Chapter 4, they give some the hard and fast quantitative evidence that I was wanting, but this does more for me to highlight the lack of such statistics in their other arguments. The kind of production figures given for the section on westerns (112) would have given a lot of strength to their argument, or more girth to the story they’re telling. Though I enjoy the story that they’re telling, it does lose me a bit in the way that they summarize their way through with very little primary evidence IN the text. While it all sounds plausible (and I believe them) I think the text is deficient of primary evidence. I don’t have a sufficient background to find faults in their claims, but I am left needing to know where they find the evidence for their claims.
Also, since I had never seen Gerald McBoing Boing I found it on youtube to share (reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books Harold and the Purple Crayon)
In Chapter 3, there is a discussion of Irving Rapper’s The Brave One’s international filming. They make the claim that a scene that “takes place in a schoolroom where the boy learns about the history of his Mexican people and how illiterate Indians won a nation’s freedom from the armies of European aristocrats. So appealing are the boy and the story that no on […] saw through the plot to the didactic crypto-Marxist center” (90). While I have no reason to necessarily dispute their argument, or their assertion that this was “a true internationalization of film,” they don’t offer any evidence beyond their own argument. As a survey or textbook, I am compelled to see evidence from a primary source to support their claim. Though they may have information that supports their claim, it would be more effective (and less disputable) to have that source clearly in the text. I see the importance of documenting the groups of blacklistees that formed, and the implications of the projects they undertook, but when they jump to make claims about the INTENT of the filmmakers without evidence, they lose me. I’m also more curious about the mention of low-cost filming in Spain and Yugoslavia that they gloss over and never mention in any depth.
Maybe it’s just my hypersensitivity to the hard-boiled and noir (because of the courses I’m enrolled in this semester), but I think that looking at the influence of hard-boiled as a means for social commentary, and its influences on science fiction, horror, and fantasy would have strengthened their argument. They focus their attention across the pond, at noir made in France by blacklistees, without much mention of the origins of American noir, or the process of being defined as noir by the French after the war. I guess whether or not such information is necessary depends on the intended audience of this book. I get the impression that it is very much a survey, so I think that the inclusion of a bit more background would help that purpose. If this book is intended for people with more background in film and television than I have, I suppose it would seem redundant or unnecessary.
Finally in Chapter 4, they give some the hard and fast quantitative evidence that I was wanting, but this does more for me to highlight the lack of such statistics in their other arguments. The kind of production figures given for the section on westerns (112) would have given a lot of strength to their argument, or more girth to the story they’re telling. Though I enjoy the story that they’re telling, it does lose me a bit in the way that they summarize their way through with very little primary evidence IN the text. While it all sounds plausible (and I believe them) I think the text is deficient of primary evidence. I don’t have a sufficient background to find faults in their claims, but I am left needing to know where they find the evidence for their claims.
Also, since I had never seen Gerald McBoing Boing I found it on youtube to share (reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books Harold and the Purple Crayon)
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