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 themselves 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). By the mid-20th century, the ink-blot test had become the most frequently used projective test in Psychology, a family of tests organized by the projective hypothesis, that inner thoughts, feelings and personality traits are ‘projected’ through interpretation of ambiguous stimuli and amenable to psychological analysis (R. M. Hughes, 1950; Morgenthaler, 1932). Like other projective tests in this category, the Rorschach had its roots in popular culture (Tulohin, 1940). In the 19th century, ink blots were common in parlour games, and in 1857 Justinius Kerner published one such game called ‘Blotto’ (Erdberg, 1990). Hermann Rorschach was so fond of the ink-blot game ‘Klexographie’, and drawing more generally, that he was known as ‘Klex’, meaning ‘blot’, as a student (Akavia, 2013; Ellenberger, 1954).5 Other projective tests have similar roots. For example, in the The- matic Apperception Test (TAT: C. D. Morgan and Murray, 1935) images drawn by Christina Morgan were developed from books and magazines; card 1 shows a boy contemplating a violin which was based on a photograph of famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin published in Parents Magazine (W. G. Morgan, 1995). In addition, Margaret Lowenfeld’s World Technique (Lowenfeld, 1970) was developed from H. G. Wells’s children’s book Floor Games (1911). Projective tests are therefore not developed solely Hubbard and Hegarty 79 by psychologists, but tend to be assembled from existing prompts for imaginative play in popular culture, especially from those with an already proven capacity to fascinate. Rorschach’s test continues to be visible in popular culture in such films as The Mask (1994), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and The Master (2012); in such TV shows as ‘Peep Show’ (2003), the first-ever episode of Dr Who (1963); in the music video for Gnarles Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ (2006); and in the paintings of Andy Warhol.6 Versions of the test have also – as in the 19th century – been sold as games (e.g. Redstone Inkblot Test by Psychogames, 2003). Within the psy-disciplines, Rorschach-testing became a popular diagnostic practice in such countries as Japan (Sorai and Ohnuki, 2008), Finland (Mattlar and Fried, 1993), Turkey (Ikiz,_ 2011) and India (Manickam and Dubey, 2006). In other places, such as Great Britain, psychological critics of the test outpaced enthusiasts and it was only occasionally incorporated into the training of mental health professionals (Hubbard and Hegarty, 2016; McCarthy Woods, 2008). Among these countries, the USA has the most complex and best-researched history of Rorschach-testing. David Levy introduced the test to the USA in 1924, and it flourished during and after its uptake in military psychiatry during the Second World War. It was especially used in order to detect gay men in the military (and those malingering as gay), as the Second World War was the first to exclude men based on their sexuality (Be´rube´, 1989; Hegarty, 2003). In a climate that favoured psychoanalytic interpretation, a number of psychologists established indepen- dent scoring systems, and the Rorschach was central in the development of the new standards of ‘construct validity’, which ensured tests measured precisely what they claimed to (see Exner, 1969; Handler and Acklin, 1994; Million, Grossman and Mea- gher, 2004; Skadeland, 1986). Historians of Psychology have shown how psychologists and other social scientists brought the Rorschach out of the clinic in this period and sometimes applied it to characterize whole cultures (Lemov, 2011). As the category of construct validity began to define psychological tests more definitively in the 1960s, the Rorschach ceded ground to other instruments (Buchanan, 1997). The projective test also lost its power to define particular types; for example, the Rorschach’s gaze reversed and turned away from diagnosing gay men and towards examining the ‘illusory correlations’ that psychiatrists projected when they Rorschach-tested gay men and lesbians (Hegarty, 2003). Other histories of the Rorschach have also been written by the test’s critics, especially those who argue the test is neither reliable nor valid. Wood, Nezworski et al. (2003) outlined what they considered to be the unethical use of the Rorschach in US legal and forensic settings, where, with thanks to the sizeable uptake of Exner’s coding systems in the 1970s, the Rorschach remained in use into the 21st century (see McCann, 1998). There- fore, from the 19th to the 21st centuries the ink blots have a deep and interactive history with popular culture and with the public.

‘Fearful symmetry’: Psychology and the popularity of comics As the Rorschach reached the zenith of its popularity in the 1950s, psychoanalytic psychiatrists expressed deep ambivalence about public fascination with another ambiguous visual medium: the comic book. As Bunn (1997, 2007) has pointed out, 80 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) psychologist William Moulton Marston recognized public interest in comics and turned to them to promote his ideal of emotional life organized by female dominance, writing Wonder Woman under a pseudonym from 1941 onward. Marston was adamant that the feminist storylines and background of Wonder Woman made her ‘psychological propa- ganda for the new type of woman who should ...rule the world’ (Lepore, 2014). Marston hoped Wonder Woman could

...set up a standard among children and young people of strong free courageous women and to combat the idea women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievements in athletics, occupations and professionals monopolised by men. (Lepore, 2014: 220)

In marked contrast, psychiatrist Fredrick Wertham argued, in a whole range of publications including ‘The Psychopathology of Comics’ (Wertham and Legman, 1948) and ‘The Betrayal of Childhood: Comic Books’ (Wertham, 1948), that comic books were dangerous and were becoming increasingly violent and sadistic. His arguments culminated in his book Seduction of the Innocent (1954) in which he stated that comics were responsible for delinquency. Wonder Woman drew particular scorn here. As Wertham saw it:

She is physically very powerful, tortures men and has her own female following, is the cruel, ‘phallic’ woman. While she is a frightening figure for boys, she is an undesirable ideal for girls, being the exact opposite of what girls are supposed to be. (Wertham, 1954 as excerpted in Heer and Worcester, 2009: 54)

