Let us now turn to researches desling with the influence of camtes, After surveying the literature we are forced to conclude such vesearehes do not exist.[1] The current alarin over Lhe evil effcets of comie books rests upon nothing more substantial than the opinion and conjecture of a number of psychiatrists, lawyers and judges. Trne, there is a large broudside of criticism from purents who resent the comics in one way or auother or whose adult tastes are offended by comics Stories and the ways in which they are presented. These are the same types of parents who were ouce offended by the dime novel, and later by the movies and the radio. Mach of these scapegoats for parental and community fatinres to educate and socialize childven has in turn given way to another as reformers have had their interest diverted to new ficlds in the face of facts that could not be gainsaid.
As un example, lef us examine the position of the leading crusader against the eomies, New York's paychlatrist Fredric Wertham.[2] Wertham's attitude and argumcnis In condemning the comics are very similar to these of the earlier crities of the movies. Redneed to their simplest terms, these arguments are that since the movies and comics are enjoyed by a very large number of ebilGren, and since a large component of their movie and comics diet is made up of erime, violence, horror, and sex, the children who see the movies and read the comies are necessarily slimulated 1o the performance of delinquent acts, cruelty, yiolence, and undesirable sex behavior. This of eaurse is the same type of argument that has been one of the mujor fallacies of all our monistic errors in atieompling to explain evime and delinquency in the past.
Wertham's reasoning is a bit more complicated and pretentious. His diselaims «he belief that delinquency can haye a single cause and claims to adhere to the euncept of multiple and complex causation of delinquent behavior. But in effect his arguments do attribute a large portion of juvenile offenses to the comics. More pointedly he maintains that the comics in a complex mage of olher factors ure frequently the precipitating cause of telinquency.
We may eriticize Wertham's conclusions en mauy eronnds, hut the major weakness of his position is that it is not supported by research datu. His finding presented for the first time in Collier's magazine[3] are said ta he the result of 2 years' study conducted by him and 11 other psychiatrisis and social workers at the Lafarzue Glinie in New York's Negro Harlem. In (his article the claim is made that numerous elildren both delinguent and nondelinguent, rich and poor, were studied aud that the results of these studies led to the major conelusion that the effect of comic books is "definitely and completely harmful."
That Wertham's approach to his problem is forensic rather than scientific is illustrated by the way in which bis findings are presented in the Colliers article. Countering his claim that the effect of comics is definitely and completely harmfnl are statements in this arlicle that comics do not sntomatically cause delinqueney in every reader, that eomie books alone cannot cause a child to bee¢ome delinquent. that there are books of well-known comics which "make life better by making it merrier" and others "which make it clear even to the dullest mind, that crime never pays," and that there are "seemingly harmless comic books," but "nobody knows with any degree of exactness what their percentage is."
A further illustration of this forensie technique is the way in which he introdnees extraneous facts and statements which by implication he links with his thesis that tle comics are a major factor in causing delingucney and emotional disturbance in children. An example ts New York's Deputy Police Commissioner Nolan's statement that "the antisocial acts of the juvenile delinquents of toduy are in many instances more serious and cven of a more yiolent nature than those committed by youth in the past." Even if this stutement could be proved, there is not the slightest evidence, except Wertham's unsupported opinion, that the inerease is due to the rexdine of camie books. Wertham then cites a series of sensational child erimes headlined in the press (not his own cases), which he imputes to the comics wilhout aby evidence at all that the juvenile offenders- ↑ There is the possible exception of the study of Katherine M. Wolfe and Marjorie Fiske at Columbia University. The Children Talk About Comics, published by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank Stanton, Communications Research, 1948–49, New York: Harper, 1949. This study, which was based on a small number of cases, was inconclusive.
- ↑ Wertham's position was stated in some detail In an article by Judith Crist, Horror in the Nursery, Collier's, March 27, 1948. See also material by Wertham cited earlier in this article.
- ↑ Loc. cit., pp. 22, 23, 93–97.
