Comic Books – Do they promote stereotyping?

The news that comic books of Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke were burnt, along with many others, in Canada is both, shocking and upsetting.

These comic books were the Netflix of my school days.  I had grown up with all those characters, and their friends and families, and I still feel I know most of them personally. And, that’s why it saddens me that, these days, some new-age activists think it is okay to burn those books.

It was a symbolic burning, by a council of schools in Ontario, to show disapproval, for the way indigenous people were negatively portrayed in them. But I find it completely unnecessary and absolutely irrelevant.

The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed this controversy saying, "On a personal level, I would never agree to the burning of books."

But, strangely, at a government level, he allowed it. He allowed this ridiculous burning of books in this 21st century! A practice we thought was long relegated to medieval history.

In the 1953 dystopian novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ we have seen books being burnt by an authoritarian regime, in order to thwart independent opinion.  Book-burning has always been a direct assault on the minds of free-thinking men.

In fact, this novel’s writer Ray Bradbury titled it so because it is exactly at this temperature that paper catches fire, and burns.

Now, while I agree that, in books, certain communities may be negatively portrayed, based on the writers' knowledge – or the lack of it – and also on the writers' prejudices, we must also understand that often it is only a perspective. Sometimes it is in fact the perspective of the writer’s characters; and not even that of the writer.

For instance, the cowboy Lucky Luke fights some seemingly lazy, and at the same time, brutal Indians - the Native Americans of the Apache. Does that mean we become disrespectful of the Apache, and generalize them as only lazy and only savage?

According to the stories, he actually shoots faster than his own shadow. Does that mean we believe it??

It is for us to apply our own knowledge and wisdom to discern the truth. And our discernment skill can only increase when we are exposed to a range of differing perspectives.

In Asterix comics, there is strong caricaturing of the Gaulish people, Goths, Arabs, Egyptians, Romans, and even Indians.  But it actually opens up our minds to the reality of our differences; so that we can accept and embrace our differences.

Agreed, that when writing ‘Tintin in Congo’ , the Belgian writer Hergé, had not yet matured into a good cartoonist and storyteller. In fact, he had even later apologized for the way he had characterized African people, with some racist slurs, in his second book.

But, over time, his stories matured, and there is a beautiful intermingling of cultures, and a great appreciation for differences in his latter books.

For instance, I was fascinated by Tintin’s friendship with a Chinese boy named Chang in ‘The Blue Lotus’ and in ‘Tintin in Tibet’. Similarly, in ‘Prisoners of the Sun’, Zorrino, an indigenous Peruvian boy who makes a living by selling oranges, becomes a good friend of Tintin.

The boy Abdulla is seen as a spoilt brat of a wealthy Emir, from an Arabian country. This boy appears in “The Land of Black Gold” and “The Red Sea Sharks” , and despite his pranks endears himself to Tintin's companion Capt. Haddock.

Some stereotyping is often visible to us, but we should accept it as poetic licence given to writers. We should not be blind to truth, by accepting silly stereotypes.

Burning these books on the pretext of stereotyping, I think, is just like banning ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoon animations, for violence. 

Both are merely exaggerations with intent to entertain and educate.