As this quote shows, psychoanalytic ontology informed Wertham’s anxious suspicion about the disruptive effects of comic books on children’s imaginations and their conse- quences for stable societies based on male dominance. Thrasher (1949) argued that Wertham’s attribution of delinquency to comic books was itself a product of projection:

Wertham’s dark picture of the influence of comics is more forensic than it is scientific and illustrates a dangerous habit of projecting our social frustrations upon some specific trait of our culture. (Thrasher, 1949: 195)

Despite early criticism it was not until the 21st century that Wertham’s sources were revealed, proving he manipulated data and exaggerated his findings (Tilley, 2012). The anxiety surrounding the popularity of comics during the 1950s has been attrib- uted to a McCarthyist response to social problems (Lent, 1999), and the anxiety of academics about the circulation of ‘lowbrow’ cultures (Levine, 1988; Ross, 1989). Levine (1992: 1376) uses the example of comics to discuss how such ‘lowbrow’ forms of popular culture still have relevance for historians, and how this can be achieved without the belief that ‘aesthetically, Superman rivals Hamlet’. The developing field of comic studies has gained ground with journals such as Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics indicating a growing academic interest. Lent (2010) chronicled the history of academic interest in comics and argued that the academy can no longer ignore the importance of popular culture and comics. Brienza (2010) provided an explanation as Hubbard and Hegarty 81 to how to approach comics sociologically. Some academics have analysed specific comics; for example, Bauer (2014) explored the significance of literature, including psychological academic literature, in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006) and Are You My Mother? (2012). The importance of the psy- disciplines extends as Bechdel high- lights the role of child psychoanalysis Donald Winnicott in her understanding of her relationship with her mother in Are You My Mother? (2012). As Levine (1992) argued, comics are relevant for historians, and this is especially true for marginalized groups. Similarly, Lepore (2014) notes the centrality of Wonder Woman to second-wave feminism, appearing, for example, in the first stand-alone issue of Ms magazine in 1972, along with interviews with psychologists Daryl and Sandra Bem. An understanding of Wonder Woman’s origins in Marston’s desire to popularize his vision of emotion, power and gender roles demonstrates Herman’s (1995) point that second-wave feminism was deeply imbricated in psychological culture (see Lepore, 2014). Indeed, cold war suspicion about the challenges to gender roles that comic books might incite in the young suggested that psychologists and their historians should read comics ‘reparatively’ in a way that is open to being surprised by what they know about Psychology (see Sedgwick, 1997). In the 1980s comics were once again used to engage the public in a different way. In light of Section 28 established by the Thatcher government, Moore edited AARGH! as the British tabloid press fuelled the most fearful homophobia (Watney, 1987). In the USA, Senator Jesse Helms held up a gay comic that taught about safer sex to prohibit the use of federal funds to promote or encourage ‘homosexual activity’ (Crimp, 1987). Comics are, after all, just like ink blots, open to interpretation. They are both ink-based media, which have continually shown themselves to be fascinating to the public over the past century or so. We argue here that comic books should be read in their own right for what they know about Psychology in general, and projective Psychology in particular.

‘Absent friends’: What do academics do with Watchmen? Given its singular recognition as literature, its wide fan base and its representation in film, it is no surprise that Watchmen has attracted some academic interest. Polley (2013) considered the media’s role in Watchmen and positioned it in terms of postmodernism. He highlighted the historical contextual influences on the novel; for example, the elec- tion of Margaret Thatcher. Drawing upon the work of sociologist Theodor Adorno, Polley described the use of popular culture to seduce and deceive the public masses in Watchmen, while also referring to our own reality and the media of other ventures of the Watchmen industry including the 2009 film directed by Zack Snyder. In fact, the film has also come under analysis and has been compared with the original comics (Petrovic, 2010). Relatedly, J. Hughes (2006) considered the role of the ideology of the superheroes in Watchmen and compared it with those in the Golden Age era (1938–49) such as Wonder Woman and Batman. In relation to Rorschach the character Hughes directly referred to Psychology:

Like an inkblot test, society also sees what it will of itself in Rorschach. Many of the characters in the novel (superhero and normal citizen alike) view him as unclean, disturbing, 82 History of the Human Sciences 30(4)

and somewhat psychotic, but others see him as a powerful vigilante capable of doing great things. (2006: 552; original emphasis)

This characterization immediately echoes the attitudes towards the Rorschach test itself within Psychology. But the academic considerations of Watchmen and Psychology go further. White-Schwoch and Rapp (2010) do not use Watchmen to further understand Psychology as we do, but use cognitive psychology in order to further understand the experience of reading Watchmen. Aware that large parts of society are more fascinated with this character than with academic matters, philosophers have used Watchmen as one of several texts by which to popularize major theories in their fields. Irwin and White’s (2009) collection of essays Watchmen and Philosophy goes some way to bridge comic books and academic Philo- sophy. While many areas of philosophy are showcased here, there is a strong emphasis on ethics running throughout the book. Diverse essays use Rorschach’s character to exemplify ethical failure from the perspective of each of the major systems of western ethical philosophical thought: utilitarianism (Loftis, 2009), Kantian ethics (Robichaud, 2009) and White’s (2009) own contribution on virtue ethics. Rorschach also falls short of being a Nietzschean Ubermensch} (Keeping, 2009), and although he continues to act according to his own moral compass in a world without meaning, his actions are not quite those of Kierkegaard’s knight of faith either (Kukkonen, 2009). These philosophers share the widespread fascination with Rorschach’s ambiguity, but he emerges most consistently as the ‘other’ of all ethical systems discussed in this collection. Regardless of how these philosophers conceive of ethics, Rorschach emerges in their analyses as an available exemplar of what morality is not. As we begin to consider how Psychology is represented in Watchmen, should we continue to keep Rorschach in this position as ethical other? We are doubtful about doing so, for the Irwin and White (2009) collection also shows radical shortcomings in its understanding of sexuality and gender in Watchmen. First, most of the essays in the collection do not make gender or sexuality central. Second, Arp’s (2009) essay, which does focus on sexuality, is unabashedly homophobic, describing his own personal ‘strug- gle’ and a homophobic reaction to the projection of homosexuality onto the Minutemen Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis:

