Comics: Seduction of the Innocent

[Derishton]

I think the problem with Wonder Woman ran a little deeper than her immodest attire - it was pretty clear that Marston had a number of neuroses (or "interests", I suppose) which Wonder woman was designed to display. That's at least one thing Wertham wasn't wrong about: Wonder Woman was a bondage icon from her very beginnings, with all that "loving discipline" and hot lasso action.

 

[Teelie]

The point of Marvel superheroes is that they're real people with real problems; they're not perfect but they do try their best. Over time, editorial staff and writers have forgotten this somewhat, and made many of them into irrepentant douchebags in the name of edginess.

I think the researcher would agree with this to a large extent. Just look at the current Peter Parker - the post-OMD Spider-man was supposed to be more appealing to kids, and that somehow takes the form of drunken one night stands (later explained as Peter thinking he was drunk on apple juice) and breaking into hotel rooms to have sex with the Black Cat. I have a hard time not taking Lamb's point seriously when I see that. In some ways, I think she's making the same point as Millar's Kick Ass does, although in a very different way.

It's also too easy to take a broad genre like this and cherry pick your examples. It's gross stereotyping of an entire genre to shoe-horn it into your arguement. It's no better than people who point at an ethnicity or religion and say this bad representation is what all of them are like.

 

[FPAlpha]

I guess there are worse role models than Peter Parker, Professor Xavier or Superman.

What i really don't get is how these people assume that those stories can affect anyone who's remotely anchored in the real world.
The only people who really do blur the line have far deeper problems than just taking comics for real.. they are the people who need real, professional help and it's not the comics fault but something else.. something that goes much deeper.

Despite that comics have fallen into a far greater niche than before.. when i was a kid you could get mainstream comics in every bookstore and media store. Now those store have a small corner at best and you have to go to fantasy hobby stores to get them or just order online.

Todays role models come from videogames and movies/music and those are far closer to a young mind than any comic could ever be. Study that.

 

[Derishton]

It's also too easy to take a broad genre like this and cherry pick your examples. It's gross stereotyping of an entire genre to shoe-horn it into your arguement. It's no better than people who point at an ethnicity or religion and say this bad representation is what all of them are like.

If you're not talking about a genre using examples, what are you going to use? It's not enough to say that your opponents are cherry-picking, because you can't talk about the entirety of a genre without falling into exactly the same wide stereotype. It's entirely possible that Lamb's argument falls apart on one of these two grounds.

FR Alpha, I think the answer to your question - how can people grounded in reality be affected by stories or characters - is that there's a wide general consensus that narrative is one of the things which creates reality. From what I've read about Lamb, she seems to be arguing that behaviour patterns can be affected - in fact, have to be - by the ways in which character is depicted.

I've just finished Jane Tompkin's book on western (West of Everything, Oxford) where she makes a similar point: the Western's depiction of the ideal man, starting with Wister's The Virginian and Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, was instrumental in forming the ideal 20th-century man: taciturn, better equipped to swallow emotion than to express it. And she does this while proifessing, and I think showing, a great deal of affection for the Western as a reader and viewer. I wonder if Lamb is not quite as anti-superhero as the media is making her appear?

 

[captcalhoun]

so is it wrong to admit i wanted to be Flint from GI Joe when i was a kid? or Snake Eyes? or Ace?

and i idolised Optimus Prime...

and Spidey and Cyclops...

 

[Derishton]

If Lamb's book is like Tompkins', then no, I don't think she's be arguing that. If she is arguing something like that, her book wouldn't be very valuable. I suppose I'll have to read it (I taught a superhero course once, so I can always justify the time, I guess.)

 

[Teelie]

It's also too easy to take a broad genre like this and cherry pick your examples. It's gross stereotyping of an entire genre to shoe-horn it into your arguement. It's no better than people who point at an ethnicity or religion and say this bad representation is what all of them are like.

If you're not talking about a genre using examples, what are you going to use? It's not enough to say that your opponents are cherry-picking, because you can't talk about the entirety of a genre without falling into exactly the same wide stereotype. It's entirely possible that Lamb's argument falls apart on one of these two grounds.

It is literally like saying that Harry Potter or Twilight represent all books, all literature is of the same kind as those. You lump them with Shakespeare and the Bible, and with the Kama Sutra or any other notable book. The problem here is the definition "comicbook superhero" just incompasses an entire medium that represents everything from child friendly content (Disney among others has comics) to hardcore violence and pornography meant for adults only.

 

[Derishton]

I think I see what you mean. The superhero isn't a medium, though, it's a genre, like the Western, and you're right - it's worth remembering that the superhero comes in a variety of flavors as other genres. That's why I think it's important to note that Lamb seems to be talking about superheroes in film - although there, you'd also be right, given the number and variety of films we've seen recently.