Tintin - Spielberg praises Moffat

[Pip Madeley]

I'm sure a few PSers will have an opinion on this!

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is calling on high street shop Borders to pull a Tintin adventure from its shelves completely. Tintin in the Congo has already been moved to the adult section over complaints that its content is racist.

A spokeswoman said the book contained "words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles". Borders said they are committed to let their "customers make the choice".

'Racist claptrap'

The store's spokesman added: "Naturally, some of the thousands of books and music selections we carry could be considered controversial or objectionable depending on individual political views, tastes and interests." The comic strip in the book shows Tintin meeting with black men dressed as warriors who fight against one another.

"How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?" said the CRE spokeswoman. "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.' It's high time that they reconsidered their decision and removed this from their shelves," she added.

The Tintin adventures were written by Belgian author Herge - real name Georges Prosper Remi - from 1929 until his death in 1983. He continued to revise his books after their publication, and admitted embarrassment over some of the views they expressed. A scene in Tintin in the Congo in which the eponymous hero gave a geography lesson to Africans about Belgium was later changed to a maths class.

"Look Snowy, they're saying we're worse than The Black And White Minstrel Show!"

[Si Hunt]

But it was written decades ago, when racial opinions were very different.

Anyway, surely the racist content pails in comparison to the shocking examples of animal cruelty that the book contains? At one point Tintin blows up a live rhino by drilling a hole in its back and filling it with dynamite!

Si.

[Lissa]

The CRE exists only to make fusses like this whenever they haven't been in the papers for a fortnight. Their twin stance of "everything in the past was racist" and "no one must ever be allowed to see that racism" makes them a laughing stock. I don't even think you can dismiss it as "they mean well" because I honestly don't think they do. They are getting their faces on the telly over an issue that has been known about for many years. The book already contains a historical context warning and isn't displayed alongside the main TinTin range.

Besides, what is actually wrong with the book's portrayal of the African natives? Is it actually any more offensive than comical portrayals of our ancestors or the Native Americans or the Jews? It isn't enlightened but equally it isn't harmful. No one is going to read a TinTin book and become a racist and no hard nosed racist is going to be caught reading a TinTin book.

If people can accept that a dog or a bear can talk in a comic strip but not in real life then I think they can be trusted not to assume that all Africans are spear carrying savages.

One day life will be discovered in outer space and we'll have pressure groups trying to ban Doctor Who.

[cullsoft]

What Si said.

According to Yahoo! News, Herg stated that the book was pretty much a reflection and satire of the misconceptions people had of life in the Belgian Congo.

While I can appreciate the fact that the book can easily be taken as racist, banning the book pretty much means that anything with a suggestion of racist intent (even if it was written in a time where such opinions were accepted) is open for banning, until the only books we're allowed to read have to be absolutely politically correct.

The problem is that we have to cater for people who can't accept that the book is a piece of fiction and not relevant to current times and culture, and as a result the highest of intellectuals must pander to the lowest common denominator.

[Si Hunt]

I bought the book recently, but regard it firmly as a "curio", a historical bit of completion in the Tintin Universe (like my fan-made completed version of "Tintin and Alph Art"!) and not really a proper one of his adventures. It doesn't really feel like him anyway, and it's clear Herge was still finding his feet. It seems somewhat harsh to take one of his very earliest books, that's only really been reprinted for collectors anyway, and to start finding fault with it.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

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.'

Where is this museum?

[Rob McCow]

Correction! This section

"How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?" said the CRE spokeswoman.

Should read:

"How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?" said the pompous, self-important CRE spokesperson.

[Si Hunt]

I'm still amazed what she criticises it for. He mutiliates a snake too. In fact the whole book is a succession of acts of cruelty to wildlife. And she complains that it's racist!! Strikes me as the words of someone who's picked it up and seen a few pictures of black slaves with big lips but not actually read it.

Anyway, IS it really racist? Surely there ARE tribes in Africa?

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

Right, if Tintin gets banned we must also immediately pull Porridge from the shelves of all DVD stores, riddled as it is with homophobic and racist comments from the inmates of Slade prison, with offensive homosexual stereotype characters like Lukewarm and Gay Gordon.

Good grief.

[Captain Tancredi]

So this book has been around for seventy years and somebody's only just noticed?

That reminds me, though- really must read some Tintin (or Tintin, to use the proper Francophone pronunciation) sometime.

[Si Hunt]

To be fair, it's been out of production for a number of years and has only been available again for a mere three or four years.

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

News just in... 'Tintin in the Congo' is currently ninth on Amazon's bestseller list...Commission for Racial Equality looking up dictionary definition of "counterproductive"...

Curiously, the Perfect Partners that Amazon puts it with are 'Tintin in the Land of the Soviets' and 'Tintin in America', so clearly it's OK to portray Russians and Americans in a patronising way.

