History Main / TheNewRockAndRoll

While it doesn't excuse Wertham's jerkassery, he was not ''entirely'' making it up -- comics at the time tended to have stories that would be judged PG-13 even by today's standards. ''Franchise/WonderWoman'', for example, had a good bit of {{BDSM}} themes that track back to her creator's interests, research, and WordOfGod. Comics weren't quite as innocent at the time as what survived into subsequent decades. Wertham was definitely playing it up, but the material is stuff even today's parents wouldn't want their younger children reading.

* Monster Energy drink for some who interpret the marketing spiel as being sincere and the logo to stand for 666 in the Hebrew alphabet (not realising that six hundred and sixty six is a totally different number to three sixes put next to each other)

* The waltz was considered the eighteenth-century version of [[MatingDance "grinding"]] at one point, causing MoralGuardians to decry it as lewd and sinful.

** There was a fairly large moral panic regarding pinball in the USA in the earlier part of the twentieth century, when people (mistakenly) believed that it was a game of chance and winning was [[LuckBasedMission entirely due to luck.]] Many cities banned pinball for several decades, until Roger Sharpe demonstrated [[ImprobableAimingSkills precise pinball skills]] in court. Even so, some pinball machines still sport "entertainment use only" warnings to allay nervous communities.

** A good parody of this shows up in the tv show ''Series/{{Action}}'', where a [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee Senate Subcommittee]] sits down with main character and bad film creator Peter Dragon. While there is no doubt doubt that Dragon is a slimy UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist and that his films are over the top, lowest common denominator schlockfests, Dragon [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0SILzGs4g doesn't hesitate]] to point out the basic hypocrisy of a pro-gun, war hawk Senator criticizing him for creating fictional violence while proudly signing off on bills that create real life violence and misery.
--->'''Senator Powell:''' (Referring to Dragon's young daughter) How can you look that sweet little girl in the eye?!\\
'''Dragon:''' I manage. I never voted to subsidize the growing of tobacco while turning my back on food programs for starving kids. I never vetoed a gun control bill. All my guns are ''fake'', Senator! I never rushed to the defense of Kuwaiti oil fields while ignoring genocide in Africa, because big oil companies which line your fat pockets aren't concerned about black Africa. Those are all productions of ''your'' company Senator, his company right here!

-> You gotta wonder about these people\\

-->'''Brad:''' The Captain & Tennille is a sin now, too?! Calling the Captain & Tennille a sin is a ''sin'' against ''the word "sin"!''

* Pinball corrupts the youth, doncha know:
** There was a fairly large moral panic regarding pinball in the USA in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Back then, it was a game of chance rather than skill (before flippers were added in the 1950s), and people feared it would make children lazy and turn them into gamblers. Like many of these examples, it seems ridiculous to modern ears. This may be responsible for the "entertainment use only" warnings still seen today.
** This isn't quite as nonsensical as it sounds. When gambling was outlawed in most of the US, makers of slot machines and other gambling devices tried every method they could think of to circumvent the ban. The most popular method was via flipper-less pinball machines, which were set so you could win multiple free games. If you didn't want to use the free games, the owner of the bar/parlor/whatever would give you back the cash equivalent. This resulted in New York, Los Angeles and a number of other cities simply outlawing and confiscating ''all'' pinball machines.

** A central tenet of the beat movement was chemical experimentation, and they introduced or popularized essentially every modern "hard" drug except for LSD for recreational rather than practical use. Unprotected sex with many partners was also a big part of the movement, though they didn't give it the catchy "free love" moniker the hippies came up with. In retrospect, the guardians might have had a point for once on that one.

* "[[http://tyrannyoftradition.com/2012/02/10/rick-santorum-declares-war-on-heavy-metal/ Rick Santorum Declares War On Heavy Metal]]." So apparently this trope is still an effective tool.
** Or being used by one...
** This article isn't real, it's actually from a parody site that's like TheOnion for metalheads.
** But what was real was his declaration of war on porn.

* The infamous film ''{{Reefer Madness}}'' depicted young users becoming violently crazed after smoking marijuana--in 1936, around the time it was first banned federally. It was used by a number of jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s and became a hip thing at the time, something MoralGuardians (and William Randolph Hearst with his pulp-mill interests) did not like.

* The infamous film ''{{Reefer Madness}}'' depicted young users becoming viloently crazed after smoking marijuana--in 1936, around the time it was first banned federally. It was used by a number of jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s and became a hip thing at the time, something MoralGuardians (and William Randolph Hearst with his pulp-mill interests) did not like.

* The infamous film ''{{Reefer Madness}}'' depicted young users becoming crazed after smoking marijuana--in 1936, around the time it was first banned federally. It was used by a number of jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s and became a hip thing at the time, something MoralGuardians (and William Randolph Hearst with his pulp-mill interests) did not like.

