Rorschach Tests and Rorschach Vigilantes

Article History of the Human Sciences 2017, Vol. 30(4) 75–99 Rorschach tests and ª The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Rorschach vigilantes: DOI: 10.1177/0952695117722719 Queering the history of journals.sagepub.com/home/hhs psychology in Watchmen Katherine Hubbard University of Surrey, UK Peter Hegarty University of Surrey, UK Abstract One of the clearest signs that Psychology has impacted popular culture is the public’s familiarity with the Rorschach ink-blot test. An excellent example of the Rorschach in popular culture can be found in Watchmen, the comic/graphic novel written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1987). In the mid-20th century Psychology had an especially contentious relationship with comics; some psychologists were very anxious about the impact comics had on young people, whereas others wrote comics to subvert dominant norms about gender and sexuality. Yet historians of Psychology have had almost nothing to say about this popular and critically acclaimed novel. We read Watchmen here for its narratives that most concern the history of Psychology. We focus on such themes as anti-psychiatry, sexual violence, homophobia, lesbian erasure and social psychological research on bystander intervention. We argue it is possible to align Psychology and comics more closely despite their sometimes contentious history. In doing so we demonstrate the active role of the public in the history of the Rorschach, and the public engagement of Psychology via comics, and also reveal what is possible when historians consider comics within their histories. Keywords graphic novels, history of Psychology, queer theory, Rorschach, Watchmen Corresponding author: Katherine Hubbard, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK. Email: [email protected] 76 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) Figure 1. Watchmen, ch. 6, p. 17, panels 4–6. Introduction Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen (1987) is the only graphic novel included in the New York Times list of the 100 greatest novels: 1923 to the present (Polley, 2013).1 Watchmen narrates a counterfactual history of the United States from the 1940s to the 1980s in the context of impending nuclear war, and concerns two generations of masked crime-fighters; the Minutemen and the Watchmen. The novel begins with the murder of one of the Minutemen, the Comedian, and its investigation by one of the Watchmen, Rorschach. Rorschach is a central character in Watchmen. He is a crime-fighting, ink- blot-mask-wearing vigilante, with a ruthless and stark view of the world; in many ways he is the anti-hero of the whole novel. Written in Britain during the 1980s Watchmen reflects the political context of the time, particularly the Cold War, enduring Thatcher- ism and increasing homophobic social attitudes following the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. As with many of Moore and Gibbons’s works, an anarchist perspective underlies the narrative; however, in this article we pay closer attention to the anti-psychiatric and anti- homophobic themes.2 Despite the influential British political context, Watchmen is mainly set in New York. Our analysis focuses on what Watchmen knows about the history of Psychology, especially in regard to the Rorschach ink-blot test.3 We aim to show that a queer reading of Watchmen, alongside the history of the Rorschach, has much to say about how the public actively interacts with, and understands, Psychology– that is, via the adoption of Psychology by comic book writers and the subsequent pre- sentation of Psychology to the more general public readership. The Rorschach test is an icon of the psychiatric encounter because it is a rather singular example of a psychological test that has transcended its use in Psychology to achieve popular familiarity. Moore and Gibbons could scarcely rely on their readers’ recognizing the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or even another visual projective test like the Thematic Apperception Test in the same way they could the Rorschach. Figure 1 depicts a pivotal scene at the centre of Watchmen which cements the commonalities Hubbard and Hegarty 77 between Rorschach the test and Rorschach the vigilante, here unmasked as Walter Kovacs. Rorschach’s investigations lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and he finds himself subjected to a Rorschach test carried out by psychiatrist Malcolm Long (see Figure 1). In this scene the reader’s perspective must switch quickly, first seeing the ink blot as Rorschach does, then seeing things from Rorschach’s point of view, and finally ‘seeing’ what Rorschach projects onto the ink blot. As McCloud (1993) states, the ‘gutters’, that is, the white spaces between comic panels, are where the comic’s reader is active; it is where readers must apply their imagination to infer action between the static images. The reader can also interpret the ink blot as the bleeding dog quite literally, as it is drawn by Gibbons, meaning the reader shares the same interpretation