[WhiteCrow]

Good old Wiki ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_...ism_and_racism

Tintin in the Congo is the most controversial of the Tintin albums. It has often been criticized for its racist and colonialist views, as well as several scenes of violence against animals. Herg has later claimed that he was only portraying the nave views of the time. When the album was redrawn in 1946, Herg removed several references to the fact that the Congo was at that time a Belgian colony. This failed to mollify critics, however. Because of its controversial subject matter, the album was previously only published as a facsimile black and white edition in English.

Coming up is I think something very important which the CRE seem to have missed.

However, a colour English edition has finally been published in September 2005, by Egmont Ltd with a foreword explaining the historical context (a similar move had been employed for the 1983 translation of The Blue Lotus).

So this edition does at least explain the roots of the book, and why it's looked at kind of embarassingly.

I mean it was the way of the time to see people in Africa as savages because they were different. I mean it wasn't all that long ago we thought we had to rule other races because they couldn't do a good job of it themselves.

But we can't go the CRE way of always portraying black people in Africa as "the noble savages" politically correct way - because that's just a stereotype too.

I mean I do sympathise, my family has Russian roots, and during the very Rambo anti-Commie 80s, there were all manner of "kill the evil stereotype Russian" in the media comics/films/TV, and to be honest it made me feel alienation and really uncomfortable. However I'm not trying to get Rambo banned, but such material should survive to remind us of the idiot mentality which was prevalent in years gone by.

Let's also put this in perspective I've seen copies of Hitlers Meine Kampf available in bookshops, without a forward saying "he was evil". Heck you can even buy it in Amazon,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mein-Kampf-A...4271030&sr=8-1

[Si Hunt]

Herge was a fascinating man, and spent many, many years on some of the Tintin books, researching their accuracy and making sure they are correct. If there's a car in a Tintin book, you can bet it was real and has the correct chasis design in the album. They arn't really kids books anyway, they are works of art.

Si.

[Larry]

dear god is there nothing these Politicaly Correct, human rights crack pots won't have a go at.

[Si Hunt]

I've been reading "The Red Sea Sharks" today and there is a big sequence where everyone cries out "Quick, rescue the Negros from the hold!", "What are we going to do with these Sambos?", "We simple good black men, we no like evil white men!" etc. It's just the way things were seen when the books were written.

Si.

[SiHart]

It was indeed, and I think it is imporatnt to keep the historical perspective so that kids have an understanding of how things used to be, and how far they have improved since. Sometimes you can't cover up the past- you have to show it for what it is, otherwise we'll all have no understanding of our history.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

*According to the Commission of Racial Equality:
"Quick, rescue the Negro's from the hold!" Racist!
"What are we going to do with these Sambos?" Racist!
"We simple good black men" Racist!
"...we no like evil white men!" Perfectly acceptable.








*Maybe.

[Logo Polish]

I've been reading "The Red Sea Sharks" today and there is a big sequence where everyone cries out "Quick, rescue the Negros from the hold!", "What are we going to do with these Sambos?", "We simple good black men, we no like evil white men!" etc. It's just the way things were seen when the books were written.

Si.

I believe Herge did later change that dialogue and gave the black characters in that story an idiom of speech that more resembled Afro-American phraseology, but I don't think that version has ever been published in Britain. I suppose it might have been for when they were publishing it in the USA? Of course, strictly speaking, that's not really accurate either for people who are supposed to be Africans, but I expect it was probably a way of trying to respond to accusations of racism, which were made against the story at the time.

[Carol Baynes]

Stupidity in action. Once again, sadly...

Good points from all I think.

[WhiteCrow]

The comic strip in the book shows Tintin meeting with black men dressed as warriors who fight against one another.

I wonder if it's the black people fighting one another which also caused the CRE to get frothed up. I'm expecting them to try and ban Hotel Rhanda next, because black people don't kill black people. Only evil white people kill black people.

I guess they're just having a slow month now that Bernard Manning's dead.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Strikes me as the words of someone who's picked it up and seen a few pictures of black slaves with big lips but not actually read it.

Anyway, IS it really racist? Surely there ARE tribes in Africa?

Si.

Black people also tend to have (relatively) big lips, and lots of them were also made slaves in the past. Next it will be that portraying black people as having dark skin will be racist.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

really must read some Tintin (or Tintin, to use the proper Francophone pronunciation) sometime.

I'm not sure the differentiation comes across in text form.

[WhiteCrow]

Thing is it's easy to go overboard.

My son was watching "Arthur and the Invisibles" where there is a group of Africans in America, all going around in ethnic gear (head dresses, and those grass skirt things) carrying SPEARS. Scandalous stereotypes. Why couldn't they have been accountants instead???

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I've just seen the Dambusters on TV. I'm pretty sure the dog in it was called "Nigger" or something along those lines, but all references to his name seemed to have been cut out - resulting in a rather confusing scene where someone comes up to the owner and says "he's dead" leaving you unsure who the heck he's talking about for a moment or two.