Quote:
Originally Posted by acidzebra
It's a 1930 comic. Congo was a Belgian republic. Hergé was 23. He hadn't traveled, so his information sources probably reflect those of the people he hung out with or popular opinion at the time. I am not in any way defending his work nor do I condemn it; I am trying to establish some context.
Land of the Soviets (Russians), The Blue Lotus (Chinese), Tin Tin in America (Native Americans), Cigars of the Pharoah (Arabs and Egyptians), all these contain pretty stereotypical portrayals of various cultures. Was there malicious intent behind it? I don't know, but I don't think so. I read these as a kid. I enjoyed them. I didn't pick up on any of these supposedly racist overtones. Did these stories shape my image of an entire race/country of people? Not particularly; or at least, not that I am aware of.
At the same time, Hergé isn't exactly free of controversy. The current controversy isn't new, and there was that whole WW2 thing. (Congo also gets crap from the animal rights groups for, um, blowing up a Rhino with TNT (!) and shooting a monkey and wearing its skin to fool other monkeys; we all know that cartoon violence involving animals leads to animal cruelty  ).
He popularized/pioneered the ligne claire style, which I love. This library thing seems overkill. "a vault-like room, accessed by appointment only"? You can walk in and grab a copy of "Mein Kampf" anytime but this comic is treated like unstable plutonium. Bizarre. PC madness. |
Nice post!
It resumes a well-known controversy in France, Belgium and elsewhere.
It's true that non-white people is usually depicted as mentally simple in several Tintin books as opposed to the insinuated superiority of white race. Personally, as an adult (?) I think that it is clearly racially offensive. I am pretty sure that such content could not be published today.
I read too a lot of Tintin as a kid (in French), but I was not able to make such a judgement being so young. Actually (and not proudly), I remember that I was dumb enough to smile with the way that black people was supposed to speak in french.
I hate censorship, but the fact that racism is rather insinuated in Tintin and these comics are supposed to be read by kids makes the case completely different as compared to "mein Kampf".