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Comics Code Dead
tverbeek writes "After more than half a century of stifling the comic book industry, the Comics Code Authority is effectively dead. Created in response to Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, one of the early think-of-the-children censorship campaigns, and Congressional hearings, the Code laid out a checklist of requirements and restrictions for comics to be distributed to newsstand vendors, effectively ensuring that in North America, only simplistic stories for children would be told using the medium of sequential art. It gradually lost many of its teeth, and an increasing number of publishers gave up on newsstand distribution and ignored the Code, but at the turn of the century the US's largest comics publishers still participated. Marvel quit it in 2001, in favor of self-applied ratings styled after the MPAA's and ESRB's. Last year Bongo (publishers of the Simpsons comics) quietly dropped out. Now DC and Archie, the last publishers willingly subjecting their books to approval, have announced that they're discontinuing their use of the CCA, with DC following Marvel's example, and Archie (which recently introduced an openly gay supporting character, something flatly forbidden by the original Code) carrying on under their own standards. The Code's cousins — the MPAA and ESRB ratings, the RIAA parental advisory, and the mishmash of warnings on TV shows — still live on, but at least North American comic publishers are no longer subject to external censorship."
I don't know about the MPAA or the others, but i know the whole point of the ESRB was that it was a voluntary measure the video game industry took on itself in order to avoid something like the Comic Book Code getting created by an outside group. So it's not external censorship and it's really kind of weird to put it up as an example of the Comic Book Code's "cousin" living on. It's really a good example of the _right_ way to inform consumer about what's in the content they're consuming without being subject to censorship.
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Gay characters are harmful to children? Children who might be gay themselves, and feel like monsters since they aren't aware that being gay is fine since they are never exposed to positive examples of it, in say, comics?
How does this kind of idiocy exist?
And it was always voluntary. The publishers were not subject to external censorship. They chose to follow that "code" (and of course not all did. You just never heard of those who didn't.)
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
While schemes like the MPAA and ESRB systems are good in theory (rate the content, allow people to make their own decisions), the market realities of them basically end up resulting in "no adult content allowed". No one will stock or publish an ESRB AO game, just like no theatres ever show NC-17 films. As such there is no money in them, and the end up never being made.
*Ding dong the witch is dead*. And good riddance. Censorship has no place in a freedom loving society and its really appalling that Republicans who blather on about freedom are the first to support authoritarian censorship. Censorship and other social conservative ideas generally makes a society by condoning violent behaviour and sanctioning supression and violence against others who have views, expression or opinions some do not like.
Skin never hurt anyone, the idea that nudity or sex is bad (or psychedelics for that matter) is completely concocted by society, these things are victimless, as a society we should let individuals make up their own minds and decisions, rather than have a authoritarian government and the right wing religious organisations, the private quasi or defacto governmental form of that, watching over our every move.
I prefer more of a western European model, with a socially liberal atmosphere and little or no censorship, nude beaches etc, and governments that concern themselves with making sure people have food, housing, good jobs, and health care, and education, rather than obsesssing over imposing arbitrary ideologies on people. As a social libertatian, that is what we believe in and leads to a truly safe society.
The idea that nudity is wrong is, in fact, a lie. It is a lie promulgated by oppressive religious ideologies that are designed to control, enslave and indoctrinate peoples minds. It is opposed to individual liberty and rationality, that people should have individual self determination rights and things which do not deprive others of their own freedom should not be enacted. Nudity is victimless, it takes away no ones right to not or to wear clothes as they prefer. In fact, laws against nudity take away our right to make these choices for themselves. Nudity is truly harmless, and there is much more of it in Europe. Yet Europe is far safer than the US and has much less violent crime, an overall safer society.
The most socially conservative places in the world, such as Iraq, or Afghanistan are also the most dangerous and violent.
Ironically the country that Republicans seem to want is one where public school has been replaced by bible school, harmless. natural and innocent things like nude swimming have been banned, and with children dying on the street from starvation and treatable medical conditions, massive military and industrial prison complexs and so on.
We will all be better off when we evolve past medieval religious ideologies and systems of oppressive social control designed to take away individuals freedom, not preserve them.
I haven't collected since I was a kid...actually I've never collected. I just got them and read them until the covers literally fell off. But, those young readers were the pool from which adult readers sprang. Creating titles that everyone could read is what made the industry so ubiquitous. Now, it's a boutique niche with drastically reduced readership. Maybe that's made it more satisfying to the adult readers, I don't know.
I had a friend in college who collected and bragged about the value of his collection with the confidence of a basement full of gold bullion. That was before everyone figured out the only readers left were just the collectors, and the valuation formulas were all wrong. Kind of like their own economic bubble.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I have wanted the porn industry to establish the same kind of warnings.
