In 1942, Life magazine even offered a guide to kissing for actors on stage (something of a niche topic for a general readership magazine), which was surely also a guide for teens on how not to look like a klutz (“juvenile”) or a slut (“sprawling” on the sofa) in a romantic moment. In an excellent piece about kissing in popular culture, Katrina Gulliver spoke about the importance a specific photograph had on our views of forced kissing. In the past, though, it was a BIG part of popular culture. The idea of someone not wanting to be kissed but allowing the other person to kiss them anyways still shows up occasionally.

It's not NEARLY as bad as it once was, as people will generally look askance at a TV show or movie that tries this trope, but we're not all the way back from it (and honestly, often it seems like it is just 'addressed' by reversing the genders in the trope and having a woman force a kiss on a guy). I think that it is probably fair to say that now, even in 2021, we have a bit of a problem with with the idea of the forced kiss. Today, inspired by my pal Josh Bayer sharing one of the pages on Facebook, I'm looking at a sketchy John Stanley solo Tom story from 1948's Our Gang With Tom and Jerry #45 from Dell Comics.

I'll try to stick with stuff that's more on the ill-conceived side of things than flat-out offensive (like generic racist stereotypes of characters during the 1940s), but some of these definitely edge into just flat-out offensive territory. In this feature, 'Things That Turned Out Bad,' I will spotlight plotlines by writers that probably weren't a good idea at the time and have only become more problematic in retrospect.

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