Tintin racist? Racist Tintin?
 

That's downright stupid. Is The Merchant of Venice going to banned next for stereotyping Jews?

oh whatever. i hate idiots so wrapped up in making everything nice to EVERYONE.

i used to love tintin. i have a tintin pillow on my bed right now.

that book is a bit racist, as is tintin in the land of the soviets. it wasn't until a chinese student read that herge was working on a tintin story set in china (tintin and the blue lotus) and asked him not to portray the chinese as crudely as he had portrayed other races and nations in all his preceeding stories that herge started to undertake the thorough research that lead tintin to becoming such a benchmark comic series.

Peter Pan's even worse.

The book is indeed racist but that only reflects the colonial mentality of the time.

It's not racist, just ignorant. If you can't enjoy Tintin for what it is then there's no point reading it. Herge didn't set out to attack African culture when he wrote the book.

Erm, that's racist.

I hates me the inferior right wing race

Tintin's nowhere near as good as Asterix. That's my theory, and it's the theory that I have, which is mine.

True, Asterix was more exciting. Even when Tintin was on perilous missions deep behind enemy lines, you were still half-bored with him.

i don't understand this whole tintin vs. asterix thing, people often say they prefer asterix to tinitin but how can you even compare them? they are nothing alike! besides, asterix is pretty boring, you know whatever happens he'll drink some magic potion and save the day.

The Commission for Racial Equality; defeating modern racism by censoring racism from 70 years ago.

I don't know about Tintin, but RinTinTin is trained to shoot injuns on SIGHT!

jeez. next thing, they'll be saying I'M racist.


oh wait, i am.

The CRE are a baffling organisation. Some of the things they come out with are mind-boggling and intolerant.

This Tintin in the Congo book has its very bad points, especially some of the drawings of black people. But there are good reasons why Tintin shouldn't be banned.

There are lots of Tintin fans who are not racist. This is a fact - I know because I've met some. The book does not cause racism.

The racism in Tintin in the Congo is a product of the age it was written in. The book can be used to show this to children, and if we are to feel anything about the prejudics of a past age then it should be a sense of mocking that they were so commonplace. We shouldn't feel ashamed and embarrassed, because it wasn't us. We certainly shouldn't try to hide history under the carpet.

Hergé, the book's author, spent rather a lot of time apologising for Tintin's imperialist ways. He revised several of his stories (including stories about Soviets and Jews), showing that one can improve themselves through education and experience. What a shame people like the CRE can't see the benefit of such education.

This move is designed entirely to help with the 'guilt' of oversensitive people (so often sensitive on behalf of others, others who think hey are as daft as I do) who cannot stomach foul caricatures but are too embarrassed to explain things properly to their children.

I think Tintin is kind of OK, although I prefer the television series.

helloo it's a book from the 1930's all black people were portrayed like that, and this stayed the same for years. Tintin is just one of the only ones from that time who is still popular... i don't really see the problem, they mentioned in the article the book has been published before with some text in it about the colonial mind of that time.

here is some tintin


I only know spanish and english. anyone can translate this?

tentative translation...


First picture:

"My army, European-style equipped, and well-trained, will easily defeat the Babaoro'm!"


Second picture, from top to bottom (it is supposed to be in broken english/whatever language is used):

"Think that in Europe all little Whites they are same as Tintin..."

"Me found machine of Tintin"

"If he not back in one year and one day, it belongs you!"

"if you not nice, you never be like Tintin!"

"Me never see again bula-matari like Tintin!..."

"This Snowy, what a guy!"

first one means something like: 'my army, equipped the european way and well trained, will easily win from the Baoro'm' (i hope it's right)

second one is a bit harder i only understand one bubble: i found tintin's machine. it's danish, right?

thanks for the translation!

i used to read tintin in spanish in puerto rico when I was 7 or 8 and even then i found it dull as all fuck

The text has apparently been modified over the years, but I don't know to what extent...

Here is the same image, the first version is from the 1930 edition and the second one is from the 1946 edition:






First picture:

Tintin: "My dear friends, I will talk to you today about your fatherland: Belgium!"


Second picture:

Tintin: "If you agree, we will start with a few arithmetic operations. Who can tell me how much is 2 + 2 ? Nobody?... Come on, 2 + 2 ?... 2 + 2 = ...?"