We don’t talk about it much, and we may be ashamed of it, but some of us (especially guys) are shocked and bothered when we find out some people (again, especially guys) are gay ...That’s why it’s hard to accept that Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis may be gay. Superheroes, football players, rock stars, and cowboys can kick your ass, so we feel somehow emasculated in realizing they’re gay. I have to admit that when I first read about Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis, I said, ‘Oh, no’, and closed the book. I have a visceral negative reaction to the thought of another man looking at me with desire or ‘wanting me’, and I’m basically uncomfortable with the gay lifestyle. (Arp, 2009: 185–6)

Donovan and Richardson (2009) in their feminist analysis of Watchmen rightly focus on an important scene in which the Comedian attempts to rape fellow Minuteman, Sally Hubbard and Hegarty 83

Jupiter. This is a central event in the novel and the relationship between these two characters reverberates across generations and has considerable impact on events that happen later in the novel. Indeed, scenes depicting sexual violence are often pivotal to character development in Watchmen, especially for Rorschach. Donovan and Richardson (ibid.) also briefly consider how the marginalized (lesbian) character of Silhouette is ‘dressed in a feminine manner (although not as hypersexualized as the Silk Spectre)’ and by so doing transgresses links between being a woman, femininity and assumptions of heterosexuality. They conclude that the study of Watchmen could lead to ‘rid us of our gender stereotypes’ (ibid.: 184). These two essays do not do justice to the complexity of representation of queer and feminist themes in Watchmen. Admittedly, like the genre of comic books that it ironizes, the caped crusaders in Watchmen are exclusively white, and largely male, and any deviation from heterosexual scripts is both marginal in the novel and punished within its narrative. Reading Watchmen cannot calm Arp’s (2009) concerns that crime- fighting vigilantes should be straight dudes. Nor is it a text that particularly subverts gender stereotypes. Rather, by attending to what is queer in Watchmen, and by concentrating more on the marginal and peripheral women characters, we can expand our understanding of representations of Psychology to include, but also go beyond, the character of Rorschach.

‘Look at my works, ye mighty’: Analysis of Watchmen and the ‘goddamned queer’ Psychology in Watchmen The most obvious representation of Psychology within Watchmen is the character Rorschach. Rorschach describes his decision to become a vigilante crime-fighter in a context of a cold war looming with the fear of nuclear apocalypse, in a New York City reduced to crime that ‘reeks of fornication and bad consciences’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 1, p. 14). Despite Rorschach’s ethics being questioned, his actions on the whole have been seen as a response to the failed social ethical systems in Watchmen (see Nuttall, 2009), reflecting the writers’ perspective on the political system at the time Watchmen was written. Similarly, the Rorschach test was adopted particularly in the USA, in response to a failure of appropriate psychological testing procedures and so was taken up with rigour during the Second World War, particularly to detect unsuitable gay servicemen (Hegarty, 2003). In both scenarios, Rorschach the character and the test were required in the face of war; either to act as a vigilante crime-fighter or to weed out unsuitable men. Rorschach is therefore not just visually similar to the test, but shares many similarities with the test’s operations in the history of Psychology, particularly its tendency to go awry. Ink blots and related imagery appear in a number of places throughout Watchmen. Visual interpretation and the use of the ‘gutter’ or white space in both comics and in the Rorschach ink-blot test are very important (McCloud, 1993). In ch. 5, Rorschach plays with ink blots. He sits at a diner and watches people on the street. In the panel it is shown that on a ‘Gunga Diner’ napkin Rorschach drips something onto one side and carefully 84 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) folds the napkin in half. In the next panel the symmetrical ink blot that has been created is visible underneath text which shows a diary entry from that day stating ‘I sat watching the trash, and New York opened its heart to me’. This panel suggests two interpretations: one, that it could be the activity on the street that led to Rorschach’s understanding of New York, or two, that it was the blot he created (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 5, p. 11). Perhaps the most psychologically relevant sequence in the novel is when Rorschach himself does the Rorschach ink-blot test. Long, the most prominent black character in the novel, is Rorschach’s prison psychiatrist, and a figure of bourgeois respectability. Yet, power dynamics between the two shifts quite dramatically. This scene occurs in the chapter titled ‘The Abyss Gazes Also’, which is situated in the middle of the graphic novel. As with ink blots, symmetry plays a core role in the structure of the book, and the chapter begins with a large full-scale image of an ink blot. During Rorschach’s Rorschach test, readers can first see that the ink blot brings to Rorschach’s mind his mother’s sex work and her abuse of him. But when Long asks, ‘Well, Walter? What do you make of it?’, Rorschach lies: ‘Some nice flowers.’ Long is appeased. ‘Wonderful. Walter, I’m very pleased with your responses this afternoon. And I want you to know that. I really think there’s hope. Walter, don’t you?’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 5). It is later, in another testing procedure, that we learn of the moment Rorschach transforms from previously being Walter Kovacs. Rorschach explains the murder of a woman in New York City made him decide to make a face he could ‘bear to look at in the mirror’. His mask was made from a dress that was made for her in the factory where he worked from ‘viscous fluids between two layers latex, heat and pressure sensitive’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 11). As the customer, described as a ‘young girl, Italian name’, who ordered the dress does not want it Rorschach decides it was meant for him as he finds the fabric ‘very, very beautiful’. The ink-blot fabric mask then becomes an object he identifies so strongly with, that he makes it his permanent face. Indicative of the extensive inclusion of Psychology in Watchmen, to see a mask, eyes or faces in a Rorschach ink blot was often taken as a sign of paranoia in the psychological literature in the early 1960s (e.g. Dubrin, 1962). Both the projection of masks and of women’s clothing had also been identified as signs of male homosexuality (e.g. Due and Wright, 1945; Wheeler, 1949). In the ink-blot fabric Rorschach therefore sees not only women’s clothing as it was previously a dress, but also a mask. The use of white space as the eyes is also telling and, according to Hermann Rorschach’s (1921) original analysis, is indicative of stubbornness or obsessiveness, qualities which Rorschach the character certainly has. In the final of three Rorschach-testing sessions in this chapter, the Rorschach test is clearly more powerful than the character Rorschach’s will to resist it, and the conse- quences of Long’s hope that Rorschach will reveal his real responses are far-reaching. As Galison (2004) noted, the Rorschach test’s power to move us defies our humanistic expectation that only people, and not things, have agency. The power of the Rorschach test ultimately affects both Rorschach and Long in this third session. In his recording of the session of 28 October 1985 Long noted of Rorschach: ‘Today he told me every- thing’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 17). The session begins with the panes displayedinFigure1. Hubbard and Hegarty 85

