The Four Color Media Monitor

The Illinois News Bureau writes about the findings of Prof. Carol Tilley, who found some surprising inaccuracies, distortions and inconsistencies in the notes of Dr. Fredric Wertham when he wrote Seduction of the Innocent in the 1950s, including:

He had an extensive case file on a 15-year-old boy named Carlisle, whom he was counseling for truancy, petty thievery and gang membership. Carlisle brought three comic books to one counseling session, and the transcript in Wertham’s file shows that Carlisle said one of the comic books, called “Crime Must Pay the Penalty,” was instructive on ways to commit burglaries and holdups. However, in “Seduction,” Carlisle’s quotes appear to come from five different boys, ranging in age from 13 to 15, in different settings and contexts.

And [Carol] Tilley found one quote from Carlisle’s transcripts that Wertham chose not to use, in which the boy described learning about robbery “in the movies. Movies help a lot.”

If this is correct, it's a real shame that Wertham let his biases run away with him, to the point of taking a lot of research out of context. Thanks to that, he delivered a real setback for anyone concerned about the effects of violent entertainment. He really was a dreadful lot, as this makes clear, and did a terrible disservice to the industry.

Update: The New York Times quoted Michael Chabon, the overrated novelist, telling that that:

...while Wertham had been viewed as “this almost McCarthyite witch hunter,” he was actually “an extremely well-intentioned liberal, progressive man in many ways,” providing mental health services to minorities and the poor.

How many leftists are surprised to know that the man who all but damaged the industry was one of their very own?

Labels: censorship issues, libraries, violence