Can't See the Forest for the Trees

It seems that everyone’s favorite Belgian child detective is in trouble with the Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality.

Extracted from the Associated Press report:

Quote:

Borders is removing "Tintin in the Congo" from the children’s section of its British stores, after a customer complained the comic work was racist. The book is the second in a series of 23 tracing the adventures of Tintin, an intrepid reporter, and his dog, Snowy. The series has sold 220 million copies worldwide and been translated in 77 languages. But "Tintin in the Congo" has been widely criticized as racist by fans and critics alike. In it, Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi depicts the white hero’s adventures in the Congo against the backdrop of an idiotic, chimpanzee-like native population that eventually comes to worship Tintin — and his dog — as gods. Remi later said he was embarrassed by the book, and some editions have had the more objectionable content removed. When an unexpurgated edition was brought out in Britain in 2005, it came wrapped with a warning and was written with a forward explaining the work’s colonial context. Borders agreed to move the book to its adult graphic novels section, but said in a statement it would continue to sell it. The Commission for Racial Equality saying in a statement Thursday that the book was full of "hideous racial prejudice." "The only place that it might be acceptable for this to be displayed would be in a museum, with a big sign saying `old fashioned, racist claptrap.’"

This raises an interesting point about our culture of presentism and "cultural chauvinism." It is natural for us to look at works of art within the context of our current environment, rather than in the one that it was created.

Is the problem that the work is available at all, or the fact that it was available in a mass-market outlet?

Or is this part of the "comics are for kids" mentality, and the general ignorance of book store employees as to the contents of what they sell?

(And yes I’ve worked in a large book store and know it’s impossible to know the contents of every book in the store – but I also know that senior book sellers are given responsibility for certain sections and it’s not beyond them to get themselves educated about the genres in their care.)

The story also made me wonder if anyone at The Commission for Racial Equality has read Tarzan of the Apes recently?

In no way am I condoning the content of this particular Tintin story. I have read it in the past – and yes it is horribly racist. But so are many other books you can find in major book stores – Mein Kampf is openly on sale in my local Barnes & Noble for instance. If books like that, and Tarzan, are allowed to be shelved and sold as products of their time and placed in historical context, then why not a comic?

Is the reaction of the Government body just because it was a comic? Or because it was a comic in the kids section?

UPDATE: An excellent reaction piece on the Tintin incident from the UK’s Sunday Times.