I picked up this copy of a Tintin comic in a waiting room.

[rohini@mastodon.social]

I picked up this copy of a Tintin comic in a waiting room. My first time reading Tintin as an adult. These comics are racist as f**k. The coloniser gaze is everywhere. As a child, I felt it but could never articulate it.

Edit: I found this Wikipedia page about it. This is indeed one of the most racist of the Tintin comic albums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo

[rohini@mastodon.social]

I remember one Tintin comic calling gypsies (the Roma in Europe) thieves and other names.

[werdahias@pleroma.debian.social]

@rohini yeah, this hit different in school when we learned about the atrocities Belgium committed in the Congo. Really fucked, and in Brussel the statue of King Leopold II still stand, like he wasn't instrumental to it.

[mlncn@social.coop]

@rohini yikes. That book is unacceptable in any era, but really should not be put out as browsing material in a waiting room today!

[rohini@mastodon.social]

@mlncn well, most of the material in that waiting room was present-day Hindu supremacist stuff. So, the choice of Tintin kinda makes sense.

[aegir@toot.wales]

@rohini I have a set of Tintin books called “The Complete Collection” but this isn’t in it as they like to pretend it doesn’t exist. Not even a mention if it, “too racist even for us” or anything.

[rohini@mastodon.social]

@aegir I remember another one in which 'gypsies' (the Roma) are called names.

[wigbert@mastodon.world]

@aegir @rohini

it has been purposely excluded from any later #Tintin collection - but more sophisticated editions include background information, historical context, etc.

There supposedly also is an apology from Hergé…

[aegir@toot.wales]

@rohini Yeah, anything not Western European in the books is corrupt, violent and not to be trusted.

[rohini@mastodon.social]

@mehluv well, 'explicitly fascist' clocks.

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

yup. they’re horrible.

i grew up in Puerto Rico, so my exposure to TinTín was via a kids’ magazine from Argentina called Billikén. at one point they added them as a mini zine in the middle of the mag. i’d just ripped it out immediately.

it’s so horrible, i use TinTín as a measure of how racist someone is. cannot tell you how disappointed i was when Stephen Spielberg went out and made a whole ass movie. then i checked the credits. it gets worse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin_%28film%29

@rohini

[karlheinzhaslip@climatejustice.social]

@rohini Belgium in a nutshell. They are still selling little chocolate hands in the shops and in you order a Lumumba in there, they bring a "hot chocolate with a shot" as if history was a joke.

[floatybirb@mastodon.social]

@rohini whelp, that's a lot of "yikes" compressed into three pages.

[seanbala@mas.to]

@rohini Oof - that was your first one?! That’s the one that usually is banned along with “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets” for the same reason (I think).

[rohini@mastodon.social]

@KarlHeinzHasliP sigh.

[defred@social.bim.land]

@rohini wait for "the blue lotus" :/

[rohini@mastodon.social]

@seanbala first one as an adult. I read some in childhood.