Now Tintin is racist (Update)

« Something has to let go. A fatwa against Co-Ed schools? :+: From winning the ignominious Ig Nobel to becoming Reluctant Entrepreneur »

Entertainment

Now Tintin is racist (Update)

By: Santosh :+: Under: Entertainment
On: ⋅ July 12, 2007 ⋅

Email this post ⋅

Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tintin Controversy

A British watchdog group has come out and declared the 1931 comic book “Tintin in the Congo” as racist. Being an avid Tintin fan, I thought I’d read all Tintin book but somehow I missed this one.

I’ve always found Tintin comics to be an equal opportunity offender - Blue Lotus (Chinese and Japanese), in America (Native and white Americans), Crab with the Golden Claws (Middle Easterners), Picaros (South Americans), Tibet (Indians, Nepalese and Tibeteans) and Pharoahs (Middle Easterners and Indians). I’m sure there are others I’m missing.

This is my take on Tintin books: they were written in the early half of the 20th century when there was little or no concept of political correctness. As far as I know Tintin books have always poked fun at the cultures of the different lands he visits, and he does visit a lot of them. By that same measure a lot of comic books from the 20th century take liberties in showing the natives to be inferior or submissive to the European (or European descended) hero - The Phantom comes to mind.

Let’s just enjoy the Tintin and Phantom and other 20th century comic books for what they are - comic books.

Update: Anantha points out to instances of animal cruelty in the above mentioned book. Looks like the book was controversial even in those days resulting in two different editions being published.

From wiki:

When the album was to be published in Scandinavia, the publishers objected to the infamous scene on pg. 56 of the colour album, where Tintin blows up a rhinoceros with a stick of dynamite. They asked the page to be redrawn, and HergÃ© complied. Instead of blowing the animal to pieces, the rhino accidentally fires Tintin’s gun, gets scared and runs away. This page was also used in the English translation; it is only present in these two editions.

Discussion

7 comments for “Now Tintin is racist (Update)”

1: anantha | July 12, 2007, 1:54 pm | Direct Link

Santosh: This particular book has always been controversial, which is why you wouldn’t see it on a list of Tintin books. If I remember right, you will not find even on the back cover of the comics, though i will check that tonight and confirm.

By that same measure a lot of comic books from the 20th century take liberties in showing the natives to be inferior or submissive to the European (or European descended) hero - The Phantom comes to mind.

The problem with that comparison is that Phantom is always shown as the protector of the natives. I am not sure if Tintin in the Congo can boast about that. The Wiki for this comic is very informative actually.

It looks like another complaint against this comic was the depiction of cruelty toward animals. Apparently Tintin blows up a rhino with dynamite, which is what a friend little coyote and his roadrunner friend do all the time, but there is a subtle difference, I think.

2: Santosh | July 12, 2007, 2:14 pm | Direct Link

Anantha,
If a rhino attacked me and a stick of dynamite was the only thing available…….

I still stand by the “it was just a comic book from the PC devoid 1930s” stance.

3: Frandroid Atreides | July 13, 2007, 2:29 am | Direct Link

Tintin au Congo is still widely avaiilable; it’s the first of his “standard” adventures listed at the back of any Tintin book. The thing is that the 1931 edition is long gone. Many Tintin albums have gone through re-editions as the years pass by, sanitizing the content and removing the most offensive language. Tintin au Congo itself went through 3 massive re-writes. In spite of that, you can still see some pretty bad racist stuff, but it’s less obvious that the earlier editions.

4: anantha | July 13, 2007, 11:38 am | Direct Link

Frandroid:

Tintin au Congo is still widely avaiilable; itâ€™s the first of his â€œstandardâ€ adventures listed at the back of any Tintin book.

Hmmm. Every single Tintin that I have read (21 of them in fact) had the same back cover. You can see this specific back cover on here (choose “Back Cover” on the menu on the left of the page).

You will see that it lists 21 books and Tintin in Congo is not on there. I read all these (minus Tintin in America) way back in the mid-80’s in India. I guess, this is the most widely available English edition.

Btw, Titin on video does not include this title either.

5: linzi | July 13, 2007, 9:19 pm | Direct Link

hmmm, I never really read Tin Tin but I got a pretty bad racist vibe from the few times I glanced at the comics. Seems rather patronizing.

6: Traveller | July 17, 2007, 9:44 am | Direct Link

I have always loved Tin Tin; however, I have never really looked into deeper meanings in comics. So, yeah I guess there are racial overtones in a few places, but doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.

7: remainsofthedesi | July 18, 2007, 1:25 am | Direct Link

herge was a lot of things. Did ya know he was a spy? He was also given some kind of award from the chinese govt. for portraying the japanese as jerks in the blue lotus.