I- do people honestly not know that the whole “Batman and Robin are gay for each other thing” in popular culture comes from The Seduction of the Innocent? You know, that homophobic book that published a homophobic article about Batman being gay and being a pedophile (because he’s gay)?? That was written literally for no other reason than to tear down the comics industry???? Like-??
Ship what you want, but don’t say “it’s popular culture because it’s canon” when it’s not, it’s popular culture because a homophobic dick head who hated comics and equated being gay with being a pedophile published a bunch of fucking slander saying it’s canon. You are just flat out wrong. Not subjectively. You are objectively, historically, factually WRONG.
ACTUALLY— this whole post is wrong. This whole post is objectively, historically, factually WRONG.
I wrote my BA thesis on Batman, and I’m preparing to write my MA thesis on him as well. As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time with Fredric Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent. Wertham was not a homophobe, nor did he have it out for the comics industry; literally everyone just really HUGELY and unfortunately overreacted to SotI.
In brief:
- The “Batman and Robin are gay for each other” thing actually preceded SotI! Wertham was just the most prolific writer on the phenomenon.
- Wertham was a psychologist. A very strange and eccentric one, but also a very progressive one. He founded the first free clinic for African-Americans in Harlem in the 1940s. He dedicated his entire life to speaking against racism and sexism and – believe it or not – homophobia.
- A lot of his patients were kids, and, being kids in the 1940s, they all read comics. Because kids only really went to therapy if they were having serious problems – read: juvenile delinquency, violence, and, yes, Non-Heterosexual Feelings because this was the 1940s – Wertham’s sample was really biased. No one is saying he was a particularly good research psychologist.
- Seduction of the Innocent chronicles Wertham’s conclusions from hundreds of these patients and therapy sessions. If anyone actually bothers to read the Batman and Robin chapter in question, they’ll see that Wertham is not running around screaming that Comics Are Corrupting Your Children With Homosexuality.
- What he is saying is that a lot of his patients are identifying with a queer reading of Batman and Robin – that they like the idea of it, that it comforts them, because guess what, these kids were probably queer and desperate for representation!
- He actually advocates for compassion for his probably queer patients! I quote:
- “Many adolescents go through periods of vague fears that they might be homosexual. Such fears may become a source of great mental anguish and these boys usually have no-one in whom they feel they can confide […] during and after comic-book reading they indulged in fantasies which became seriously repressed. Life experiences, either those drawing attention to the great taboo of homosexuality or just the opposite – experiences providing any kind of temptation – raise feelings of doubt, guilt, shame and sexual malorientation.” (SotI 189)
- Will Brooker, preeminent Bat-scholar, writes on Wertham that:
- “We might now quibble with the term “malorientation”, but overall, rather than expressing shock and outrage, Wertham’s tone seems one of quite reasonable concern. He does not, in my opinion, come across as ‘shrill’ or ‘anguished’. Rather than advocating a witch-hunt against deviants, he understands that a climate where homosexuality is a great taboo, gay fantasies might be a source of worry for young men. Moreover, his overall suggestion, at the beginning of his discussion on Batman, is merely that ‘a subtle atmosphere of homoeroticism’ pervades the comic; not a scenario of ‘deviance’, but, in his own words, a ‘love-relationship’.” (Batman Unmasked 111-112)
- wow, really homophobic isn’t it…..
- Mostly, Wertham was worried about the violence and gore of horror and crime comics cultivating a casual attitude toward violence, much as we to this day worry about TV and video games doing the same!
- The Comics Code Authority (what OP means by “tore down the comics industry”) was a bad thing. No arguments there. But Wertham was not responsible. He testified to Congress against censorship! He advocated to the comics industry against imposing the CCA! He was furious about it! That was the last thing that he wanted!
In conclusion:
- Wertham: not a homophobe, did not think homosexuality = pedophilia
- Wertham: also not a good researcher, but had some good points anyway
- Seduction of the Innocent: not homophobic, was not intended to take down the comics industry
- Batman and Robin chapter: also not homophobic, also not intended to take down the comics industry
- 1950s America: a racist, homophobic shithellhole ready to destroy everything at the slightest provocation
- Stop blaming Wertham for the industry’s own nonsense and the radical misinterpretation of his genuine concern for the gays by racist, McCarthyist suburban parents pls and thank.
Hi, I’m sorry but what?
You are absolutely right in pointing out that Wertham opened one of the first low-income clinics in Harlem, and that this was a good thing, but to claim that he didn’t have it out for the comics industry is an absolute falsehood.
