It seems like everyone thinks that the idea of censoring comics in order to protect children is ridiculous. I think there are some pros and cons to this theory. First of all, one must ask the question of why comics should be censored. Do children think it is all right to do everything that is done in comics? Do kids really imitate the crimes and violence they observe in comics? If it is not the fault of the comics, what are the alternative sources of children’s violence? Next, one must assess why it would be good to censor comics. Or, why it might be harmful to children to censor comics. One might argue that it is bad to censor comics because comics do not sell as well and children won’t want to read them anymore. Another explanation might be that censoring comics might shield children from reality. I think that children must know the true reality of life, and should not be censored from it. However, from what I have read in Comic Book Nation, most of the suggested censorship did not display reality in any shape or form. For example, a man cutting a woman’s head off is not reality and should not be displayed as such. One might argue that a comic does not necessarily represent such acts as reality, but a child might not be able to know whether it is reality or not. Thus, I believe that some comics may have needed censorship since parents could not control everything that their children were reading, but comics should not have been censored to the point where children observe a false sense of reality.
Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...
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