Long: I thought we’d try some more blot tests. How about taking a look at this one for me? Rorschach: Seen this one before. Long: Yes. I know. I ...uh ...I thought you might have been holding back before and I wanted to try it again. Go on tell me what you really see. Rorschach: Dog. Dog with head split in half. Long: I ...I see. And uh, what do you think split the, uh, split the dog’s head in half. Rorschach: I did. (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 17)

The dog was one of two which belonged to a man named Gerald Grice who abducted, murdered and butchered a six-year-old girl and fed her to his dogs. In response to police inaction, Rorschach killed the dogs, handcuffed Grice to a chair and set his house on fire, leaving Grice the options of sawing off his own hand or burning alive. Rorschach tells Long that after the incident with Grice ‘It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 21). This is the moment of transformation in the narrative when Walter Kovacs moves from acting as Rorschach to being Rorschach. But the psychiatrist does not simply possess power, or possess more power as a result of this encounter. Rather he is also moved to a different position by the test’s power to unlock Rorschach’s secrets. Long diagnosed Rorschach with an ‘unhealthy fantasy personality’, ‘conditioned with a negative world view’ and suffering from withdrawal and depression. But Rorschach was interpreting Long’s motivations all along too. Early on, Long is fascinated by Rorschach’s case history to the point where his wife expresses concern about his working late into the night on it. In one encounter with Long, Rorschach challenges with the fact that celebrity criminals, like himself, are often attractive to forensic psychologists and psychiatrists who also hunger for recognition (see also Downing, 2013):

Other people down in cells, more extreme behaviour than mine. You don’t spend any time with them ...But then they’re not famous. Won’t get your name in the journals. You don’t want to make me well. Just want to know what makes me sick. You’ll find out. Have patience, Doctor. You’ll find out. (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 11)

The interaction between Rorschach and Long is clearly anti-psychiatric, and not only because Rorschach clearly understands here that he is being made the subject of dis- ciplinary power. Upon hearing the story of Gerald Grice, Long becomes less hopeful about Rorschach’s treatment. He retreats from a dinner party to a private bedroom to stare at the ink blot, now able to see it only as Rorschach sees it. He concludes: ‘We are alone. There is nothing else’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 28). The chapter finishes with a quote from Nietzsche: ‘Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ Hermann Rorschach also briefly considers Nietzsche and argues, when trying to understand what ‘experience type’ 86 History of the Human Sciences 30(4)

Figure 2. Watchmen, ch. 1, p. 19, panel 2. someone is, ‘it is a simple matter to guess his favourite philosopher. Introversive indi- viduals swear by Schopenhauer, dilated ambiequals by Nietzsche ...’ (1921: 110). In sum, both the Rorschach test and Rorschach the character are questioned, they are considered invalid, untrustworthy and unreliable by the majority of society. Initial enthusiasm for the character and the test are evident in both of their histories, with a subsequent questioning of their methods and validity. In Watchmen this questioning of validity comes in the form of the Keene Act,7 which outlawed superhero groups and which Rorschach was staunchly against, and in the history of the Rorschach ink-blot test it comes in the shape of growing critique of the test’s validity. Both Rorschach’s deduc- tions in his investigation regarding the death of the Comedian in the early part of the novel, and the Rorschach ink-blot test have been disregarded by many, whether they be other crime-fighters or psychologists. In each case, this has led to both being discredited and disregarded. These concerns of truth and believability are particularly interesting when it is considered that in Watchmen, Rorschach was actually revealed to be right but was not believed by anyone. In the end Rorschach is shown to be more committed to truth than to life (Irwin and White, 2009) as eventually he is killed by the superhero Dr Manhattan for trying to inform the world of the true state of events. In Watchmen, Rorschach’s beliefs were found to be truthful in the end. Perhaps this is what those who use the Rorschach today are still hoping for: that the test will eventually be shown to be reliable, truthful and trusted once more.

