The 1960's was a rough and confusing time for the United States. During the late 1960's, the main event or social issue that was taking
place and was the topic of everyday life in America was the war in
Vietnam. Because the war was so heavily opposed, people rioting and
protesting were common in city streets and college campuses. This sparked
a whole new era in America. This era in america was filled with protest and outrage. 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 this sparked a new generation of 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.
There
were also stories that confronted feminism and female empowerment with
female versions of male characters like Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, and
She-Hulk. The growing popularity of socially relevant comics during the
1960s gave way for the comic writer’s of the 1970s to be free to talk
about more personal and realistic social problems that people face
everyday.
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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