Anti-Game Violence Lawyer Profiled

Thanks to Reason Online for their article discussing recurring anti-game violence lawyer Jack Thompson, whom they describe as "nothing if not relentless" for his repeated attempts to sue videogame companies on behalf of violence victims. They also shine a light on his pre-videogame concerns, which include acting as "a primary force behind 2 Live Crew's obscenity woes", and even "peddling some genuinely intriguing claims about Janet Reno's time in Miami." The piece concludes by referencing similar "brainwashing fears" common to Thompson and an earlier crusader, Fredric Wertham, who "was at the forefront of the campaign to stop comic books from rotting the minds of the young with fantastic, colorful tales of violence, horror, and unconventional living arrangements" in the '50s.

Comments

Re:Little known fact..

[Snowspinner]

There is a reason that this is a little known fact: it's not true.

Wertham was an accomplished psychiatrist who, noting a rise in juvenlile delinquancy, looked at his own patients, and observed identification with comic book figures in a number of cases. He then drew the connection. If you actually read Seduction of the Innocent, it's mostly not that hysterical - he's mostly reasonably raising the question of whether or not comic books were being sufficiently attentive to the fact that their audience was still psychologically developing, and extremely impressionable.

Seeing as there was no labeling whatsoever on comic books at the time, this is actually a fairly reasonable concern.

To say that the hysterical backlash that followed Wertham's book is his fault is not entirely dissimilar to blaming Columbine on id software, really. Wertham had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, of raising the question of whether comic books were being responsible or not at a time when people were looking for something to blame - Wertham inadvertantly provided it.