What happened to the adventure books for boys and men that used to be so prevalent once upon a time? Did they get replaced by other media? Pushed out by female domination? Dropped by big companies for all the typical political reasons?
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (25)
sorted by:
Three things killed adventure.
First, American education became hostile to their main demographic (young boys). Less demand for boy's lit (think back to your elementary school librarian, how much of a bitch was she?) meant less books published in the genre.
Adventure/wonder was killed off in the 1930s, and most of the Western examples (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc.) are refugees from that era, or are deliberate throwbacks to that era. R. L. Stine is just a 1930s creepy story in short book form.
The rise of the vidya. 1 + 2 meant that young boys wanted an adventure fix, and Japan gave it to them.