Comic book legend Stan Lee has recently joined the fight to defend video gaming rights with the Video Game Voters Network in order to combat and preserve our freedom of speech. According to Lee, politicians are trying to scare votes and viewers by blaming video games for social delinquency – a move Lee compares to the 1950s comic book scare that eventually lead to a Senate hearing.
“Why does this matter? Because if you restrict sales of video games, you’re chipping away at our First Amendment rights to free speech.” – Stan Lee
We’ve included a portion of Lee letter’s urging people to sign up for the Video Game Voters Network. To read his entire the letter and show support of your own, please visit videogamevoters.org:
Dear Video Game Voters Network,
I’m writing to urge gamers everywhere to take a stand and defend both the First Amendment and the rights of computer and video game artists by joining the Video Game Voters Network (VGVN). My memory has always been lousy and it’s not improving with age. But it’s good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it’s just as bad an idea now. And you can do something about it.
I created Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk, the virtual ancestors of the characters in today’s games. In the 1950s, there was a national hysteria about the so-called “dangerous effect” comic books were having on our nation’s youth.
Comic books, it was said, contributed to “juvenile delinquency.” A Senate subcommittee investigated and decided the U.S. could not “afford the calculated risk involved in feeding its children, through comic books, a concentrated diet of crime, horror and violence.” Comic books were burned. The State of Washington made it a crime to sell comic books without a license. And Los Angeles passed a law that said it was a crime to sell “crime comic books.” Looking back, the outcry was — forgive the expression — comical.
The more things change, as they say, the more they stay the same. Substitute video games for comic books and you’ve got a 21st century replay of the craziness of the 1950s. States have passed laws restricting the sale of video games and later this year, the Supreme Court will hear a case about one of those laws, this one passed in California. Why does this matter? Because if you restrict sales of video games, you’re chipping away at our First Amendment rights to free speech and opening the door to restrictions on books and movies…..