What? "All stunts were performed by professional actors. Don't try this at home."?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Smoking bans are in place because you are igniting a caustic material in a public area. Your smoking affects others around you and that's where your rights start to seriously fade fast. Think about this logically, why would it ever be ok to light things on fire in public and subject others to the results of said fire? In no way do you have an inalienable right to ignite chemicals in public places whenever you feel like it.
Good-bye
Nobody is forcing you to go into that bar, anymore than anyone is forcing you to read a comic book with a gay character. But thanks for pointing out the douchey tyranny of the majority - You are against freedom. The freedom for a property owner to own property and say "this is what I want to happen on my own property". Your mentality is also the exact same mentality that stomps out adult stops, strip clubs, and sex clubs. "Something is going on that I don't like, so I'm going to whine to the government to control the behavior of consenting adults." Whether you realize it or acknowledge it, you are anti-freedom. People like you are why I would never open a business.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Now maybe Batman and Robin can be honest about their love.
Archie Comics spokesman mentioned the whole "we're not going to have any women in refrigerators" just because we're dropping the comics code, which is somewhat ironic, as the woman in that particular refrigerator came to be as a direct result of the comics code authority interference. Originally in the Green Lantern story the incident occurred in, the woman in question was supposed to be brutally murdered, but the comics code didn't want people to see a murdered woman, so instead, they had her put in the refrigerator and alluded to it instead. Nice work, comics code.
First off, we are not talking about public parts. We are talking about private businesses. So already, you're using a strawman fallacy to attack a completely different situations than the one I'm talking about.
Second off, IF I OWNED MY OWN ESTABLISHMENT that consenting could enter into, and take a dump on the table - AND THIS IS WHAT MY CLIENTELE WANTED TO DO - Who the fuck are you to tell me I can't? If I open MY doors to the public, all of a sudden the public gets to tell me what to do?
But yea, anonymous coward, way to talk about something completely different and irrelevant. You win the internet.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Looking at some data for box office revenues, it looks like PG movies are actually the most profitable segment of the market.
Most years in recent history show a ratio of 1 PG-rated movie being released to every R-rated movie, yet the percentages of total gross have remained close to one another in recent history:
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/?view2=mpaa&chart=byyear&yr=2010&view=releasedate&p=.htm
I was on the internet in minutes, registering my approval.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You are missing the part where the self-censorship was coerced under threat of government censorship.
There were several large movements in the government to censor all media via government agencies similar to the FCC. In fact, one of the reasons the FCC has such broad powers over television and radio content is because the broadcast industry couldn't come up with a workable system similar to the MPAA or RIAA.
The MPAA, RIAA, and CCA were the various industries' attempts to avoid complete disaster in the form of government censorship. It is not like the industry leaders for these groups got together one day and said "Hey, you know what would be really great? If we set up an independent board to rate our movies for us so parents would know whether they want their kid to see our movie or not! Yeah! Wonderful idea! Lets all pitch in and help out!"
Rather, they got together and said "SHIT! We're gonna get fucked in the ass by the government if we don't do something! What if we set up an independent board of reviewers to rate the movies for us? Would that work? Maybe, lets try it."
They were coerced deals worked out between Congress and the various industries in order to avoid censorship laws that would completely destroy those insustries. They are about as voluntary as forcing a slave to put on his own shackles at gun point.
The death of the CCA does prove, however, that the industries have within their own power the means for escape. The gun is still pointed at movies and music though; comics were never targeted as hard as movies and music because they simply are not as popular. Books are rarely censored because it is a lot harder for a book to qualify as obscenity (one of the criteria is that it cannot have any redeeming social value - a hard thing to say about any literary work). Too people are simply not as interested in written smut as they are illustrated smut. Prior to the 60's, though, many important literary works were banned in the US due to isolated passages that could be considered obscene. Since the Supreme Court rulings required both a prurient theme throughout the work and no redeeming literary value, almost all books are back in.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
No! Jughead was always the gay one. Remember how he always had that girl that looked like him run after him and he was always running away from her? Now he can declare his undying love for Moose and Moose can stop hanging around with that annoying Midge just to cover...
That is all.
And until "real" censorship, i.e. government mandated censorship, happens, this will stay dead. Let's hope for a long resting in peace.
The only reason such "codes" could fly is that the makers of art had to rely on a distribution system that could force such arbitrary restrictions on them. Write to our code or we don't publish, and if we don't, nobody worth mentioning will. You will not sell your comic, you will not show your movie, your game will never be sold.
