Panic (Bloodlands collection)

by Harold Schechter

Sociologists refer to these periodic alarms as “moral panics” and describe them as a form of mass hysteria, typically ignited by a handful of shockingly similar crimes that happen in rapid succession. Sensationalistic reporting in the news media—coupled with the doomsday pronouncements of moral crusaders—persuades the public that these incidents represent a new and terrifying threat to the social order. A distinguishing feature of moral panics is that the fear they provoke is far out of proportion to any actual threat.

Worst of all—at least according to one prominent critic—was the current fad of big band music. There is nothing surprising about this line of attack. From flapper-era jazz to early rock and roll to 1990s heavy metal, American pop music has been denounced as the cause of everything from rampant promiscuity to juvenile delinquency to Columbine-style mass murder. So it was predictable that, at the height of the sex crime panic, swing was condemned as the source of the supposed epidemic.