Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
|
Post by Confessor on May 17, 2016 4:52:35 GMT -5
I've been curious about Tintin for a while because I know it's wildly popular in much of the world, so today I remembered to see if my library system has any Tintin. And I saw this and I knew I had to read it soon: They had a bunch of Tintin in English, but Tintin in the Congo is only available in Spanish. I used to be able to read Spanish reasonably well, so I'm hoping to use this as a refresher course. I'll check out more Tintin in the future. I've heard that Tintin in the Congo is somewhat notorious for being, shall we say, a bit insensitive. Yeah, Tintin in the Congo is full of decidedly un-PC stuff by today's standards. Herge was deeply embarressed about it in later years. That version you posted in actually the redrawn, toned down version - the original black & white version is even more offensive to modern eyes. I would caution you against reading this book as your first exposure to Tintin though because it isn't actually very good compared to later volumes. If you wanted to start by reading some of the early stories, Tintin in America or Cigars of the Pharoh are much better. Really though, The Blue Lotus is the first unequivocal masterpiece in the series. So reading that or any of the books that came after would make for a better introduction to Tintin IMHO.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on May 17, 2016 8:42:48 GMT -5
I've been curious about Tintin for a while because I know it's wildly popular in much of the world, so today I remembered to see if my library system has any Tintin. And I saw this and I knew I had to read it soon: They had a bunch of Tintin in English, but Tintin in the Congo is only available in Spanish. I used to be able to read Spanish reasonably well, so I'm hoping to use this as a refresher course. I'll check out more Tintin in the future. I've heard that Tintin in the Congo is somewhat notorious for being, shall we say, a bit insensitive. Yeah, Tintin in the Congo is full of decidedly un-PC stuff by today's standards. Herge was deeply embarressed about it in later years. That version you posted in actually the redrawn, toned down version - the original black & white version is even more offensive to modern eyes. I would caution you against reading this book as your first exposure to Tintin though because it isn't actually very good compared to later volumes. If you wanted to start by reading some of the early stories, Tintin in America or Cigars of the Pharoh are much better. Really though, The Blue Lotus is the first unequivocal masterpiece in the series. So reading that or any of the books that came after would make for a better introduction to Tintin IMHO. Thanks for the recommendations! My library system has a lot of Tintin (though none of it is at the local branch) and I was planning on reading more of them after I get through Tintin's Racist African Exploits. I've got so much stuff out of the library now that I'm at my limit. Edited to add: I just took a closer look at the "Tintin in Congo" cover and noticed the gentleman in the red shirt, sitting and smiling next to Tintin in the jalopy. This is the toned-down version? Oh dear.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
|
Post by Confessor on May 17, 2016 16:30:25 GMT -5
Edited to add: I just took a closer look at the "Tintin in Congo" cover and noticed the gentleman in the red shirt, sitting and smiling next to Tintin in the jalopy. This is the toned-down version? Oh dear. Yeah...it's not Hergé's finest hour. I will say in his defence that the colonial and racist depictions of Africans in that story were the product of a naive young artist who had read a lot of Belgian propaganda about the Congo, but who had never actually been there. Also, it's worth noting that the racism in the story is very much casual racism, rather than a harsher, more vindictive form...but, of course, it's racism nonetheless. And then there's the, frankly, horrifyingly brutal animal cruelty that our hero takes part in... Note to self: I really, really must re-start my old Tintin review thread from the old CBR days.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on May 17, 2016 16:55:31 GMT -5
And then there's the, frankly, horrifyingly brutal animal cruelty that our hero takes part in... I can hardly wait! Have you seen some of Dr. Seuss's somewhat questionable early work? If I can find an example online, I'll post it. There's one, a cartoon, I'm not sure where it's from, that has somebody at the department store in the Negro Servant section (or something) looking at heavily caricatured Negro cooks and chauffeurs and gardeners standing on a shelf while customers make their choices. As I recall, Seuss apologized for some of his early work.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
|
Post by Confessor on May 17, 2016 17:08:45 GMT -5
And then there's the, frankly, horrifyingly brutal animal cruelty that our hero takes part in... I can hardly wait! Just to give you a flavour, in the black and white original of Tintin in the Congo our hero drills a hole into the back of a live rhino, inserts a lit stick of dynamite, runs for cover and whatches the poor creature get blown to tiny pieces. You know, for fun and stuff. The animal cruelty is, like the racism, toned down slightly in the redrawn colour version, but it's still hardly what you'd call PETA approved. Have you seen some of Dr. Seuss's somewhat questionable early work? If I can find an example online, I'll post it. There's one, a cartoon, I'm not sure where it's from, that has somebody at the department store in the Negro Servant section (or something) looking at heavily caricatured Negro cooks and chauffeurs and gardeners standing on a shelf while customers make their choices. As I recall, Seuss apologized for some of his early work. No, I haven't, I'm afraid. I think the only Suess book I've ever looked at is Green Eggs and Ham.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on May 17, 2016 17:39:06 GMT -5
I can't believe I found the exact cartoon I was thinking of! It's not exactly as I remembered it. But here it is: And now because of all this political correctness, you're not allowed to laugh at it because then you face the horrible consequence of ... people thinking you're racist and saying it out loud and making you feel self-conscious! Thanks, Obama!