Now, the internet makes the whole scheme crumble. You don't sell my game, my comic book, my movie and nobody in the US does? So I sell it through a publisher in another country, and unless the US forbids import of the game (and unless they plan to swing that censorship hammer, they won't), I couldn't care less for your "code of conduct". People who are fed up with your "coded" content will gladly look abroad and with global shipping, yes, it might cost them a bit more, but they get what they want. Whether I pay 5 bucks for a comic I don't want or 8 for one I do is not going to break my neck financially.
But it sure will break yours, since I'm not the only one who can't care less for your "coded" crap.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So...what you're saying is that consumer demand for NC-17 and AO products is pretty low, therefore content providers don't produce much of it?
No, AO games sell fine when they aren't AO. Look at GTA: San Andreas. It sold fine, then it became rated AO and was removed from store shelves at the time, despite the fact that the content couldn't be normally accessed. It wasn't any merits of the game itself that caused it to be removed from store shelves, but rather a pointless rating system by the ESRB.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yes they have. And that in turn opened a huge, dangerous venue. Because the immediate assumption of pretty much everyone past the age of 25 was that "if it's comic style, it's suitable for children".
In came Anime. I will never forget the afternoon I spent watching Princess Mononoke in a movie theater. Hint for movie theaters: WATCH your damn movies before you simply roll them so you KNOW which movies are not for kids. And hint for parents: Just because it's a "comic movie" doesn't mean it's a good idea to take your 6 year old with you to watch it!
When I look through afternoon TV (there are some perks working at home gives you), I am somewhat disturbed what's considered "kids TV" these days. Only because it's "comic style" and we grew up with the idea that everything drawn is suitable for children. Bleach is not necessarily something I'd consider a perfect filler between Dragonball and Naruto.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And this seems to reveal why US comics are so dull and boring compared to comics from the rest of the world. It's made so blunt by various code and censorship that it it's completely nonsense.
Go look at stuff like Bernhard Prince, Largo Winch, Modesty Blaise, XIII, Garth (Not to be confused with the DC Comics character with the same name), Thorgal, Asterix, Axa...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Just wait until the next issue when they realize that Comics Code was *NOT* dead, but instead placed in suspended animation when his arch nemesis switched the translator module causing a brain cascade failure... And in all that time, Comics Code was in an alternate reality, getting stronger, leveling up....
Next issue.. Comics Code returns!
You are missing the part where the self-censorship was coerced under threat of government censorship.
You are missing the part where they voluntarily agreed to it, rather than actually standing up for their rights and calling Congress's bluff. The Constitution says Congress "shall make no law" and doesn't say Congress "shall not threaten to make a law." Congress, as wrong as their threats were, did not violate the Constitution in making them. But they would have if they did see through their bluff.
I have little sympathy for people that give away their rights freely. That applies to companies and industries as well (though to a lesser extent, since companies, despite recent rulings, are not people).
In fact, one of the reasons the FCC has such broad powers over television and radio content is because the broadcast industry couldn't come up with a workable system similar to the MPAA or RIAA.
And here I thought it was because the airwaves are owned by "the people" and as such, the licenses are always only temporary and contain constraints. The FCC manages those constraints, rightly or wrongly, but within the rules that they aren't telling random or select people what they can do, but just those who know what's involved before they opt to rent a government-managed resource. The only one that's arguably constitutional is the FCC as long as they only monitor OTA transmissions, and not things like cable TV.
Learn to love Alaska
Wrong. Why do you think OSHA exists? To set the level of dangerous conditions that your employees can be exposed to. And OSHA specifically states that secondhand smoke does not meet their standards. Look it up.
Furthermore, your laughable statement -- with no legal basis I might add -- would exclude many jobs out there, from factory worker, farmer, taxi driver, policeman, and any other job in which employees are exposed to dangerous conditions.
Your entire argument seems based on the fact that you are only allowed to employ people with 0 potential harm, which is a falsehood.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
That ownership of property means you can do what you want on your property within law.
Second hand smoke is poison. You can't poison people on your private property. Selling is legal, sex is legal, selling sex on your property is illegal. And no one is telling you that you can't smoke in your own bar after hours when no one is there. You still have that freedom. You just can't enter into an employment contract that makes your employees slaves, nor requires that they be poisoned every time they show up to work, whether they are working in public parks or your "private" establishment.
That's a strawman representation/response to tyranny of the majority, which is the weakest part of democracy.
So you support it while hating many things that come from it? Or do you not support it? Tyranny by the majority is a natural result of democracy, and if you think it's such a problem, what other governmental structure would you prefer?
Tyranny of the majority is a real problem to be addressed with real discourse, not comparisons to dictatorships and Hitler and such.
You brought up Hitler not me, and, in case you didn't know, Hitler was democratically elected. Democracy leads to Hitlers, not protects us from them.
Learn to love Alaska
You do realize that you sound like a 1950s restaurant owner with a "no dogs, blacks, or jews" sign in the window, don't you?
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