I have no idea what it says nowadays... It probably has not changed much, because I think the main story stayed the same...

i remember one tin tin when the two detectives found a kilo of pure heroin in tin tins bag and they asked:

'tin tin is this yours'

tin tin replies

'no it must belong to someone else'

and the detectives just let him go! always think of that with tintin.

I have tried the "tintin maneuver" with the po-po in reference to a fat sack of sticky icky bud. it never works.

so....if Tintin is correct: indigenous Belgians CANNOT perform simple math.

thank gawd at least they know how to make waffles.

this reminded me of John E. Smoke by the butthole surfers

"Johnny left home before he was born.
A huge Indian teepee had appeared out of Johnnys earlobe,
He didnt know why.
It spoke French and half-Dutch,
Perhaps the teepee was from Belgium,
We dont know."

Haha, I was waiting for someone to post some of that. Tin-head.

If Tin-Tin is rascist, and I think it probably is, then what good will come from simply banning it? Schools should use it to explain how stereotypes circulated in past culture. Banning is just another way of denying facts.

As someone who works in education, something that increasingly disturbs me is the way that a book/film/comic that is offensive towards women, gays, christians or jews is generally tolerated, anything that might be seen as offending blacks or muslims is immediately withdrawn.

http://www.tintin.com/

looks like good wholesum fun to me

The second one goes (from top to bottom)

-Think about it, what if all white europeans were like Tintin...

-I have found Tintin's device!
-If he doesn't come back within one year plus one day, it is yours!

-If you don't stay calm/quiet, you'll never be like tintin!

-I'll never see a (bula matari????) like Tintin ever again

-I'll miss Terry (guess they mean snowy)

Looks to me like an odd mixture of swedish and danish, unless it's in nynorsk, which would be suprising....


The first one in french was correctly translated previously, and both are taken from Tintin in Congo, which was at the time a belgian colony, and can explain the tone used. White we're at it, Tintin in America portrays (white) americans as gangsters (written during the prohibition era, I guess) and natives as buffalo hunters, The Blue Lotus (the one in China) is rather stereotypical as well with the opium parlors, Black Gold plays on some northern africa or middle east clichés..... basically the only racism-free tintin adventures are the ones on the moon, I guess.

they are a product of their time.

yes it's true. i grew up reading tintin in french school. also asterix. tintin is yes "racist" because the 20's were racist. it wasn't particularly *trying* to be racist. just watch that buster keaton movie where he gets attacked by african "savages"-- ayayay. it was a part of the culture. movies like "joaquin the greaser" and a lot of cowboy movies too. racist? of course they were-- the times were racist. i own some "felix the cat" dvd where he interacts with "little sambos" and "redskins", in all their stereotyped glory. but these people were no hitlers though. also, popeye was a fucking moron, solved everything with punches, pathetic. want more? want some looney toons? look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djxnw090EeE

...and don't forget all the Tarzan films from years ago. For a slightly more modern take on the 'funny little savages' thing, check out the Ewoks in whatever Star Wars film it is. Or those little hooded guys with the red eyes in the first (!?) film.

They don't let the kids read Enid Blighton any more. Rubbish.

I was talking to a British person who's ethnically Chinese, and a British person who's ethnically Pakistani and a white South African and a black South African and a British black panther and a white Briton and a white Dutch person yesterday, and all agreed that it's absolute nonesense that things are banned on these bases.

i used to play with one of these as a child.

Is that why you're racist now?

yes being three and having a fluffy soft toy that used to play with all my other toys has turned me into a massive racist. so shut your mouth whitey.

please feel free to see any double entendres within that sentence as posible.

That reminds me of a time I got into a bit of trouble with my Scottish friend Dougall McDougall, and my Irish friend Seamus O'Shaughnessy. To cut a long story short, we were being chased by a policeman. We saw an old warehouse so ran in. Inside there were 3 empty sacks on the floor, so we each jumped into a sack. The rozzer saw these three bundles on the floor, went up to the first one and kicked it. I shouted out, "Woof Woof", and the copper thinking it's just an old dog left it and kicked the second sack. Dougall yelled out, "Me-ow me-ow", he left this one as well thinking it was just an old cat. He walked over to the last sack and kicked it, and Seamus yelled out.. "Potatoes Potatoes..!"