Shades of Violence
By Philip Schweier
May 11, 2008 - 08:50
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Whether or not such a game crosses the line of acceptable levels of violence is a decision that needs to be made on an individual level. Such moral boundaries are often stretched to their limit, only to contract, then stretch again.
What this has to do with comics is that the limits of violence have always been pushed, the most famous (or infamous) time being the era of Seduction of the Innocent in the early 1950s. The people behind the gruesome covers of EC horror titles were vilified for foisting such horribly graphic images on the fair youth of America. In the wake of United States senate hearings, the Comics Code Authority was developed, and standards of decency were implemented.
Over the next 40 years or so, the Comics Code Authority's influence has gradually given way to the point where its official stamp of approval has all but disappeared from most comic book covers, and with good reason. The wholesome characters that were published in the 1960s have been replaced by any number of heroes, anti-heroes, and villains (not to mention some we're just not sure of) who freely maim, kill, disintegrate and blast into smithereens any animal, vegetable or mineral that gets in their way.
One of the most popular of such characters is Wolverine, who, in his earliest days, dispatched his foes to rather vague results. Though it may not have been explicitly portrayed that he killed them, circumstances were left inconclusive enough that it was difficult to determine if his opponent was permanently dealt with.
This may have been the result of Jim Shooter, who was editor-in-chief at Marvel in the early 1980s. According to a joint interview with X-Men writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne published in BACK ISSUE #4 (June 2004), Shooter's edict was that "heroes shouldn't kill."
"The Shooter influence was really starting to kick in at that point," said Byrne. "Shooter was the one who insisted that everyone that Wolverine had ever killed should turn up later alive, possibly with bionic parts."
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Is such violence too much for children? Well, maybe it's a subject to be debated by more educated people than I. I suppose it might be a question of perspective.
If Western movies such as True Grit and Hang 'Em High have any basis in fact, it may have been common in the 19th century for the occasional hanging to be a near-festive event, complete with refreshments and clowns (as if the dead guy swinging by a rope wasn't creepy enough). Maybe seeing justice so decidedly in action was meant to keep the younger folk on a more righteous path. In some instances, I'm confident it worked.
Since the demise of public executions, adults used other kinds of fear tactics. For instance, reading the Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy, in almost every story, not only is Detective Tracy victorious in his battle against crime, those not firmly on the side of law and order often meet with unfortunate circumstances.
One example is in the story that introduced one of Tracy's most famous foes, Flattop. Hiding incognito in a boarding house, the notorious hitman is recognized by his landlady's son, who chooses to blackmail him. With his ill-gotten gains, the young man buys "a nifty new coat and two swell pocket knives." and later a new pair of skates. But literally skating on thin ice proves the young man's downfall, as he crashes through the ice and drowns.
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Remember, this was published in newspapers across the country. Why? Because too many people needed to understand that crime doesn't pay and somehow, the guilty get punished. Maybe it was harsh lesson in the wrong form, but it probably worked. Today, such a violent end would probably not be published, for fear of upsetting too many children and/or their parents.
In my home as a child, my family tried to err on the side of common sense, and so long as my parents felt I knew the difference between real life and fantasy, they seldom criticized my choice of reading material. I applaud parents who take an active interest in what kind of movies, video games, etc their children are exposed to, with an eye toward making the child understand the sometimes subtle variations of violence.
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Suddenly the tires of the pursuing jeep blow out, sending it careening into roadside underbrush, roadside fruit stands or roadside billboards, only to flip and crash. Nevertheless, the occupants of the jeep stagger away, easily conveying that the lovable boys of the A-Team aren't out to kill anyone. They just want their plan to come together. Nobody ever dies, no blood is (visibly) spilled. The actors playing bad guys merely fall down and feign death, in the hopes that any potential live ammunition will find someone off camera. The director, perhaps.
So my point is not to cast a critical eye at forms of entertainment that might be beyond our influence. However inappropriate a video game or movie or comic book might be, another is going to come along later and outdo the first. We can't control that.
What we can control is our ability to assess the judgment of the youth in our immediate care, focusing on those under our own roofs, rather than the nation as a whole. Granted, we can't monitor them 24/7, but we can teach them to understand the nature of what they are exposed to, and judge it on its own merits – or lack thereof.
It is through this kind of education that we can help them decide for themselves the temptations of the temptations of modern life.
And if that doesn't work, we can always bring back public executions. *
Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com.
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