system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:Why did movies, tv shows, and comics start using the plot device that radiation provides positive effects (super powers, growth, etc.) and why do they still use it?

Everything from classic superhero powers to the Tomacco in The Simpsons have used this plot device. How did it start and why is it used now despite common knowledge that it would just cause cancer/sickness/death?
gpt
Many of these stories were from the 50s and 60s (the sixties, especially, for comics) when radiation was the biggest scare for people living under the threat of nuclear war. These stories just tapped into anxieties that were already there.

I saw an interview with Stan Lee about when the Spider-Man origin story was tweaked in the movies to be a genetically engineered spider. He commented that in the 60s, everyone was afraid of radiation, and that's what he wrote about. Had he known about genetic engineering, he probably would have written it that way.