Tintin book is crude, racist and must be banned, says watchdog

[spindrifter]

From The Times
July 12, 2007

A cartoon adventure featuring Tintin, the heroic Belgian journalist, should not be sold in Britain, the Commission for Racial Equality said yesterday.

The racism watchdog said that it was unacceptable for any shop to sell or display Tintin in the Congo, a comic book written in 1930 that features crude racial stereotypes.

A spokeswoman said that the book, which includes a scene featuring Tintin being made chief of an African village because he is a “good white man”, was highly offensive. “This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ‘savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles,” she said.

“How and why do Borders think it’s OK to peddle such racist material?” The commission said that neither high street nor specialist shops should stock it. “The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying ‘old-fashioned, racist claptrap’.”

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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/children/article2062157.ece

[SmokingJacket]

1. That's funny. Just today a guy in my bookstore told me that

Tintin was offensive. I never heard that before.

[Fenris]

2. I've never heard it either.

Personally I would love to have the reprints of those old Tintin books.

[SoCalDem]

3. Never heard of Tintin.. But when i was a kid there were still "Sambo's restaurants"

Times change and the old stereotypes need to go too..

[mitchum]

6. I remember those up until about 1980; they used the tiger as their mascot

[annabanana]

9. I remember those....

I also seems to remember that, according to the story, that Sambo kid was one smart cookie.

[SoCalDem]

10. yep.. he ran the tiger round & round so fast he turned to butter n/t

[mitchum]

12. Apparently, the tiger must have also been pretty smart to make it from Asia to Africa

:)

[fishwax]

15. the stories took place in India, but the character's visual representation

was inspired by the Golliwogg, a popular doll in Britain in the late 19th century. The Golliwogg itself was inspired by racist black face minstral representations. (The creator of the golliwogg was born in the U.S. but moved to England in her teens.)

The golliwogg illustrations inspired the Sambo illustrations, and so the story has long been associated with racial stereotypes and caricatures.

[mitchum]

17. Thanks for the background...

I was always perplexed by the odd fit of the two characters

[cmkramer]

18. I read them when I was a kid

Our local library has a couple of the books too. They were great adventure stories.

[spindrifter]

5. I had heard criticism of

Tintin before, but I didn't know about this book.

[mitchum]

4. How about that imperialist bastard Babar?

:)

[spindrifter]

7. You mean, the elephant in the room?

I had to laugh when I heard some Congress person refer to it as the"gorilla in the room," in order not to offend the Repukes.

[mitchum]

8. BWAHAHAHA!

I can't beleive they did that. Actually, I can.

[LeftishBrit]

22. Probably offended them even more...

after all, it means THEIR PRESIDENT.

[DutchLiberal]

11. The 'watchdog' is full of it

I've been reading Tintin all my life. It's one of the best European comics ever. Hergé, the artist behind the comics, has often been accused of racism because of 'Tintin in Congo'. However, Hergé wasn't a racist at all. Anyone who has read his works can agree with that. For example, in 'The blue lotus', he painted a very accurate, nuanced picture of China and the Chinese people at a time when nasty prejudice and insulting stereotypes about both the country and the people were very common in Europe. That's because Hergé befriended the young Chinese boy Chang. In 'The Red Sea sharks' the artist draws attention to the still existing practice of slavery. He shows black people being sold and bought as objects by ruthless white criminals.

'Tintin in Congo' was made by request of Hergé's editor. At the time, he worked for a Catholic newspaper. Hergé wanted to make an adventure of Tintin that took place in the USA. But before he was allowed to do so, his editor, a missionary who often went to the Belgian colonies in Africa, ordered him to do a story that was set in Congo. That's why the story is rather dull and uninspired: Hergé made it against his will. He based himself only on things he heard from others, among them that editor, who was an ultra-conservative man. It wasn't until 'The blue lotus' that Hergé started to do research. Until then, he believed Tintin wouldn't last anyway. It was a joke to him.

One has to see 'Tintin in Congo' in the context when it was made. Just like we put old movies that contain racial stereotypes into context. It gives an extraordinary view of how Europe saw Africans in the 1930's. In that way, it is valuable historically. We can all learn from it and promise we'll do better in the future. But if we ban them, we will never learn from the past.

[spindrifter]

13. You are absolutely right: we should not

ban any book. The Congo book would be useful for a discussion of changing concepts of racism/sexism/ and other 'isms as times change.

[DutchLiberal]

14. That's also why I'm glad Disney didn't cut their cartoons

when they released them in the 'Disney Treasures Collection'. It includes (almost) all their theatrical shorts. They didn't cut any scenes, despite racial stereotyping. Instead, they chose to let animation historian Leonard Maltin introduce the shorts with an explanation about the time and circumstances in which the short was produced, while at the same time renouncing the stereotypes.

Censoring, I believe, is always wrong. Instead, let's learn from the past. Too much of the shit (pardon my French) that's going on today is caused by a total lack of historical knowledge.

[spindrifter]

16. I think it's our current situation is

based on a couple of things in addition to lack of historical knowledge. There is also lack of critical thinking. If you are exposed to something like the Tintin Congo book, you learn to think about what is in it and why it is inappropriate. You learn that you can have the ability to reject something on the printed page. If we accept censorship, we are just letting someone else select what we can see or hear or learn.

[Toasterlad]

21. Exactly. n/t

[Karenina]

19. Bingo!

:applause:

[KoKo]

20. Good comments there......thanks... n/t