David Matthews 2 is a freelance writer in Gainesville, Georgia. He is also the host of a weekly audio rant which you can hear at the main page.

Target: Moralism
Part 8 - Moralism Versus Fictional Characters
– by David Matthews 2

In the 1950’s it was costumed avengers in very popular comic books by DC Comics.

In the 1992 it was a fictional TV personality that aired on CBS.

In the 1997 it was a member of a show aimed at very young children.

In 2005 it was characters from two separate animated shows.

These are all targets of the evil known as moralism. Fictional characters whose very fictional existence became the symbols of everything that moralists hate.

In the 1950’s, a moralist by the name of Dr. Fredric Wertham began a crusade to "clean up" comic books that he deemed to be offensive. There was already a crusade in the corrupt halls of Congress to go after so-called "horror" books such as "Tales from the Crypt", which Wertham believed encouraged young children to commit horrific crimes. But he didn’t stop there. The crusade spread into the popular superhero genre such as those featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

According to Wertham, comic book characters that wore their underwear on the outside were encouraging exhibitionism. Wonder Woman’s use of her "magic lasso" encouraged a bondage fetish, not to mention her aggressive tactics and being raised by nothing but women suggested that she was a lesbian. But the worst criticism was directed at Batman, a single rich playboy who lives with a young boy not related to him (Robin), encouraged him to keep secrets, and constantly puts him in danger while having him wear short pants. (The worst criticism about Superman was that he wore a red cape with a yellow insignia, similar to the flag of the Soviet Union. In the age of rabid hysterical McCarthyism, that supposedly was an unforgivable sin.)

Wertham’s crusade led the comic book industry to come up with its own regulations, which basically reduced comic books to the intellectual level of children, which was the whole goal of the crusade to begin with. Wertham believed to the end that he was only trying to "help" the industry, but in the end he was properly vilified and condemned by fans of the industry.

In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle targeted fictional television character Murphy Brown (played by multiple Emmy winner Candice Bergen), who decided to bring a child into the world while still being single. Quayle, whose own real antics were the embarrassment to the Bush Senior Administration, used the popular CBS character to cement himself with conservative Republicans and ignite a new debate on so-called "family values".

Ironically, the man who won the 1992 Election turned out to be everything that Quayle’s supporters abhorred. Quayle’s "family values" crusade put a lid on the rampage of the "religious right" for a couple more years.

In 1997, Reverend Jerry Falwell, a longtime moralist and conservative crusader, started a new firestorm when he accused a member of the Teletubbies of being gay. Falwell claimed that Tinky Winky was the "offensive" character because it was purple, had a triangle on top of its head, and always carried a purse. All of these were supposedly signs of what he called the "gay agenda".

Falwell’s crusade against the Teletubbies sparked the counter-attack against efforts to formally legalize gay and lesbian relationships and push for a federal law called the Defense of Marriage Act.

Now, in the start of 2005, there are two new attacks against fictional characters.

The first target is SpongeBob SquarePants, a popular cartoon character from Nickelodeon. According to James Dobson of the moralist group "Focus on the Family", Mr. SBSP is seen briefly in a video promoting tolerance and diversity. Apparently he isn’t the only fictional character in the video either, noting other animated characters such as Winnie the Pooh and the children known as Rugrats. But Dobson specifically targeted SBSP because he claimed the media had "outed" the fictional character as being gay. How does he know this? Because supposedly gay men would buy SpongeBob merchandise and watch the show.

I hope you guys are scratching your heads over the insane logic behind that idea like this commentator was doing.

Right after the SpongeBob controversy started, another animated character was the target of moralist scorn. This time it was Buster, an animated bunny from the PBS series "Arthur". Buster apparently was in the middle of doing a series called "Postcards From Buster", which involved the animated rabbit visiting real-life people from across America, when he stopped by Vermont to visit a few "nontraditional" families and learning how to make maple syrup. Vermont, you see, recognizes civil unions between same-sex couples. So there’s Buster hanging out with a few "nontraditional" couples and their children as he learns how to extract syrup from the maple trees. All pretty innocent, right?

Well tell that to the newly sworn-in Secretary of Education! Apparently the mere SIGHT of a stable happy lesbian family is a CRISIS to Secretary Margaret Spellings. Her very first act on the job was to contact PBS and DEMAND they take steps to satisfy HER outrage, including refunding any and all government money PBS gets to produce the special.

Mind you, the special doesn’t focus on the family dynamics or what goes on in the bedroom. The show is aimed at the children, and it shows nothing but the stuff that goes on at the farm. But the mere SIGHT of a "non-traditional" family is enough to offend Secretary Spellings.

This commentator shudders to think what Secretary Spellings thinks about the strange relationship between Bert and Ernie that’s been going on for decades over on Sesame Street.

But I’m sure that you’re all wondering what major malfunction moralists have with fictional characters. Why target things that don’t exist in the real world when there are plenty of other things in the here and now to be concerned about?

Yet if you think about it… fictional characters are the PERFECT targets for moralists.

