Herge and Spielberg and Tintin and racism.

From The Atlantic:

Still, it's worth noting that the effort to avoid racism does have its own pitfalls. Herge's world was often built on racial stereotypes, but that meant that he had to have lots of exotic folks around. Jews, blacks, Indians, and Asians all featured as bit players and sometimes central figures in Herge's work. In Spielberg's film, on the other hand, they are simply erased, like the blacks in Tintin's American editions.

Still haven't seen it.

I'm always a few years behind.

Comments

[dangermom]

I just watched the movie today, and I'm not sure that's fair. "The Secret of the Unicorn" doesn't have an international cast in the first place, but the movie inserts a side trip to a fictional sheikhdom, complete with souk and exotic inhabitants (all of which seemed to me to be pretty Tintin-esque, not modern--it was also very reminiscent of the chase in Indiana Jones).

I'm a lifelong Tintin fan, and I did enjoy the movie. It wasn't horrible and it was fun.

[Leila]

With big movies like this one, I usually do wait until the hoopla dies down a bit -- so when I said I'd watch it in a few years, I wasn't exaggerating! Either way, I found the article interesting -- I've read the Tintins, but not so often (or so recently) that I know them all that well.

Glad you liked the movie -- I'm always more curious to see movies that I've heard mixed responses to than all raves.

[Ms Avery]

I enjoyed it too. I often hate adaptations of books I like (the BBC's Gormenghast sent me into a frothing rage within fifteen minutes) but the Tintin movie was fun, and there were a lot of cute in-jokes. It wasn't AMAZING, and I won't be buying the DVD, but it was entertaining.