Talk20241 h 28 min1920×1080

Censorship and the Comic Book: ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ at 70

Whitted, Qiana

At the Library of Congress

Clips are not offered for this film: the Library of Congress states its rights in its own words, not as a public licence, which leaves reuse unclear.

About

In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham published “Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today’s Youth,” a book which cemented his role as America’s most prominent critic of comic books. At the time, comic books were near the peak of their popularity, with titles like Batman, Superman and Captain Marvel selling as many as 1.5 million copies per month. The content of those comics was also entirely unregulated. Writing amid a moral panic that Wertham himself helped create, “Seduction of the Innocent” almost immediately helped spur the formation of the Comics Code Authority, which dramatically reshaped the nation’s comic book industry. Widely hated among comic book fans for decades, Wertham and the legacy of his “Seduction of the Innocent” has been reevaluated in more recent years in light of his anti-racist activism and recent conversations around comics and censorship. Comics scholars Qiana Whitted, Carol Tilley, and Margaret Galavan join the Library’s Josh Levy and Megan Halsband to discuss Wertham’s legacy at a time when censorship in comics and graphic novels has again surfaced in the national conversation.

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