4 ms·

Just don’t read the original version of the Congo one. Even the corrected version to be honest.

swores 3y ago
+1 This was the one Tintin my mum wouldn't let me have as a child - at the time I thought it grossly unfair, and argued that surely she could just point out the aspects that were offensively racist the way she'd point out problematic aspects of anything else she might read to me / introduce to me to read myself. I don't remember the specifics, as it's the only Tintin story I've only read once rather than many times, but when I did read it in my early 20s I immediately told her that I no longer disagreed with her decision to keep it out of the hands of her children.
SomeoneOnTheWeb 3y ago
Quite the opposite. It's very interesting so see how his point of view on strangers and especially black people changed. In an interview, he told his story wasn't racist on purpose ; he truly believed that was how black people were based on the very few informations he had at the time - he never traveled outside of Belgium. When he made the next one with a chinese person, he contacted a student who was originally from China to educate himself on how Asia really was, the culture, the people, etc. And that's how he came up with one of the best books of this career.
- bigmattystyles 3y ago
  Totally agree, but this context is important, the book in a vacuum is not the complete picture. The corrected version is much better, but there is still a lot of white saviorism. But Chang is indeed not a caricature.
- jtrip 3y ago
  From the above article. >Hergé met Chang Chong-Ren for the first time in Brussels in 1934 at the urging of one Abbé Gosset. Gosset, the chaplain to a group of Chinese Catholic students at Louvain University, had been concerned about the racist stereotypes in Hergé’s first two hugely popular Tintin books, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, and urged him to ‘do a little research’ before embarking on his next book, The Blue Lotus, set in China.
- jgtrosh 3y ago
  This is why the most immediately jarring thing of the Congo comic, in my opinion, is not even the strong racism. It's the relentless animal-brutality-based “comedy”. The racism is not so much meant as the butt of the joke, more just a shoddy world view.
heywhatupboys 3y ago
> Just don’t read the original version of the Congo one. Even the corrected version to be honest. I think adults can manage reading things they disagree with and consider inappropriate. people literally watch horror movies.
- bigmattystyles 3y ago
  I know, I was saying that in jest, so as not to shatter the parent comment’s view of Tintin. As an adult, you should read it and see the evolution in Herge.
tacker2000 3y ago
I think its bad to censor these types of things. People need to see how we evolve as society and not hide this just because it could upset someone today.
andrepd 3y ago
Quite the opposite. It's very important to (1) know what the accepted (in fact, majority) views were not that long ago, and (2) to witness an example of how a man could so clearly change his worldviews despite being educated and mentored in the Catholic ultraconservatism that gave him his former views.

+1 This was the one Tintin my mum wouldn't let me have as a child - at the time I thought it grossly unfair, and argued that surely she could just point out the aspects that were offensively racist the way she'd point out problematic aspects of anything else she might read to me / introduce to me to read myself. I don't remember the specifics, as it's the only Tintin story I've only read once rather than many times, but when I did read it in my early 20s I immediately told her that I no longer disagreed with her decision to keep it out of the hands of her children.

SomeoneOnTheWeb 3y ago

Quite the opposite. It's very interesting so see how his point of view on strangers and especially black people changed. In an interview, he told his story wasn't racist on purpose ; he truly believed that was how black people were based on the very few informations he had at the time - he never traveled outside of Belgium. When he made the next one with a chinese person, he contacted a student who was originally from China to educate himself on how Asia really was, the culture, the people, etc. And that's how he came up with one of the best books of this career.

bigmattystyles 3y ago
Totally agree, but this context is important, the book in a vacuum is not the complete picture. The corrected version is much better, but there is still a lot of white saviorism. But Chang is indeed not a caricature.
jtrip 3y ago
From the above article. >Hergé met Chang Chong-Ren for the first time in Brussels in 1934 at the urging of one Abbé Gosset. Gosset, the chaplain to a group of Chinese Catholic students at Louvain University, had been concerned about the racist stereotypes in Hergé’s first two hugely popular Tintin books, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, and urged him to ‘do a little research’ before embarking on his next book, The Blue Lotus, set in China.
jgtrosh 3y ago
This is why the most immediately jarring thing of the Congo comic, in my opinion, is not even the strong racism. It's the relentless animal-brutality-based “comedy”. The racism is not so much meant as the butt of the joke, more just a shoddy world view.

heywhatupboys 3y ago

> Just don’t read the original version of the Congo one. Even the corrected version to be honest. I think adults can manage reading things they disagree with and consider inappropriate. people literally watch horror movies.

bigmattystyles 3y ago
I know, I was saying that in jest, so as not to shatter the parent comment’s view of Tintin. As an adult, you should read it and see the evolution in Herge.

tacker2000 3y ago

I think its bad to censor these types of things. People need to see how we evolve as society and not hide this just because it could upset someone today.

andrepd 3y ago

Quite the opposite. It's very important to (1) know what the accepted (in fact, majority) views were not that long ago, and (2) to witness an example of how a man could so clearly change his worldviews despite being educated and mentored in the Catholic ultraconservatism that gave him his former views.