Fredric wertham wikipedia death

Although Fredric Wertham is remembered primarily as the author of Seduction of the Innocent , an incisive, blistering attack on the violence and horror purveyed by the comic book industry, his research took him through this era of crime comics to the culture that violent movies and television created. In Wertham wrote: "Television represents one of the greatest technological advances and is an entirely new, potent method of communication.

Unfortunately as it is presently used, it does have something in common with crime comic books: the devotion to violence. In the School for Violence, television represents the classic course. Competition for audience share, demand for advertising revenue, and misguided applications of constitutional rights have all encouraged aggressive displays of violent behavior to be broadcast.

Though originally derided, Wertham's observations that the grammar of violence and its impact on the culture constitutes a public health issue have been sustained by the research of Leonard Eron, George Gerbner, and Albert Bandura. Nevertheless, Wertham was not a Luddite, opposed to technological advances, but a physician of wide and deeply humane interests, an advocate of social reform, and a defender of civil liberties.

As a young man on the eve of the World War I , Wertham spent several summers in England where he found the environment there open and relaxed, a stark contrast to the rigid, disciplined, and intellectually pedantic German culture at home. During this period he explored Fabian socialism, the writings of Karl Marx , and, more importantly, became an avid reader of Charles Dickens ' writings on social reform.

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When war broke out in , Wertham, pursuing medical studies at King's College, London University, found himself stranded in England and, as a German national, was for a short time interned in a prison camp near Wakefield, then paroled. An admirer of British society, Wertham remained in England during the war, reading medicine and literature. After the war he continued his studies at the Universities of Erlangen and Munich, obtaining his M.