Wertham was easily the most influential voice in what would eventually result in the Comics Code Authority. The 1954 Senate Subcommittee for Juvenile Delinquency, which discussed Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today’s Youth in detail and which Wertham personally attended and took part in, is universally regarded as what prompted the comic industry to universally adopt the CCA (for fear of government censorship).
Wertham may have been against “censorship” when it applied to adult media, but he absolutely believed laws should be applied when children were at risk. He mentions this in detail at the 1954 Senate Subcommittee, but also says so in Seduction of the Innocent:
- “There seems to be a widely held belief that democracy demands leaving the regulation of children’s reading to the individual. Leaving everything to the individual is actually … anarchy. And it is a pity that children should suffer from the anarchistic trends in our society.”
Wertham testified six times that comic books were harmful to children. [source]
At the 1954 Senate Subcommittee, Wertham testified in length about how he believed that so-called “crime comic books” were detrimental to children. The following quotes are by Wertham from the 1954 Senate Subcommittee [Source].
- “...it is my belief that the comic book industry has a great deal to do with [juvenile delinquency]. While I don't say it is the only factor at all, it may not be the most important one, it is one contributing factor. “I would like to point out to you one other crime comic book which we have found to be particularly injurious to the ethical development of children and those are the Superman comic books. They arose in children phantasies of sadistic joy in seeing other people punished over and over again while you yourself remain immune. We have called it the Superman complex.”
- “Talking further about the ethical effects of comic books [...] In many comic books the whole point is that evil triumphs ; that you can commit a perfect crime. I can give you so many examples that I would take all your time. [...] The second avenue along which comic books contribute to de- linquency is by teaching the technique and by the advertisements for weapons.”
- “Now, what about the remedy ? Mr. Chairman, I am just a doctor. I can't tell what the remedy is. I can only say that in my opinion this is a public-health problem. I think it ought to be possible to determine once and for all what is in these comic books and I think it ought to be possible to keep the children under 15 from seeing them displayed to them and preventing these being sold directly to children.”
- “Children nowadays draw maps and say, ‘This is the street where the store is we are going to rob ; this is where we are going to hide and this is how we are going to get away.’ That is in many comic books, and they show me in comic books that is how they are going to do it. I would not say in such a case this is the only reason why this child committed delinquency, but I will say that is a contributing factor because if you don't know the method you can't execute the act and the method itself is so intriguing and so interesting that the children are very apt to commit it.”
- “I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry. They get the children much younger. They teach them race hatred at the age of 4 before they can read.”
Wertham argued that the industry as a whole forced cartoonists and writers to create comics that were bad for children, and that the creators of these comics “would much rather do something else than do what they are doing,” presumably because they knew they were creating dangerous comics.
He also very clearly demonized Batman and Robin as influencing children into the homosexual lifestyle. Wertham was a firm believer that children would not become homosexual if they weren’t introduced to homosexual themes. The language in Seduction of the Innocent clearly suggests that the homoerotic subtext of Batman and Robin was intentional:
- “As they sit by the fireplace the young boy sometimes worries about his partner: ‘Something’s wrong with Bruce. He hasn’t been himself these past few days.’ It is like the wish dream of two homosexuals living together.”
- “The atmosphere is homosexual and anti-feminine. If the girl is good-looking she is undoubtedly the villainess. If she is after Bruce Wayne, she will have no chance against Dick. For instance, Bruce and Dick go out one evening in dinner clothes, dressed exactly alike. The attractive girl makes up to Bruce while in successive pictures young Dick looks on smiling, sure of Bruce.”
- “They live in sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers in large vases, and have a butler, Alfred. Batman is sometimes shown in a dressing gown [...] Sometimes they are shown on a couch, Bruce reclining and Dick sitting next to him, jacket off, collar open, and his hand on his friend’s arm.”
The “dressing gown” scene was implied to be racy and sexually inappropriate, considering it was a scene between two men. Wertham would also claim that Robin’s “green underwear” and shaved legs were further influences of “sexual deviancy.”
He also called Wonder Woman the “lesbian counter-part to Batman” in Seduction.
I could go on for ages and supply dozens of quotes.
Wertham was, by no means a bad man. He was partly a product of his time, and wasn’t a particularly great psychologist, but he did make attempts to progress societies’ race relations. His studies were used in Brown v. BOE as proof of the detrimental effects of segregation. For those contributions, he deserves recognition.
But it would be wrong to downplay the effect his animosity towards the comic book industry had on America’s history. He led a crusade, very much intently, because he truly believed that mainstream comics harmed American youth.
