“Purifying” Public Space:
Moral Panics and Mental Hygiene
“Hearts Uplifted and Minds
Refreshed,” Alison Parker
Women’s Christian
Temperance Union, 1880 1930
Cultural work of
censorship and production
Victorian Influences
“We Other Victorians”
History of Sexuality,
Volume I, Michel Foucault
Wrote books on social and
cultural institutions, the
intersections between
knowledge and power, the
ways that knowledges
“make up” and sort
people.
Sites of analysis:
•
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•
•
•
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The prison
The school
The barracks
The factory
The clinic/hospital
Discourse (human
sciences, sexuality)
Panopticism
The model of discipline and selfdiscipline the Panopticon
represents for prisons is seen by
Foucault to permeate the social
field and may be seen, not only in
methods of surveillance for
purposes of "security", but also in
schools, factories, military
barracks, hospitals and other
institutions. It is a model in which
government by external forces -the police, the teacher, and so
forth -- is replaced by modes of
self-government.
Mother Nature Casting Evils Out of
Her Children, 1871
In the Victorian Age, so the story goes, we were or had
become sexually repressed. Sex was, this story asserts,
something to be hidden, not something to be brought
out in the open.
• And yet, Foucault
discovers in his
genealogy of sexuality,
while we tell ourselves
this story, this is not the
case.
In fact, there were whole
systems for inducing
people to speak about sex
(ex. confession), bodies of
knowledge constructed
around sexuality (ex.
sexology), was discussion
of how best to contain it,
and also how to normalize
it (ie. medicalization of
sexuality).
• In short, instead of
being something that
wasn't spoken about, it
became something to
be talked about -almost obsessively.
• The Victorian era of the
nineteenth century, like
no other period
preceding it, became
dominated by the belief
that an individual's sex
and sexuality form the
most basic core of their
identity, potentiality,
social/political standing
and freedom.
• But sexuality needed to be disciplined, or regulated
and directed in "socially useful" ways.
• Victorian Era anti-masturbation devices.
Sciencia Sexualis
Four main strategies used
to regulate sexuality in the
Victorian Age
Demonstrate the link
between the production
of knowledges and power,
especially the power to
regulate and control ideas
about sexuality, gender,
identity.
I. Hystericization of women’s bodies
Invention of the hysteric as a character in the history of
gender and sexuality.
Disciplining the “irrational” body
The Hysteric
• Hysteria was widely
discussed in the medical
literature of the 19th
century. Women
considered to be suffering
from it exhibited a wide
array of symptoms like
faintness, muscle spasms,
insomnia, irritability,
nervousness, and “a
tendency to cause
trouble.”
The Medical Cure
"Vibration is life"
advertisement, 1910
"The secret of the ages has
been discovered in
Vibration. Great scientists
tell us that we owe not only
our health but even our life
strength to this wonderful
force. Vibration promotes
life and vigour, strength and
beauty. ... Vibrate Your Body
and Make It Well. YOU Have
No Right to Be Sick."
Hysteria, 2011
II. Pedagogization of Children’s Sex
III. Socialization of Procreative
Behaviour
IV. “Psychiatrization of Perverse
Pleasure”
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
• Victorian era values in
action
Controlling Culture
Relationship of WCTU as
both producer and censor
of culture
Debates about “pure”
culture
Dept. for the Promotion of
Purity in Literature and Art
Notion that culture had the
power to corrupt hearts
and minds
Regulating Culture
• Reforming society
through “wholesome”
culture with
“upstanding moral
values” for youth
• “family values,” antialcohol and tobacco,
etc.
If Hollywood Won’t Make It…
• WTCU production of
culture for youth
consumption
• Magazines
• Films
• Given to schools, shown
in schools, libraries, and
churches
• Showing the
consequences of “impure
living”
WCTU at the Movies
Any Boy USA (1953)
http://archive.org/details/AnyBoyUSA
Mental Hygiene Films, 1940s-60s
• Governing youth
through the movies
• Problematization of
youth behaviours
through moral and
moralizing discourses
• Gender a problem in
need of policing
“Are You Popular?” (1947)
• http://www.yo
utube.com/wa
tch?v=Eqpe7Y
_6rmQ
Shy Guy, 1947
• http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=wU0Kiu2VGY
Influences
• Hays, Motion
Picture
Production
Code, 1930
• http://www.ar
tsreformation.
com/a001/hay
s-code.html
Moral Panics
Moral Panic, defined:
“A condition, episode,
person or group of
persons emerges to
become defined as a
threat to societal values
and interests”
Actors in the Moral Drama
• Experts, sometimes called
“moral entrepreneurs,”
both inform and are
informed by media
• Politicians and policy
makers
• Law enforcement
• Action groups
• Agents of formal social
control
• http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=YM8t29gD8J8
Seven “Stations” of Moral Panic:
Chas Critcher
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AIDS
Child Abuse
Drug Use
Immigration
Violence in the media
Street Crime
Youth “deviance”
Goode and Ben Yehuda (1994)
Moral Panics:
The Social Construction of Deviance
1. Concern
2. Hostility
3. Consensus
4. Disproportionality
5. Volatility
Concern
• Concern mobilized
• Becomes a subject for news
media focus
• Can generate anxiety, but
not always accompanied by
fear
• http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=Azf320JDdqU
• http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=AvIyypo9VQk&featu
re=fvst
Hostility
•
•
•
•
Us versus Them
Good versus Evil
Morality play
Folk devils (villains) and
folk heroes
• Hostility to others
expressed in
stereotypes
Consensus
Fairly widespread
recognition that a social
problem exists
It need not include
everyone, but enough to
convey a general sense of
concern
Consensus can be built.
• http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=OiYqFXmVAFg
Disproportion
• Miscalculation or
overestimation of the size
of the problem, including
the number of people
involved
• Fabrication of figures
• Rumours or urban
legends
• http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=UTdmr5_tbfY
Volatility
• Moral panics appear
suddenly and can
disappear just as
quickly
• CBC report on
Dungeons & Dragons,
1980s
• http://archives.cbc.ca/li
festyle/leisure/clips/172
84/
Overlapping domains
• Deviance (to which we
can add constructions
of norms and
normalization)
• Social problems
• Collective behaviours
• Social movements
Case Study: Comic Books
• Frederic Wertham,
Seduction of the
Innocent, 1954
• Call for a Comic Code
Authority
• http://www.comicartville.
com/comicscode.htm
• http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=xr62iKBwQTM
Moral Panics and White Slavery, 1900
• White slavery as urban
vice, prostitution
• Indirect and oblique
articulation of anxiety, a
projection
• Anxiety over perceived
social and moral change
and the attempt to
control it
• Racial, sexual, class, and
gender tensions
Regulating Anxiety
• The Mann Act and
moral regulation
• White-Slave Traffic Act,
1910
• Objective to clamp
down on organized
prostitution
• Prohibition of
movement of
unmarried women
Two Famous (Ab)uses of the Act
Jack Johnson
• In 1908, Jack Johnson
became the first black
man to win the world
heavyweight title. He
defeated James Jeffries,
who was called the
“Great White Hope.”
Following his win, there
were riots.
• Arrested in 1912 for
crossing state line with his
girlfriend, who happened
to be white.
Charlie Chaplin
• Sued by a former lover
who claimed, incorrectly,
that he was the father of
her child in 1942.
• He was prosecuted under
the Mann Act.
• He was also pulled in
front of the House
UnAmerican Activities
Committee.
• He was British, politically
to the left.
Moral Regulation
Moral Panics and Regulation of Norms
Moral Panics and Sexual Anxiety
Moral Panics and Masculinity