For starters, fictional characters are SYMBOLS. They’re examples that people use in everyday conversation and arguments. When Dennis Miller starts referencing an episode from Star Trek in his rants, people don’t smack their heads and say "It’s a frigging TV show, you hack!" Quite the opposite, they understand completely what he’s trying to say, even if they don’t remember the episode.

Moralists know the power of symbols and symbolism all too well, because their entire crusade is bent on symbolism, not substance. Their entire cause is built upon how things APPEAR. And appearances are all that matter to them.

Second, let’s get brutally honest here… it’s a whole lot easier to attack a fictional character than it is to target a real live human being. The best example of this was when Rush Limbaugh made a disparaging comment about quarterback Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles. The outcry against Limbaugh was so strong that he lost his side-job with ESPN, a job that he considered to be a dream come true for him.

Secretary Spellings chose her victim well when she attacked Buster, because if she went after the Vermont family run by lesbians, then she’d have to deal with a whole group of lesbians, and their friends, and their allies, and just about every commentator with libertarian-to-moderate-to-liberal leanings to them. And they would all have one thing on their minds: the immediate apology and resignation of Secretary Margaret Spellings. She would probably have the shortest cabinet appointment in American history if she went after the real people. But because she chose a fictional character that gets SOME funding from the imperial federalist government, she’s safe from reproach.

And the third reason is probably going to sound weird, but bear with me on this. Attacking fictional characters instead of real live human beings makes the moralists seem that much more the victim when the eventual counter-attack happens.

If moralists attack a live being, then they get to be seen as the bullies. They’re seen as the aggressors picking on some innocent person or group for seemingly no reason. Then the backlash is justified. But that’s not the case when they’re attacking fictional characters. Why? Because then they’re seen as being poor, misguided, and pathetic. After all, they’re ONLY going after fictional characters. They’re not picking fights against real people.

We think that when moralists target fictional characters that it is a sign of instability. We think they’re loony. We think they’ve become so hypersensitive that they’ve finally snapped. And we’re not supposed to go after the unstable, are we? No, we’re supposed to simply feel sorry for them and see if they can get some help.

And that’s what the moralists want us to do in this regard! They want us to leave them alone and let them rant and rave on and give them whatever they want because then they’re shut up and be content, and then maybe they’ll realize just how screwed up they are and they will seek help.

First of all, moralism in and of itself is a dysfunction. It’s a dysfunction that is institutionalized and indoctrinated. They’re already screwed up and unstable to begin with. But that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their marbles. Quite the contrary, they know full well what they are doing and why they are doing it.

And there is no better example of this than the most recent targets of moralists. Why are SpongeBob and Buster being targeted? Because they’re being used to promote an idea. What is that idea? Tolerance. Accepting differences. They’re telling children that it’s okay to be different and to grow up with different kind of family than some other children have.

Moralists don’t want to hear that! They don’t want to hear that it’s "okay" to be different, because in their minds it is NOT "okay". And they certainly don’t want CHILDREN to hear that! In their minds, they’re right, everyone else is wrong, and the only "tolerance" they will ever accept is that the world "tolerates" their eventual takeover!

And if moralists really are flawed and cracked up and Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs as we think they are, then why do they continue to have any kind of credibility afterwards? Wertham bashed comic book characters, accused Wonder Woman of being a bondage lesbian and Batman of being a flaming pedophile, and then turned around and helped to argue Brown vs. Board of Education to the US Supreme Court! Vice-President Quayle, who spelled potato with an "e", bashed a fictional television character, and yet continues to be considered presidential material for many conservatives! Falwell got plenty of ribbing for going after the Teletubbies, but he still got more than his share of airtime afterwards, going to far as to accuse other Americans for having the terrorist attacks of September 11^th happen. And even after THAT lunacy, he still gets airtime as a "credible" religious leader. (Although, if Falwell were Muslim, I strongly suspect that he would have essentially vanished from the face of the Earth after that comment.)

Of course we must respect the opinions of moralists, but that doesn’t mean we must give in to their lunacy just because the target of their scorn happens to be fictional. Remember that moralists LIVE on symbolism. This is their lifeblood. To them, appearance is everything. Substance only matters when they can use it to challenge the symbols of others.

And if you really think that a moralist has "lost it" in terms of their credibility, then you must CALL THEM on it! You need to challenge it at every opportunity. You need to drag it up like old socks and force them to answer to it on a continual basis. Brand it upon them like Hester Pryne’s "scarlet letter". You need to remind the moralists of their instances of lunacy, because believe me, they do not hesitate to do the same thing.

This is a lesson that a moralist by the name of William Jennings Bryan found out the hard way. When moralists needed a prosecutor in the Tennessee trial of John Scopes, they chose the biggest icon of the day. Defense attorney Clarence Darrow knew that he couldn’t win on the substance of the case, so he let Bryan set himself up as a symbol of the fundamentalist movement of the time and then Darrow took control of the symbol and thus destroyed the reputation of the man. Bryan lost all credibility and eventually died from it.

The important thing to keep in mind is that ALL symbols are fictional in nature. They represent something that may or may not be real, but the symbols themselves are purely idealistic. When moralists take action against a symbol, they seek to CONTROL that symbol and how it is used. In order to combat moralism, then, you must act to take control of THEIR symbols.