Queerness in Watchmen In Watchmen Rorschach is both called out as queer and calls others out as queer. In ch. 1 of Watchmen, as shown in Figure 2, Rorschach questions whether Adrian Veidt, another ex-superhero who is extremely wealthy, is ‘homosexual’ and follows up that he ‘must Hubbard and Hegarty 87

Figure 3. Watchmen, ch. 5, p. 28, panel 5. remember to investigate further’ echoing the historical promise of the Rorschach being able to detect the closet ‘homosexual’ (Hegarty, 2003). At the moment of his own unmasking as Walter Kovacs, Rorschach is called ‘a goddamned queer’ by the police (see Figure 3). As their taunts make clear, these police officers mean to shame Rorschach. He is here made both the subject of their discipline and ‘the other’ by being queered. Throughout the novel readers repeatedly encounter a secondary character, a news vendor who exclaims at one point that if a man and a woman cannot sexually relate ‘he’s queer as a three dollar bill’ (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 3, p. 18). ‘Queer’ is legible as a slur throughout the novel as it was published just before the explosion of queer theory and culture of the late 1980s and 1990s that broadcast its reclamation (see, for example, Buston and Richardson, 1995; Minton, 1997). In Watchmen the most unambiguously queer characters are all women, and their presence is utterly neglected by Arp’s (2009) analysis. There are at least five lesbian women in Watchmen, the most prominent of whom is Ursula Zandt, or the Silhouette, the only ‘out’ masked crime-fighter of the lot. A Jewish Austrian aristocrat who grew up in a Nazi-run orphanage, she was aided by her partner, the pharmacist Gretchen, in avenging the death of her sister.8 The two then escaped to the USA where Ursula became a masked crime-fighter and eventually joined the Minutemen. Arp (2009) is not alone in feeling uncomfortable about queer masked avengers. In an interview with the other woman in the original Minutemen group, Sally Jupiter, we learn of her suspicions and discomfort. Describing the Silhouette, Jupiter says:

...First off, I didn’t like her as a person. I mean she was not an easy person to get along with. But, when the papers got hold of it, her being a – what is it – a gay women they say nowadays, when that happened. I thought it was wrong. I mean Laurence, who was my first 88 History of the Human Sciences 30(4)

Figure 4. Watchmen, ch. 5, p. 2, panels 8 and 9.

husband, he got everybody to throw her out of the group to minimize the P.R. damage, but ...I mean I voted along with everybody else, but ...well it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t honest. I mean she wasn’t the only gay person in the Minutemen. Some professions, I don’t know, they attract a certain type ...(Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 9, p. 32)

Jupiter alludes to other superheroes in Watchmen who are gay, namely the ‘ambiguously gay duo’ of Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis (Arp, 2009). In contrast to the outcomes of these closeted male characters, the Silhouette and Gretchen were murdered by an ‘old enemy’ six weeks after the Silhouette was removed from the superhero group.9 Moore and Gibbons mean us to read their later murder as a distinctly homophobic hate crime as the words ‘Lesbian Whores’ were written out on the wall behind the dead women in their own blood. In fact, all of the queer women featured in Watchmen are killed by the novel’s end. The third and fourth queer characters we wish to discuss are Joey and her girlfriend Aline, who are peripheral characters who are depicted in several scenes that occur in the mid-1980s. Joey is a cab driver and is first introduced when having a discussion with the news vendor, whom we follow throughout Watchmen. They have a short conversation about politics in which Joey casually asks who the latest centrefold model of Hustler is. Having been given the centrefold, had a good look and bought a copy, she then goes on to ask the vendor to put up one of her charity gig posters (see Figure 4). First he responds ‘Gay women against rape? Is this a joke?’ She persuades him with a threat of violence and – despite his homophobic comment earlier in the novel – he obliges. Towards the novel’s conclusion in chapter 11, Joey and Aline appear again. Aline is asking the news vendor where Josephine or ‘Joey’ (now her ex) might be and is clearly disapproving of her interest in Hustler. Class differences between the two are evident. When Joey accuses Aline of working in a magazine office ‘with a bunch of guppies’, Hubbard and Hegarty 89

Aline responds with the language of equality and tolerance: ‘You know I don’t like that term, we should respect gay professionals working openly ...’ Joey is clearly exhausted by and intolerant of Aline’s feminist politics and it seems that she posted the ‘Gay Women Against Rape’ poster only at Aline’s prompting. Aline is worried about their relationship’s desolation, and gives Joey a book to read: ‘I think if you read it, I’ll understand what’s happened to us.’ The book is R. D. Laing’s (1972) anti-psychiatric classic Knots. Joey rips it up. Aline clearly wants to understand their relationship in psychological (and anti-psychiatric) terms but considering Knots is destroyed her attitude towards Psychology at this point in the novel is highly critical. Joey’s desires are different: ‘I don’t wanna understand shit! I just wanna go to bed with you.’ Still later in the novel, the two appear in the background of panes featuring dialogue between Mal- colm Long, the psychiatrist, and his wife Gloria. The two couples are strangers to each other. Gloria is persuading Malcolm to change jobs so that he does not return to the misery that followed his encounter with Rorschach that dramatically impacted their lives. The fight between Joey and Aline in the background has devolved and now Joey is beating Aline up. The tension between the Longs ramps up as it becomes clear that the incident prompts Malcolm Long to want to intervene, in keeping with Rorschach’s attitude: ‘Gloria, I’m sorry, it’s the world. I can’t run from it.’ In a later scene, Long does intervene, holding Joey back from kicking Aline on the ground. As noted earlier, violence against women is often the context that prompts actions that move forward the male characters. Long’s character becomes determined in this final scene, a futile attempt to save Aline from attack. These panels show the collision of characters all impacted by and drawn into responding to violence against women having been influ- enced by Rorschach. The fifth and final significant queer woman in the novel is the murdered woman whose dress became the raw material for Rorschach’s mask: the young woman with the Italian last name, Kitty Genovese. Unlike the other marginal and peripheral lesbian characters – the Silhouette, Gretchen, Joey, or Aline – Kitty Genovese was a real person, who was raped and murdered outside her apartment in New York City in 1964. In Watchmen, it is the news reports of her murder that inspire Rorschach’s act of identity formation:

