Posted on 07/14/2007 1:57:31 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
Sales of a Tintin comic book have rocketed since Britain's Commission for Racial Equality claimed it was racist, a newspaper has reported.
Sales of Tintin in the Congo have shot up by 3800 per cent after the CRE watchdog claimed it contained potentially highly offensive material, said The Daily Telegraph.
The comic has reached number eight on internet retailer Amazon's most popular books list, the broadsheet reported.
A CRE spokesman accepted that its interjection could have sparked the rise in sales.
"It is a delicate balance but because we had a complaint from a member of the public we felt we had no choice," he said, according to the newspaper.
Borders, a British chain of bookstores, said Wednesday it had yanked copies of Tintin in the Congo from its children's sections following the CRE saying that it "beggared belief" that they should sell the comic.
"This book contains imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the 'savage natives' look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles," a CRE spokeswoman had said.
"How and why do Borders think that it's okay to peddle such racist material?"
The CRE said it was contacted by a Borders customer last month who saw the book on sale in London.
Tintin in the Congo, which first appeared in Belgian newspaper Le Vingtieme Siecle as a comic strip in 1930-1931, is part of the series The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian author and illustrator Herge.
But its tale of boy reporter Tintin's trip with his dog Snowy to what was then the Belgian Congo is seen as controversial by some because of its depiction of colonialism and racism, as well as casual violence towards animals.
Herge later said the book was merely a reflection of the naive views of the time.
Some of the scenes were revised for later editions.
I think we've found the REAL culprit here...
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that one.
It was reported as recently as May. I’d be surprised if it’s fallen apart that fast. I have no interest in the project, so I’m not holding my breath in any case.
And now, taking you back to 1961, here’s the immortal Ella Fitzgerald with “Cry Me A River”.
I have several TinTin shirts I bought in Bangkok
The tintin trilogy I know best is the first one:
Tintin in the Soviet Union, Tintin in Congo and Tintin in America
These are great volumes, by all accounts. I do not know how they perceive it to be racist to show a reporter helping local Africans from the corruption and lack of education and the primitivness of the culture there... if that were true, then maybe we should end our public school programs altogether...
I saw that, too, but I wouldn't count on it. Jackson is in the middle of filming The Lovely Bones and producing Halo. He's bought another trilogy to adapt, too, and may possibly do a war movie.
Tintin's been blue skied as a movie many times.
Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!
...A..as in singular.. Member of the public!? I would think a "Get Stuffed" response would be appropriate.
Racist? Maybe, but it was written in 1930s! There would be zillion stories considered politically incorrect or even downright wrong if we try to apply our contemporary ‘morality’ to stories written in the past...
Certainly Mark Twain's works would have to go to the Book Bonfire. Also, Melville, Shakespeare..Well, anyone who wrote before the Glorious Red Dawn, anyway.
I must really be old. I’ve never heard of Tintin. Not one clue. But I do remember us having an old 78 record of Little Black/Brave Sambo.
“I’m Little Brave Sambo, Little Brave Sambo, dressed in the prettiest clothes.”
Oh the horror that my mind was polluted with this awful stuff.
If they think that “TinTin in the Congo” is racist, they should read “TinTin in Rwanda,” which depicts the 1994 mass-extermination of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutu sympathizers - chiefly by being hacked to death with machetes.
The comic portrays the rampaging Hutus as “violent” and “blood-thirsty.” A clear-cut case of racism!
LOL! When I was a child, I had a "Little Golden Book" version of "Little Black Sambo", which if I recall was presented as more of an Indian than a black child. Makes sense because the story involves tigers turning into butter.
Little did I realize that I was being indoctrinated with a culture hate...here I thought it was a fairy tale! And to make it worse, they killed endangered tigers, then turned them into butter - think of the cholesterol!!!
Maybe Yes, Maybe No....
Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson Join Forces on Tintin Trilogy.
Tintin to Film: Superdirectors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson will join forces to rule the world produce and direct three films back-to-back starring French comics character Tintin. Hergé wrote 23 books starring cub reporter Tintin between 1929 and 1976; the pair of filmmakers have selected three to adapt.
Each will direct one film with a director to be named later for the third, all using WETA's motion capture technology to create lifelike but not live-action characters. WETA has already spent $1.7 million just to make digi-Tintin's hair stand up like that. [Variety]
Sambo was banned in Communist homes back in the 1940’s.
No kidding.
They told Herbert Philbrick’s (FBI informant in the party) wife not to have that Sambo book in the home.
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