In my opinion, comics can definitely be considered inherently sexist. When comic books were first created, the genres that were used were targeted more to the male population. These genres include superheroes, crime, and horror. These don’t normally attract the female population. Along with the genres, many of the main characters in comic books are male. However, I don’t think that the creators did this because they were sexist. I think that the reason for this could be a result of the time period that many comics were created in. During the 1930’s to 1950’s, women weren’t normally the targeted audience that many mediums pointed their stories to. Most of them (mainly comic books) were created for the male population. Although, this could be argued because of the creation of the first popular superhero character, Wonder Woman. Many may say that her creation showed that comics weren’t sexist, but even she was originally created for men. Wonder woman didn’t become a symbol for feminist movement until years later. Her stories also portrayed her as very muscular with the ability to seduce men to get her way. The creators couldn’t even allow her to marry in fear that if she did, she would have to become a housewife, give up her powers and lose her thrill as a superhero. This shows that though creators may not have intended it to be so, comics have always been inherently sexist.
Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
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