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
|
Post by Confessor on May 17, 2016 18:03:22 GMT -5
That's outrageously bad, but all too believable given the time period. To be honest, I don't find old stuff like this all that offensive...it is what it is and an unfortunate product of the social norms at the time of its creation. Now, if this appeared in a modern book, that would be extraordinarily offensive because clearly we know better now as a society (most of us, anyway), but back then, stuff like this was completely acceptable to the intended audience.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on May 17, 2016 18:47:17 GMT -5
That's outrageously bad, but all too believable given the time period. To be honest, I don't find old stuff like this all that offensive...it is what it is and an unfortunate product of the social norms at the time of its creation. Now, if this appeared in a modern book, that would be extraordinarily offensive because clearly we know better now as a society (most of us, anyway), but back then, stuff like this was completely acceptable to the intended audience. I find it horrifying that racism was so ingrained that depictions like this were the norm. And "nice" people who would have been horrified at the idea of a lynching didn't think twice about the overwhelmingly negative depictions of African Americans, either as comic darkies who were lazy, cowardly, sneaky, stupid and drawn as subhuman, monkey-like creatures, or as superstrong drunken fiends waiting behind the bushes to rape white women. I have a master's degree and my primary field of study was the American South, so I've read a lot of absolutely frightening material on American race relations. I'm currently reading a biography of Ida B. Wells, an African-American journalist who wrote a lot about lynching and race riots and things like that, so I've been reading about hundreds of lynchings (not hundreds total; hundreds every year from the 1880s to the 1910s) and things like the East St. Louis race riot and the Chicago race riot and the one in Arkansas where the white people claimed the blacks were planning a white genocide, so they killed dozens of blacks as a precaution. Of course, every black man who defended his home was murdered or arrested. And the cops could somehow never find any of the white murderers. So that's where I'm coming from when I don't feel particularly forgiving. But people did speak up, and that's why it's been subsiding from popular culture over the last 100 years. So there's that.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
|
Post by Confessor on May 17, 2016 19:08:46 GMT -5
That's outrageously bad, but all too believable given the time period. To be honest, I don't find old stuff like this all that offensive...it is what it is and an unfortunate product of the social norms at the time of its creation. Now, if this appeared in a modern book, that would be extraordinarily offensive because clearly we know better now as a society (most of us, anyway), but back then, stuff like this was completely acceptable to the intended audience. I find it horrifying that racism was so ingrained that depictions like this were the norm. And "nice" people who would have been horrified at the idea of a lynching didn't think twice about the overwhelmingly negative depictions of African Americans, either as comic darkies who were lazy, cowardly, sneaky, stupid and drawn as subhuman, monkey-like creatures, or as superstrong drunken fiends waiting behind the bushes to rape white women. I have a master's degree and my primary field of study was the American South, so I've read a lot of absolutely frightening material on American race relations. I'm currently reading a biography of Ida B. Wells, an African-American journalist who wrote a lot about lynching and race riots and things like that, so I've been reading about hundreds of lynchings (not hundreds total; hundreds every year from the 1880s to the 1910s) and things like the East St. Louis race riot and the Chicago race riot and the one in Arkansas where the white people claimed the blacks were planning a white genocide, so they killed dozens of blacks as a precaution. Of course, every black man who defended his home was murdered or arrested. And the cops could somehow never find any of the white murderers. So that's where I'm coming from when I don't feel particularly forgiving. But people did speak up, and that's why it's been subsiding from popular culture over the last 100 years. So there's that. Don't get me wrong, I find it horrifying too, but horrifying in a historical context. In fact, as something of a history buff and a total Yank-o-phile, I find the plight of African-Americans and the long march towards equality in the U.S. a fascinating subject. But historical racism doesn't enrage me like racism that I see nowadays. I guess it's the "spilt milk" thing; what's done is done, what's history is history, and as long as we learn from that history and make sure it never happens again, then we (as human beings) all just have to just get on with living in the present, while making sure such base depictions of racial minorities -- or any other type of minority for that matter -- are never deemed acceptable again.
