Tintin: pissing on the yellow?

[imomus]

I'm finally back in Berlin after my trip to New York, Boston, Denver, London, Paris, Brussels and Dusseldorf. I feel like I have a huge backlog of stuff to share with you, but for now I'll just post this glimpse of Brussels as "the town that channels Tintin". Here are some of the boy detective's many visual cameos in a town where his main rival is a little pissing mannequin:



The image of me as Tintin was posted here last year. It's by Staffan Millqvist. (The image next to it is a graduation ritual poster.)

These days, what with the recent debate over whether Hergé was a racist, it may not be so great to be tarred by association with the cowlicked brush-head. But he's still a great read.

At Yamato, a Japanese ramen bar Hisae and I were taken to by show setter-upper Patrick Thinsy, I found a copy of Le Lotus Bleu and photographed every page. Later, on the train to Dusseldorf (where we investigated Germany's biggest Japantown) I translated the book for her off my laptop screen, bubble by bubble.

There's certainly an anti-Japanese streak in "The Blue Lotus" -- the Japanese characters are militaristic propagandists, in league with opium gangs -- but it's made up for by Hergé's compassion for the Chinese and Siamese characters. And really it's prejudice against imperialism rather than Japaneseness per se. Tintin isn't pissing indiscriminately on the "yellow".

Comments

[violet-hemlock.livejournal.com]

That MOMUS tintin drawing is really quaint and funny. Kinda like curious george or something...

[funzionasenzavapore.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

ahhh

how can you hate someone if you're a Tintin reader?

[evil-heat.livejournal.com]

shanghai is tintin land too

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

Oh Momus, just accept that even delightful things have wretched aspects as well.

I love Tintin-->The World just as I love Moomin-->The World!

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Dr. Seuss also drew propaganda that was against the Japanese (and Hitler):












I think the racist drawings show a sign of the times. It all depends on what is happening in the world at the time.

[(Anonymous)]

Dr. Seuss also drew propaganda that was against the Japanese (and Hitler)

So did Disney...

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes! How could I forget? Disney also brought this video about menstruation:

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA OH I LOVE THAT. I BLEED AND MAKE RENARS AND KITTENS MSPAINT MANIPS BECAUSE I AM LIKE MOTHER NATURE!

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

M-Funk Vs Initiates of that Club f/ tha Quest for Interpersonal Relations (http://sleeping-butterfly.blogspot.com/2007/10/justin-isis-m-funk-vs-initiates-of-tha.html).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the most interesting dialogues between Brussels and Tintin is his appearance in the work of Scottish artist Lucy McKenzie (http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/9541/lang/1), who's currently living just off the Grand Place in a sumptuous shopping arcade called Yoko Tsuno Street (itself named after a cartoon character (http://come.to/yokotsuno/)).

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

oh i loved yoko tsuno

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Have you read Tintin in the land of the soviets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Land_of_the_Soviets)? There the factories are made out of cardboard cut outs and a furnace standing behind to make it look like they have a production going on. Also very propagandaistic.

Oh, and the non-official cartoon film Tintin and the lake of sharks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_and_the_Lake_of_Sharks) shows many of the typical influences from eastern Europe that Hergé often included in Tintins adventure.

And then there is the syldavian language (http://www.zompist.com/syldavian.html).

[inuitmonster.livejournal.com]

Whereas what was actually happening in the USSR was substantially worse.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Who cares, Captain Haddock still has the best insults.

Manneke, not mannequin.

[tchernabyelo.livejournal.com]

Without wishing to defend the idea of racism, I always feel it's very harsh to judge the attitudes of people without the appropriate historical context. To be a racist in the modern age is far less excuseable, because we have information and exposure to other cultures that simply wasn't available to people historically.

People are a product of their times. Yes, the truly enlightened rise above their times, and shape new cultures of enlightenment, but Herge was almost certainly no more racist than the great majority of the people of his time.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Aside from the fact that Belgium and Holland were full of refugees from Japanese prisoner camps during and after WW2, who were very heavily traumatised by what they went through.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree here that the cartoon depiction of non-whites in anything other than a modern western environment with modern western clothing is deeply racist. It may be that the lifestyle and culture of certain African tribes exactly fit our definition of "primitive," but that does not give our cartoonists the right to draw them in any such a way.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I realize that you're being sarcastic, and I don't accept the (implied) inverse of your statement, but I think you touch on an interesting point: that accusations of racism are often, themselves, filled with racism.

[vonbruckhousen.livejournal.com]

MoMNick, I invite you to run in the 2008 presidential election USA.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Then there's the strange case of DNA pioneer James Watson and his "Final Victory".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119331451684871240.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

In today's message, Watson writes: This week's events focus me ever more intensely on the moral values passed on to me by my father, whose Watson surname marks his long ago Scots-Irish Appalachian heritage; and by my mother, whose father, Lauchlin Mitchell, came from Glasgow and whose mother, Lizzie Gleason, had parents from Tipperary. To my great advantage, their lives were guided by a faith in reason; an honest application of its messages; and for social justice, especially the need for those on top to help care for the less fortunate. As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all. I have been much blessed.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/taiga/

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

Samurais do a lot of pissing but an image change might be in the future?

[tailchaser.livejournal.com]

i work in a bookstore that has a beautiful display of tintin books. the display is in a huge rocket.
*glee* i want to steal it.

the other day there were 4 women in their 30's standing around looking at the books and one went on a huge rant about how racist the books were and that she was so offended they were selling them in the store.

her friends just shook their heads and ignored her.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Le Marquis De WiFi approaches! (cue trumpets)

[(Anonymous)]

Have you ever read any of archy and mehitabel by Don Marquis? It was a social commentary cartoon from the early 1900s and it was pretty fantastic imho

[harveyjames.livejournal.com]

That last photograph is brilliant.

[microworlds.livejournal.com]

Also: pissing on the yellow could be misconstrued as racist as well. My grandparents still say "oriental", even though in society today it could be viewed as racist. What seems innocent can be twisted in the wrong way.

Or, did you mean to put "yellow" in quotes because it was in the Tintin strip?

[xstevie-nicksx.livejournal.com]

Oh, mirror in the sky -What is love?

Spacist

[robertdye.livejournal.com]

"Billions of blistering Bhudist barnicles" exclaimed Captain Haddock to the Tibetan monks during the stage performance of Tintin Goes To Tibet at the opening stage production at Richmond Theatre on Tuesday night. Now, I've never seen the Captain angling or sailing in any Tintin feature, so we could say that Herge was a right-wing-starboard-side fishist.

Yes, we could analyse Herge into being a rascist if we really wanted to as we could almost anyone. But of course he wasn't.

No more than Momus is a rascist. I remember him playing the Peniche 6/8 in Paris 1997 on preparing to deliver Space Jews. "I hope no one is offended " he quiped. Of course I replied that it was a bit spacist.