Woman who’s ordered special dress. Kitty Genovese. I’m sure that was the woman’s name. Raped. Tortured. Killed. Here. In New York. Outside her apartment building. Almost forty neighbours heard screams. Nobody did anything. Nobody called cops. Some of them even watched. Do you understand? Some of them even watched. (Moore and Gibbons, 1987: ch. 6, p. 10)

Like many readers at the time, Rorschach was struck by Genovese’s murder as a sign of modern decay not simply because it occurred, but because of the lack of action by her many neighbours. Indeed, the text quoted above could have been drawn verbatim from any one of several social psychology textbooks which have used Genovese’s murder to interest students in the ‘bystander effect’. This term was coined by John Darley and Bibb Latane´ (1968) who were inspired into research action having heard about the murder of Kitty Genovese. Genovese’s murder, and more specifically the non-intervening 90 History of the Human Sciences 30(4)

Figure 5. Watchmen, ch. 6, p. 11, panels 5, 6, 8 and 9. neighbours, were identified as the reason behind the Darley and Latane´ (1968) staged emergency experiments which found that rates of bystander intervention were lower when other strangers were co-present. The death of Kitty Genovese therefore acts as a source of inspiration for both Social Psychology and the character Rorschach, cementing their commonalities. When Walter Kovacs told Long the story of Kitty Genovese and her dress during his second of three Rorschach-testing sessions Long regarded the story as a ‘flimsy’ explanation of Rorschach’s psychology (see figure 5). However, experiments such as Darley and Latane´’s have informed an important challenge to virtue ethics in the form of situational ethics, which emphasizes the power of the social situation and its capacity to inhibit good people from doing good things. Several historians have since noted that the story of Genovese’s murder that Psychol- ogy students hear is something of a ‘textbook myth’. However, unlike Rorschach who is directly responsive to violence against specific women in the novel, the body of research on the bystander effect has often decontextualized the story of Kitty Genovese and has focused predominantly on the inactive neighbours, apparently unmoved by the sexual violence enacted. In relation to the story that Psychology often tells, Genovese’s Hubbard and Hegarty 91 murderer Winstone Moseley drops out of the narrative entirely, as do his later black women victims who never achieved Genovese’s fame as the victim who ‘could have been anyone’ (Cherry, 1995). The newspaper stories of Kitty Genovese’s death often pivoted on this idea that she could have been anyone, and that a high number of witnesses had seen her murder but had done nothing (ibid.; Gallo, 2014; Manning, Levine and Collins, 2007). Yet, importantly, for social psychological understandings of the bystander effect, court records suggest that Moseley’s murder of Genovese could not have been witnessed by as many people as the Psychology textbooks suggest (ibid.). Most central to our concerns is the erasure of Genov- ese’s lesbianism in news accounts, without which she would not have become such an iconic victim (Gallo, 2014). In other words, both Moore and Gibbons’s novel and Social Psychology textbooks have long been projecting a heteronormativity onto Genovese’s character that has been demanded by the paranoid fantasy of a morally corrupt New York City, which the narratives require. Yet, visible signs of her difference persist in popular culture. The photograph of Genovese most commonly used by the media and later psychology textbooks was a mug shot taken after a misdemeanour charge for gambling, cropped to hide this fact (Ren- tschler, 2011). Genovese is a particularly important figure within this article in our consider- ation of the public, the history of Psychology, the Rorschach and Watchmen as she features and embodies aspects of all of these components. She, alone, is a member of the public, a character presented to the public in a highly successful graphic novel, and an almost mythical figure in the history of Psychology. Genovese was a queer woman with an arrest history, living a marginal life closer to that of the Silhouette than the immediate news stories, Psychology textbooks or Watchmen’s depiction of her would suggest.