or psychology with Walter/Rorschach. Using the gutters between panels to switch the gazes of the reader Moore and Gibbons illustrate how the Rorschach both metaphorically and literally bleeds in and out of popular culture. Using the Rorschach as our own pivot through which to gaze at this particular intersect of public-facing history we explore the psychological, anti-psychiatric and queer meanings in Watchmen. Just as Rorschach the vigilante is criticized by other characters in Watchmen,sotoo has the Rorschach ink-blot test been extensively criticized in Psychology. As a critic of the Rorschach, and of the public’s understanding of Psychology as a science, Lilienfeld (2012a, 2012b) argued that what is too often given to the public is pseudo-science. In response, Teo (2012) argued that the task might not be one of enhancing Psychology’s public image, or of getting Psychology’s scientific house in order, but of recognizing the value of public scepticism. In tying together such concerns about the public’s understanding and uses of Psychology with the history of the Rorschach we attend to such scepticism particularly in reference to anti-psychiatric attitudes and how these are presented to the public, by members of the public, within Watchmen.Inthisarticle we go some way to demonstrate how active the public, or more specifically comic book authors and readers, can be in constructing meanings of Psychology. In exploring how Psychology is represented in a product of popular culture, that is, in a mainstream non- academic forum, to the public, we attend to something which has been rather neglected by historians. In distinguishing folklore from popular culture Levine (1992) argued that the study of popular culture had a great deal to tell historians. Drawing on his work around black communities in the USA during the 1930s Levine highlighted how the study of popular culture may be especially useful for marginalized groups. Lepore’s (2014) historical analysis of Wonder Woman demonstrates how feminist approaches can be an excellent method through which to explore the relationships between comics and Psychology. Likewise, we adopt a queer feminist focus in considering the marginalized in Watchmen, and queerness is a theme, alongside the psychological, which runs quietly throughout the whole novel. This theme is unsurprising considering the views of Moore and Gibbons. During the 1980s in Britain homophobic policies – most significantly section 28 – came into being and the HIV/AIDS epidemic generated a culture of uninformed, homophobic fear and stigmatization. In response Moore, Gibbons and a collection of graphic artists and writers wrote the comic collection AARGH!, which stood for ‘Artists Against Ram- pant Government Homophobia’, in 1988.4 Watchmen therefore provides an excellent narrative of anti-psychiatric and anti-homophobic history through which to explore the 78 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) constructions and presentations of Psychology by some members of the public to a more general audience. Below we first outline the history of the Rorschach and popular culture, making efforts to counter the assumption that the Rorschach ink-blot test originated in Psychol- ogy. We then review the relationship between Psychology and comics in the 20th century, exploring how this relationship was sometimes contentious, sometimes colla- borative, but often concerned about gender and queerness. Next, we briefly consider the ways academics have dealt with Watchmen to date, paying particular attention to how Rorschach and some women in the novel have been analysed in relation to ethics and sexuality. We then read Watchmen’s counterfactual history of the USA in the 20th century with an eye for events and practices that are drawn from the history of Psychol- ogy. Our analysis extends into queer and anti-psychiatric themes as we consider the five queer women characters in Watchmen and how their representation draws us very neatly back to the history of Psychology. Finally, we return to Teo (2012) and the public’s role in the history of Psychology, not in comics but in another public-facing arena, Wikipe- dia, concentrating on the debate surrounding the release of the original ink blots them- selves into the public domain. ‘Old ghosts’: The Rorschach test and popular culture The ink-blot test was introduced to psychiatry in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, in his book Psychodiagnostik (1921), as a test of apperception, that is, the ability to relate new experiences to older ones. Rorschach believed that distinct differences in how people responded to the ambiguous blots he created could lead to inferences about the psychology of the person being tested. For example, perception of motion or references to colours were indicative of ‘introversion’ and ‘extraversion’ respectively (see Akavia, 2013). Rorschach died suddenly and unexpectedly just after the publication of Psycho- diagnostik and never witnessed the later popularity of his test (ibid.; Ellenberger, 1954).

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