* The infamous film ''{{Reefer Madness}}'' depicted young users becoming crazed after smoking marijuana--in 1936, around the time it was first banned federally. It was used by a number of jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s and became a hip thing at the time, something MoralGuardians (and William Randolph Hearst's pulp-mill interests) did not like.

** late 1980s - early 1990s: GangstaRap, anything that aired on {{MTV}}, ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', ''PowerRangers'', ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles''
** late 1990s - early 2000s: [[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 Violent video games]] and movies, TheInternet, ProfessionalWrestling, BritneySpears

->"''[[TropeNamer Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about Rock n' Roll!]]''"

* As said, [[TropeNamer rock 'n' roll itself]], starting in TheFifties. This took many different forms over time; witness the "[[SubliminalSeduction backmasking]]" controversy in the late '70s and '80s, when fundamentalist Christian groups began to claim that backwards messages in music could subliminally influence listeners, and that rock musicians were doing this to draw their fans towards Satanism. Others condemned rock 'n roll on the basis that the term itself is a depiction of sex; in fact, it refers to the steady beat.

* Psychiatrist Frederic Wertham wrote a book in 1954, luridly titled ''Seduction Of The Innocent''. It blamed comics, especially the crime and horror genres popular at the time, for juvenile delinquency, as well as corrupting sexual themes. He appeared before the Senate subcommittee on juvenile delinquency, which lead to veiled threats of censorship; in the end, the industry adopted the self-regulating ComicsCode. Ironically, this may have helped the SuperHero genre, since it was easy enough for it to produce simple tales of good versus evil that even the harshest censor would pass.\\

** What makes the whole Comic Code thing worse is that Wertham really wasen't that bad of a guy. He didn't want the Code to be founded and was against it. He just thought that comics should have a rating system like TV and movies.

** A good parody of this shows up in the ([[TooGoodToLast sadly short-lived]]) tv show ''Series/{{Action}}'', where a [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee Senate Subcommittee]] sits down with main character and bad film creator Peter Dragon. While there is no doubt doubt that Dragon is a slimy UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist and that his films are over the top, lowest common denominator schlockfests, Dragon [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0SILzGs4g doesn't hesitate]] to point out the basic hypocrisy of a pro-gun, war hawk Senator criticizing him for creating fictional violence while proudly signing off on bills that create real life violence and misery.

** And [[GarbageWrestler "The Madman from the Sudan" Abdullah the Bucher]], whose offense centered around stabbing his opponents with a fork, wouldn't come along for some 2500 ''years'' at that point.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' is perhaps the ultimate example. While its violence looks quite cartoonish today, no game up to that point (1993, to be precise) had featured quite so much blood and gore (except perhaps for ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein'', and that was nowhere near as realistic-looking as ''Mortal Kombat''). What's worse, ''grade-school kids'' were playing it, which was alarming since, had the game been a movie, it probably would have received a PG-13 rating ''at the very least''. One could theorize that future editions of the game getting LighterAndSofter were either a concession to this outcry or an ironic mockery of it. ("You want wholesome? We'll ''give you'' wholesome!")

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* This type of hysteria was predicated in the '80s by outcries against both ''Franchise/TheSmurfs'' and ''[[Franchise/CareBears The Care Bears]]''.
** With the Smurfs, it at least somewhat made sense, since there were urban legends circulating that the Smurfs were either Hindu deities (because they had blue skin) or Communists (because their leader, Papa Smurf, looked like Karl Marx).
* ''WesternAnimation/RainbowBrite'' is occult propaganda -- look at her, she has a star (pentagram!) on her cheek ''and'' a rainbow (stolen from Christians, now an occult symbol)! (Go check out the WMG page -- this is a theory published in an actual ''book''.)
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' came under attack for supposedly encouraging kids to imitate Bart.
[[/folder]]

UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 is another expression of this. NewMediaAreEvil is related, as is NostalgiaFilter, EveryoneIsSatanInHell, and RockMeAsmodeus. Compare BannedInChina. The appearance of TheMoralSubstitute is a possible result of this trope.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''came under attack for supposedly encouraging kids to imitate Bart.

* With the rise in popularity of 3D printers, it was only a matter of time before someone made a 3D-printed gun. The online group "Defense Distributed" hosts CAD files for a fully functional plastic gun as well as lower receivers and mags for AR-15 rifles (the lower receiver being the part of the rifle that is legally regulated and serial numbered, and in some American states mags are regulated). Despite improvised firearms having existed since the 1900s (and at much cheaper up-front costs), and that a superior metal AR-15 lower receiver can legally and easily be milled from an 80% finished "paperweight," DIY guns went largely unnoticed by the media and politicians until it became associated with the rapidly growing world of 3D printing. Add a public who is all too easily sent into a panic over guns, and suddenly you have [[YouCanPanicNow a wonderful new headline to remind everyone that they should be scared of new technology]].