stuff.co.nz - 03/11/2011
SIGN OF THE TIMES: Tintin author Herge's depiction of African people in his 1931 work is typical of the era, a Belgian judicial adviser has argued.
A Belgian judicial adviser has recommended the country's courts reject a legal bid to have a book featuring fictional boy hero Tintin banned for racism, court documents showed.
De Theux de Meylandt said in the document dated Friday and seen by Reuters that Tintin author Georges Remi (better known as Herge) did not intend to incite racial hatred when he depicted his cartoon hero on an adventure in the former Belgian colony in a 1931 work that was updated in 1946.
"The representations (of African people) by Herge are a reflection of his time," de Theux de Meylandt wrote.
Intention is a key criteria in substantiating a charge of racism. The court is expected to deliver a judgment early next year rejecting or accepting Mondondo's argument that the book's depiction of Africans is racist.
"We see in particular that Tintin in the Congo does not put Tintin in a situation where there is competition or confrontation between the young reporter and any black or group of blacks, but pits Tintin against a group of gangsters ... who are white," de Theux de Meylandt also wrote in the statement.
Tintin in the Congo was one of a series of comic books about the adventures of a boy journalist and his dog Snowy, which were first published in 1931. Mondondo has taken aim at the modern version of the updated 1946 book.
The court case comes at a time when Tintin's popularity is on a comeback with a new Hollywood film from director Stephen Spielberg about the intrepid Belgian boy journalist on an adventure alongside Snowy, Captain Haddock and Inspector Thompson.
3 comments:
how would Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Niggers" and Enid Blyton's "The Three Golliwogs" fare today? Not very well, one suspects.
J'ai lu Tintin au Congo et en Amérique et je ne suis pas devenu raciste. En revanche, le racisme tribal africain fait la une depuis des décennies. You have to clean your own house before cleaning the other's.
"Anonymous" - Moral relativism is the ultimate fallback position of the morally indefensible. "You're not perfect, so you can't criticize a massive flaw in my outlook!"
Yes, we can. By that petulant metric, nobody ever has to improve at all because everyone else is not yet perfect!
Tintin Au Congo was racist because the times were racist. Tintin Au Congo is still racist, because the times are still racist. I do not believe this book should be banned, but rather made available as a valuable teaching tool in the myriad ways that white privilege manifests itself and is handwaved away in the name of "tradition". Even Herge is ashamed of this book when he grew up. Why won't you?
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