During the 1960s, the United States was involved in conflicts in Vietnam. On United States soil, protestors flooded common areas of colleges and city streets. These protestors were the ones who formed the hippy movement in the United States. These times were all about peace and war was far from what any one wanted. Drugs became extremely popular during the hippy movement. This can be seen in the comic books of the late 1960s. Comic books became a big hit and were now created at an underground level. These comic books were not required to be checked by the comic code and comics such as Fritz the Cat featured sex that had not been featured before in comic books. These underground comic books were very representative of the rebellious times. Also the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man featured drugs in them as Peter Parker's best friend begins taking drugs in order to ease the pain of his girlfriend Mary Jane coming on to Peter. This is another aspect that had not yet been featured in comic books that is socially relevant in the 1960s.
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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