"Tintin" book shelved for racism

As a French, I was taught in graduate school as early as the 80's that books such as "Tintin au Congo" were blatantly racist. And it's no surprise as Hergé and the paper that printed the early adventures, Le Vingtième Siècle, were quite biased and prejudiced.

The first three or four volumes are hard to defend. Later adventures, apart from "The Shooting Star" are not as problematic, given that after an original edition supervised by Hergé, the content had been redrawn and updated by a team, the Hergé Studios. The first adventure by Tintin, "Tintin au pays des Soviets" (Tintin in the Land of Soviets) couldn't be saved, as the story was too dated, and the original edition was only reprinted a few years ago after being kept out of print for decades.

"Tintin au Congo" should have faced the same fate but for some reason it was kept in the common series, maybe as its views were judged as relevant for the Belgian Colonial Empire up to the 60's.

I would NEVER put Astérix in the same "dated" league as the creators were MUCH more progressive. There's a small degree of prejudice against Germany in "Asterix and the Goths", as it was written 18 years after the end of WW2 but it doesn't leave such a bad taste in mouth as Tintin can.

 

Wow. I just read about the Sambo's restaurant chain. In 1981, they had over 1100 restaurants across America. One year later in 1982, all but one (the original) closed their doors forever after bankruptcy. And all this because radicals put on the heat after claiming the chain to be racist. And it turns out, the restaurant got its name from its founders, Sam and Bo!

 

I disagree that doesn't it matter if I was among his targets of his ignorance. That makes me very qualified to speak on this issue.

We are living in different times, and we have made advancements in every area of our society. but, when I look around, I still see, hear, and experience vile hatred and ignorance, not just towards me, but some new groups, especially since I live near the Mexico border.

I'm saying that if we try to censor and rewrite history, we will have little to show as examples of where we've been and where we are now and where we should go from here. Minds that think like Tintin will think their ideas are fresh and history will repeat itself.

I also think it is wrong to get into a "my holocaust was worse than your holocaust", because every group of people were oppressed, enslaved, and killed on this planet, and will continue to be.

It is foolish to think that all books that deal with race should be banned or censored. What we should do is expose these books for what they are. Take Birth Of A Nation. I sold the DVD the other day, and both the customer and I agreed that it demonstrated a hallmark of filmmaking, but the message in it was despicable. But, it should be available. There wre very offensive cartoons and Hollywood films that are painful to watch today.Then there are stories, like Sambo, that have been distorted throughout it's history, and Song Of the South that was misunderstood by many (including me at one time). I recommend keeping them all out of a child's reach until a certain age where they can understand the pretext, but never ban them. That some disturbed minds will take them, or their possibly wrongheded messages to heart is the chance we must take in order to live in a society with choices.

But, that restaurant also had pictures and other decorations that some thought were racist.

It's sad the restaurant went away. My family ate there when I was a kid. I did until I discovered what was told to me about the story of Sambo, the distorted version.

 

nothing worth while is easy...

 

I agree.

 

So, Jews can't be portrayed as villains? Is that the point? What happens if we start portraying blacks as villains, and they complain, then we move to whites, and they complain, then we move to asians, and they complain, and then... maybe we should agree on portraying villains as aliens with 6 eyes, 4 feet, and 10 hands, so nobody can identify with them...

For the record, I love Tintin (my wife and I do - we have a framed poster of him in our bedroom), and I believe people see racism, anti-semitism and the like wherever they want to.... but that's MHO.

 

AMEN, Grant! I agree with you completely!

 

From Ortega y Gasset for FJH (my apologies for the Spanish, couldn't find a translation):

More at http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/11/27/sem-democracia.html

Hergé was human and a man of his time. But he was tormented by a lot of things many politically-correct individuals would consider ridiculous. He was possessed by what his shrink called "the demon of purity", in the sense of being wholesome.

Don't mess with Tintin.

 

The original B&W books are available in four volumes, three really, in French.

Sadly, includes only up to 1940 (Le crabe aux...).

Includes Soviets.

 

I think we should go through all literature and film and censor out the things that we don't want other people to see. Kid should not read about the Holocaust, the Irish potato famine, slavery, KKK, Christians getting killed, any derogatory conditions, period.
I mean the world is scary enough as it is.

 

Don't forget gangsta rap!

 

I was being facetious like you were...

 

It's I know....

 

And, you spelled facetious right.

 

And I didn't use no stinkin' spell checker neither!

 

I wouldn't call the groups who were offended radicals at all. They were experiencing pain, and in the late 70s, the sting was all-too-painfully there...still is. Even if there was no malice intended, and there were no racist ideas behind the Sambo's resturaunt, these groups that felt targeted are indeed paranoid, but not without merit. Whe you have a government whi purposely infected a town of black men with syphllus, have writings like Tintin's out there, demeaning roles in movies, turning fire hoses on innocent children, you really can't blame people for being just a bit upset and paranoid. You can't blame them for wanting to be respected as human beings. That's why Sambo's was attacked.

Gotta remember, there are more ways to look at things than just one, and not only one can be absolutely correct.

 

I cant believe that's been censored! Ridiculous political correctness.

 

I wonder if there is a site that gives a chronological history of how the original story got distorted. There probably is, but i'm too lazy to bother to look.

 

Both have been available for a couple of years now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tintin-Congo-Herge/dp/1405220988

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tintin-Land-Soviets-Herge/dp/1405214775/

 

Talking of Little Black Sambo, anyone remember Little White Squibba?

I had both these books as a child (born in 1970) - I used to love reading Little Black Sambo. The tigers turning to butter was a pretty surreal concept!

However, I am not planning to let my children read it - just as I don't let them watch the unedited Tom & Jerry cartoons I have on laserdisc.

Why? Because I live in a multicultural society in which I believe we should not to have historical material available to children that contains potentially offensive cultural stereotypes.

Allowing adults to have access to such historical material is a different matter entirely - censorship of such material for adults would have a negative effect in my opinion. As others have said, how can we learn from the mistakes made by our ancestors if we brush them under the carpet?

 

I have nothing to say when villains happen to be Jews. I don't agree when Jews are only portrayed as villains in a 20th century work.

"The Shooting Star" was released in 1941 a few months before the extermination of the Jews was launched. You'll find lots of books or comics released during this time in occupied Europe that didn't use the Jews. Nobody had forced Hergé to picture the Jews as greedy bankers who rejoice at the idea of the apocalypse and collaborate with the Americans to take over free world.

In 19th century novels, you'll find tons of stereotypes in Dickens, Balzac or even Émile Zola (before the French Dreyfus case, he was as biased against Jews as most of the current writers). It belonged to a long tradition which was slowly dying down. I'd put the racial stereotypes of "Tintin au Congo" in the same league: even if they were wrong, they were then shared by most of the society.

Antisemitism in the early 20th century in Europe took other forms in litterature. Even Louis-Ferdinand Céline, whose antisemitism bordered on paranoia, kept the hatred out of his novels and put it only in his essays. So, it's very unfortunate to have a popular writer releasing a work in the middle of WW2 that innocently pictures the Jews as a nuisance and the enemies of the rest of humanity. The fate of millions of Jews was in balance at the time, which makes the use of antisemitic topics in a popular fiction "ill-placed".

That's why "The Shooting Star" was redrawned and rewritten. "Tintin in Congo" would have faced the same silent treatment if Hergé had revised it in the 50' and 60's, when his vision of the world had evolved. In its present state, it's an unpleasant artefact of a bygone era.

 

Agreed, but I don't believe censorship is the way to go about it. How are we supposed to learn from our own history, then?