THE KEFAUVER COMIC BOOK HEARINGS AS SHOW TRIAL: DECENCY, AUTHORITY AND THE DOMINATED EXPERT.
The advent of comic books in the late 1930s almost immediately prompted an outcry over what many critics found to be their vulgar content. In the 1940s, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham entered this enduring debate with his many articles in popular periodicals and his popular book Seduction of the Innoc...
| Publicado en: | Cultural Studies Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 259 - 289 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Mar2002
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=6677211&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 6677211 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09502386 05G jtl: Cultural Studies issn: 09502386 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2002 vid: 16 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 6677211 10.1080/09502380110107580 ppf: 259 ppct: 30 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 221KB tig: atl: THE KEFAUVER COMIC BOOK HEARINGS AS SHOW TRIAL: DECENCY, AUTHORITY AND THE DOMINATED EXPERT. aug: au: Park, David su: Comic books, strips, etc. Juvenile delinquency Anticensorship activists Symbolism in politics Vulgarity in literature Show trials sug: subj: Comic books, strips, etc. Juvenile delinquency Anticensorship activists Symbolism in politics Vulgarity in literature Show trials keyword: COMIC BOOKS ESTES KEFAUVER expertise Fredric Wertham SELF-CENSORSHIP ab: The advent of comic books in the late 1930s almost immediately prompted an outcry over what many critics found to be their vulgar content. In the 1940s, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham entered this enduring debate with his many articles in popular periodicals and his popular book Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham added professional warrant to long-standing decency concerns; he translated the issue into a psychiatric problem and found comic books to be a cause of juvenile delinquency. With juvenile delinquency thusly introduced, comic books garnered substantial critical attention. A Senate subcommittee, spearheaded by Senator Estes Kefauver,was charged with the task of investigating the effects of comic books. This subcommittee's hearings were shaped profoundly by the interests of the comic book industry and the subcommittee itself. Expert testimony, especially that of Wertham himself, was used as a way of granting legitimacy to the conclusions of the subcommittee, even though those conclusions proposed an industry self-censorship code - the Comic Book Code - that Wertham believed to be counterproductive. This study examines the authoritative voice of Fredric Wertham and the symbolic politics of the Kefauver comic book hearings, with a particular emphasis on how the interests of the comic book publishers made a self-censorship code an almost predetermined outcome. Media decency crusades follow a script that has certain circumscribed roles for each part in the drama. While experts are important and perhaps even necessary for the creation, legitimation and resolution of such crusades, they occupy a dominated place in the debate – able to reach, but not grasp, the process that shapes the policies that are devised. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Cultural Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Cultural Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2002 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|