|
|
|
Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2016 13:28:17 GMT -5
Racism is only really seen as Taboo in North America, in other places it's sort of an accepted norm with some backlash creeping in as the world slowly moves towards a universal P.C. culture (look up the dutch tradition of "Black Pete" sometime).
Yes, racism is wrong, that's a given. But outright removing it, like in the Noddy stories, is just as bad as saying that it never existed in the first place. People have always grown stronger through their own personal hurdles and adversities. I'm not saying that it should celebrated in any context, but it still kind of deserves to stick around as a provocative work that challenges people's preconceptions
|
|
|
Post by tingramretro on May 18, 2016 13:41:19 GMT -5
I've been reading some classic Judge Dredd comics lately. I skipped around in the Brian Bolland collection and read a few stories in the Case Files collections (one of my friends is a Dredd fan, and he let me read his books). Very enjoyable. The stories go back and forth from very silly to dead serious. They often end very abruptly due to the small amount of pages per each installment. I liked the Dark Judges story a lot. "Gaze into the face of Fear". "Gaze into the fist of Dredd". ...is still one of my all time favourite scenes in any comic.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on May 18, 2016 13:41:53 GMT -5
I'm honestly not sure what is so awful about so-called "political correctness." People can still say awful racist, sexist things. But in the universal PC culture, other people will point it out and criticize it, and the racists will have to - shudder - face the fact that other people have the same rights as they do to comment.
Unless we're going to start making laws against saying things that would offend racists.
(Not to mention the blatant hypocrisy involved among conservatives who are continually offended about lots of things, yet no one ever calls them out for their own political correctness. Because it's not politically correct to say "political correctness" when a conservative is offended.)
|
|
|
Post by tingramretro on May 18, 2016 13:44:21 GMT -5
I've been reading some classic Judge Dredd comics lately. I skipped around in the Brian Bolland collection and read a few stories in the Case Files collections (one of my friends is a Dredd fan, and he let me read his books). Very enjoyable. The stories go back and forth from very silly to dead serious. They often end very abruptly due to the small amount of pages per each installment. I liked the Dark Judges story a lot. I've always liked Dredd, but as I got more into reading 2000 AD progs, I sort of just lost interest I guess. Not that Dredd's stories aren't well done, it just seems like a lot of 2000 AD's other long running serials have more meat to them for me these days. I'd like to hope that it isn't because I've outgrown the character because I still really want to get a Judge Barcode tattoo from the Stallone movie I think the problem with Dredd, as opposed to most of 2000 AD's strips, is that there simply isn't much you can do with him as a character. He can't develop, he can't change, he's basically one dimensional. The real star of Dredd is always the city itself and the loonies who live there.
|
|
|
Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2016 14:10:39 GMT -5
I think the problem with Dredd, as opposed to most of 2000 AD's strips, is that there simply isn't much you can do with him as a character. He can't develop, he can't change, he's basically one dimensional. The real star of Dredd is always the city itself and the loonies who live there.
A lot of people use that same arguement for Gotham city and Batman and it makes sense when you think about it. But I think there are times where Dredd can be an interesting character, but only when he's given the proper treatment and attention. For instance, there's this one particular serial that sticks out in my mind; It's about Dredd having to rescue his niece, Vera (Rico's Daughter), from an escaped convict with a vendetta against Dredd. Afterwards, he coldly distances himself from Vera for the sole purpose of ensuring that she doesn't go through the emotional torment if he died in the line of duty. He may be a genetic clone of the Chief Judge that created the right-wing utopia of a judicial system that's in place in the Mega-Cities, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have his own identity or his own sense of "right" from "wrong". There's more to Dredd than a lot of people give him credit for, stuff that goes beyond just the surface level
Also, it just doesn't make any logical sense for the lead to be a bit player in his own story, especially when it's even named after him
|
|
|
Post by berkley on May 18, 2016 15:56:40 GMT -5
Currently re-reading L'Incal, in the Intégrale collection. In the middle of L'Incal Lumière right now.
|
|