In a comment on Mary's post about the harmful effects of media, I said this discussion has been going about as long as any media has been popular and targeted at youth. One example I mentioned was the U.S. Senate Hearings on comic books and their role in juvenile delinquency - this link has a summary and transcripts.
Here's a video that was used as evidence for those hearings:
This footage is an excerpt from Comic Book Confidential, a documentary by Rob Mann. My brother clued me into this - he saw it in his serial illustration class (all about storyboards and comic books and yes, I'm jealous) at Columbia College. He highly recommends it to anyone interested in comic books or issues with censorship and popular media.
The video isn't terribly expensive (less than $20), so if you're building a library collection of comic books it might be a valuable addition. Besides historical footage like this, it also includes interviews with many major figures across different genres of comics and graphic novels, from artists of traditional superhero stuff to authors of more complex titles.
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2 comments:
I just sent this to my husband Ron. It made me laugh. It is a good thing to remember when I get worried about the television eh? lol
That music!
Nell
It is really scary though isn't it......Senate hearings? Can you imagine Senate hearings today for internet usage?
It hasn't really stopped... they had congressional hearings on video games not that long ago (ok, almost 10 years ago - yikes!). I quoted from an article about Henry Jenkin's role in that process in my comment on Mary's post (see the link "example" above)
As for the internet, CIPA legislation (Child's Internet Protection Act) enforces filters and blocking of lots of sites on the internet because it's tied to funding for schools and public libraries. There's a bill that was just introduced about a month ago to block MySpace unilaterally from all library and schools. You can find more info on that here or track the bill's progress here.
All this from people who really don't understand how this works. They didn't "get" comic books, they didn't "get" video games, and they aren't going to "get" the internet. The most egregious example? If you haven't seen it alredy, Senator Ted Stevens is pretty amazing with his "internet tubes" (like the bank??)
Jon Stewart does an "interview" with him to explain his views here
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