‘The abyss gazes also’: The public and the Rorschach Just as there was the historical concern in Psychology that the public passively absorbs comics, there has been the idea that the public also passively absorbs scientific knowledge. This was explicitly countered by Levine (1992: 1384): ‘[T]he audience’s role in popular culture, as it is in folk culture, is not the passive reception of a given text but rather a question of translation; fitting the text into a meaningful context.’ Concerns of mass culture and a kind of contagion of ideas rather than critical engagement demean the public and remove their active interactions. One central way in which the public, or the abyss as we extend our metaphor, gazes back in this history is through very active interactions with Psychology, particularly via the Rorschach. It was thought that if the real blots themselves became a part of the knowledge exchange between psychologists and the public then the Rorschach test itself would be devalued. Wood, Nezworski et al. (2003) severely criticized the Rorschach and described the ink blots as an open secret. They cite Poundstone’s (1983) book Big Secrets which promised on the front cover to reveal ‘how to beat a lie detector ...what your answers to the Rorschach really mean ...’; however, while Poundstone does publish the ink blots, it is only the outlines. Similarly, Miale and Selzer in The Nuremburg Mind (1975) printed two of the original coloured ink blots, and Psychologist John Exner’s books have been fully available online and also include both ink-blot imagery and explanations of the test. Yet, while Wood, Nezworski et al. (2003: 21) state that ‘there may not be much point in trying to protect [the ink blots’] privacy’, they 92 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) nonetheless print alternative ink blots and not the originals, citing professional ethics that discourages the release of test materials to the public. Psychological testing is therefore one area where the boundary between Psychology and its publics is especially rich for scholars interested in public understandings of science. In 2009, all 10 original Rorschach ink blots were released on Wikipedia by Canadian physician James Heilman. The controversy was reported in public media including in the New York Times (Cohen, 2009) and The Guardian (Sample, 2009).10 The revelation prompted the question of whether the Rorschach could still work on the public, now that the public could so easily gaze back at the interpretations of interpretations that had been developed over decades. Schultz and Loving (2012) reviewed 588 Internet responses to the revelation of the plates, finding that 35% were unfavourable to the Rorschach, while only 11% were favourable. The authors noted their shock that some unfavourable responses came from psychologists themselves. A year later Schultz and Brabender (2013) experimentally tested whether such sensitive information had affected Rorschach responses in the guise of a child custody situation. They concluded that the percentage of popular responses was greater for participants who had been exposed to Wikipedia prior to testing and again emphasized the implications of this finding for forensic and legal contexts where the Rorschach continues to be used in the USA. Watchmen also had a part to play in the subsequent fear of some psychologists that the public now had gained access to the real Rorschach ink blots. Schultz and Loving (2012: 75) in their review had to actively exclude the search term ‘watchmen’, ‘because the widely known movie and comic book of the same name (which includes a character called Rorschach) would have returned a large number of irrelevant results’. We argue that when one studies the Rorschach historically, Watchmen certainly does not return ‘irrelevant results’, but rather Watchmen should be acknowledged as a contribution to the history of Psychology and evidence of the public’s sceptical engagement with the discipline. Schultz and Loving (2012) deliberately separated the public, popular culture and Psychology; and historically, proponents of the Rorschach such as Schultz and Loving (2012), and critics such as Wood, Nezworski et al. (2003), as well as historians, have ignored the inclusions of the Rorschach itself in popular culture.11 So too has the public’s use of the Rorschach been ignored by these different parties despite the public’s understanding of the Rorschach being rich, interactive and imaginative. Yet, simultaneously there has been the concern that the public views Psychology more unfavourably. Both Benjamin (1986) and Lilienfeld (2012a) identified a lack of open communication with the public as a source for such distrust. This has certainly been true for the history of the Rorschach when the ink blots themselves were shrouded in secrecy. Lilienfeld (2012a, 2012b) argued that what is communicated to the public is pseudo-science and often provided by non-psychologists. This can be inferred to be directly related to the Rorschach as Lilienfeld has also developed a body of work directly criticizing the test (see Wood and Lilienfeld, 1999; Wood, Lilienfeld et al., 2001; Wood, Nezworski et al., 2003). Teo’s response to Lilienfeld (2012a) calls for honesty, specifically about the reflexive nature of Psychology (also see Wynne, 1992). In his conclusion Lilienfeld (2012a: 125) states that ‘we as a field should continually be asking the general public “how are we doing?” and be prepared to take their critical feedback to heart if their answers are not to our liking’. But as Teo (2012) points out, the public does provide Hubbard and Hegarty 93 such information via the interconnection between academic Psychology and the public. We argue that it is through such analysis of popular culture that we can develop a deeper understanding of public perceptions of Psychology. Specifically, it is through popular culture and public adoptions and uses of Psychology – for example, the Rorschach ink- blot test – that we can understand what the public is contributing to the construction of Psychology. In effect, we could understand in what ways the public ‘gazes back’.

