MORE MCCARTHYISM:
The Blacklisting of Captain America

Amid the anti-communist hysteria of the early 1950s, right-wing psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Werthman released his anti-comic book treatise Seduction of the Innocent. Amazingly, his book generated enough public controversy to spur the ever vigilant US Senate to hold hearings on the issue. Much like the recording industry in the 1980s and the film industry in the 1930s, the comic industry, fearing government intervention, created its own censorship rules known as The Comics Code. E.C. Comics' fantastic horror line, which was much later resurrected in the forms of the Creepshow movies and the Tales from the Crypt TV program, was an unfortunate casualty, smacked down like the numerous Hollywood talents who were seeing their careers destroyed at around the same time.

That sort of menacing weirdness is all in the past, right? Wrong.

Kooky Christian fundamentalist film critic (and I use the term "critic" very, very loosely) Michael Medved now takes on Captain America. It seems that Marvel Comics is trying to get some progressive views out there (which is incredible enough by itself) and it's making the neo-McCarthyites wail. I'm not even going to dignify Medved's rantings with a response: I think his lunacy speaks for itself. However, I think this essay should be read, if only to see just how bad things are getting.

Jesus, they're going after Captain America, for Christ's sake!

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