The 1950’s were a very stressful time for The United States. The country was just coming out of World War II and Korea and had to deal with a lot of issues back home as well. Many movements were becoming to take a stand such as woman’s rights and civil rights. The red scare was also a huge deal. The Russians began to become a huge super power and the idea of communism was spreading. The United States was very nervous about communism taking over the world and it put stress on the US. The government went crazy with power and began to sensor a lot of media. Part of this censorship was put on the comic book industry. Many people believed that the comic books that were being made had a bad influence on the youth of our nation. The comic book stories that were being developed were comics based on violence and horror. The idea of murder was amongst the comic book stories in great detail. The youth of America became more violent than ever before. This is what made the government put special codes on the comics being made. These codes limited what the comic book industries could produce. The nation began to see the violent comics go down and the funny, romantic, and heroism comics go up. The 1950’s were not a time of social cohesion. The issue with comics split the government from the people. People loved comics and the suspense that they possessed. When the government began to censor comics because of this silly idea that it was making the youth more violent it just added more splitting. The country was scared about communism and dealing with social movements as they were censoring the media. The country became more and more split during the 1950’s and it got worse during the 1960’s with Vietnam War. Social Cohesion is not the right word that describes the 1950’s in The United States.
Throughout the 60’s, comics were at the forefront of social transformation. Possibly the best example of this is through comics reflection of the public’s view of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of the war a majority of Americans fully supported the cause. The idea that communism, the most evil idea conceived, could spread first through South-East Asia and eventually to the US lead Americans to accept the need to occupy Vietnam. However as the war progressed it became more obvious that it was less to defend democracy and actually just a proxy war against Russia. As support for the war diminished, comics greatly altered their position on the war to question the causes of the war, and whether the US should actually be there. The comic Iron Man accurately represented this shift in support as he stopped dealing arms, and took a moral stand against their use. As well as Vietnam War culture, comics also accurately portrayed youth culture in the US throughout the 60’s. Comics suc...
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