Conclusion Just as Hermann Rorschach argued it was not only what is seen and how things are seen in his ink blots; it is important to understand not only what Psychology is represented as in popular culture, but also how it is represented. Too little has been done to explore the ways in which public understandings of Psychology via comics can inform psychologists and historians, despite the rich history of tension and collaboration between comics and Psychology. Such avoidance could be because of negative attitudes towards the inclusions of popular culture (Levine, 1992) or because of the denial of the public as active participants in the construction of psychological knowledge. In decentering the history of Psychology’s narrative away from the actions of psychologists, we recognize the public is not an ‘abyss’ but an active contributor to the history of Psychology. In this example, we have concentrated on how a very specific product of popular culture, the comic/graphic novel Watchmen, and its related publics, has presented, used and constructed Psychology. Within this one example, we have demonstrated the role of the public in constructions of Psychology and broadened how historians might approach the interactions between the public, popular culture and Psy- chology. In this example, it is true that we have concentrated on how a very specific product of popular culture, the comic/graphic novel Watchmen, and its related publics have taken part in our analysis of how Psychology has been presented, used and constructed. Within this one example, we have demonstrated the role of the public in constructions of Psychology and broadened how historians might approach the interactions between the public, popular culture and Psychology. Indeed, the public is not passive in the history of Psychology, and neither are psychological objects such as the Rorschach. Historians and psychologists alike should pay closer attention to the uses and constructions of Psychology by the public as this is the communication the public is providing. The Wikipedia incident is the most recent and clear example of how the public has agency in the history of the Rorschach. The public here has engaged with the Rorschach test as a form of psychological knowledge, whether favourably or not.12 It is in effect gazing at Psychology and answering back through popular culture. We argue for the continued relevance of Moore and Gibbons’s Watchmen to understanding the contemporary landscape of Rorschach Psychology. After the Keene Act outlawed masked avengers, Rorschach carried on with dogged determination. It is not difficult to see similar characteristics among those who wish to continue Rorschach- testing after the Wikipedia revelation or those who persist with dogged criticism. That revelation is a recent moment in the long history of psychological science’s fascinating entanglement with the Rorschach used as a means to diagnose, yet this past and the challenges to Rorschach-testing have not undone public fascination with the test in 94 History of the Human Sciences 30(4) popular culture. Rorschach himself is an ethically troubling character because even when he knows that things are futile, he carries on anyway. Recently queer theorists Downing and Gillett (2013) called on psychologists to engage with the ethics of knowing the ‘other’. Perhaps it is time to realize that there is a little bit more of Rorschach’s righteous character in all of us than we care to admit, that we might actually enjoy identifying with him, projecting onto him. Both the Rorschach test and Rorschach the vigilante remind us of the inescapable conclusion that Psychology’s relationships with its publics are inev- itable, projective and constitutive of what Psychology is.

Funding The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes 1. Originally a separate 12-chapter comic book, Watchmen has since been made into a graphic novel (placing all 12 chapters together) and a film directed by Zack Snyder in 2009. The film has boosted the public awareness of Watchmen andawholeplethoraofmemorabiliais available including a toaster that will toast ‘ink blots’ onto bread. Following that film two smaller films have become available as has ‘Before Watchmen’, a comic series about the character prior to the events in Watchmen, though none of these activities has been an action of the original writers, Alan Moore and David Gibbons. 2. Each section of this article has been named after a chapter with a similar ethos found in Watchmen. 3. Throughout the article we distinguish between small ‘p’ psychology to mean the subject matter and big ‘P’ Psychology to mean the discipline as outlined by Richards (2002). 4. AARGH! was a collection of comics arguing against the implementation of Section 28, which ruled that local authorities ‘shall not promote homosexuality’ or teach ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. Moore felt this was not only heterosexist, but had the potential to impact him personally as he was in a relationship with his wife and their girlfriend at the time. Together, they set up their own publishing company Mad Love in order to publish AARGH! in 1988, a year after the publication of Watchmen. 5. Akavia (2013) did relate Hermann Rorschach’s work to popular culture, with particular emphasis on Futurism and the Dada movement, and recognized the influence of some popular culture – for example, the theatre – on the work of Rorschach himself. 6. B. Engleman (producer) and C. Russell (director), The Mask [film] (1994), New Line Cinema, USA. F. Coppola (producer) and S. Collola, The Virgin Suicides [film] (1999), Paramount Pictures, USA. J. Sellar (producer) and P. T. Anderson (director) The Master [film] (2012), the Weinstein Company, USA. A. Armstrong and S. Bain (writers) and J. Wooding (director) ‘Therapy’, in P. Clarke (producer) Peep Show [TV programme], Objective Productions, All3media. ‘An Unearthly Child’ [TV programme] in Doctor Who [BBC TV series] (23 November 1963) [originally titled ‘10,000 BC’]. G. Barkley, ‘Crazy’ [pop song] in album St. Elsewhere (2006), Downtown Records. See also Fineman (2015). 7. Gorelick (1992) describes his first job in the 1950s as an art assistant being asked to draw comic pin-up character Katy Keene with less cleavage in response to the work of the anti- Hubbard and Hegarty 95

comics campaign directed by Wertham and the subsequent development of the Comics Code Authority which was set up to censor and monitor the content of comics. It is thought that this Keene Act in Watchmen, which aimed to stop superheroes, is named after the censoring of Katy Keene. 8. For a full history of the use of the Rorschach in analysing the Nazi mind see Brunner (2001). 9. The storylines in Watchmen often reflect real histories, and here the homophobic removal of the Silhouette from the Minutemen mirrors the removal of gay men from the military during the Second World War (Hegarty, 2003). 10. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/technology/internet/29inkblot.html?_r¼0& adxnnl¼1&pagewanted¼all&adxnnlx¼1437577843-hh/BNgMAlBþwfgLhþ5Ei6Q http:// www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jul/29/rorschach-answers-wikipedia Also see: http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18952667 11. Though it should be noted that Kane (2015) does provide a short account of the Watchmen film for the brief ‘Psychiatry in the Movies’ section of the British Journal of Psychiatry. 12. The public’s interaction with the Rorschach continues. On Friday 8 November 2013 a ‘Google Doodle’ celebrated the 129th birthday of Hermann Rorschach and invited Google users to interact with a changing ink blot which a cartoon Hermann Rorschach could analyse.

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Author biographies Katherine Hubbard is a Lecturer at the University of Surrey. Her research interests include the sociology of scientific knowledge, the history of Psychology, LGBTQ Psychology and prejudice. From a strong queer feminist perspective Dr Hubbard analyses objects and theories of psychological and sociological interest, including those found in popular culture.

Peter Hegarty is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey. He is the author of Gentlemen’s Disagreement: Alfred Kinsey, Lewis Terman and the Sexual Politics of Smart Men (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013) and A Recent History of Lesbian and Gay Psychology: From Homophobia to LGBT (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017).