Tintinrulz:
His attention was drawn to the animosity between China and Japan (Japan invading China) by a Chinese student, who quickly became a dear friend. If you have a friend and some individual or group is doing really evil things to their people, you're not going to think nicely of the oppressors, you're going to think of them as monsters. It's not right, but it's human nature and shouldn't be ignored. We can't sit here in our safe houses and just point our fingers at people who were living in hugely tumultuous times in history (approaching World War 2). You would hate the enemy with a deep passion. Again, it doesn't make it right but historical context helps to understand that
it's not just a matter of hating people because they're different but because they're doing great evils to people you love.
Excellent points, and you are quite correct.
That last sentence is particularly interesting.
My own suspicion is that the same could probably be said of pretty much all "group hatred" (horrible term, but I can't think of a better one).
Islamiphobia is not simply hatred of Islam because Muslims are different, but is based on a perception that Islam threatens to do great harm to oneself, or one's country, or one's loved ones.
Similarly, those in Britain who tend to be strongly hostile to people of African or Pakistani background don't hate them because they are different, but because they perceive them to be a threat to themselves, their country and their way of life.
Again, those who, in various places, are highly hostile to Christianity, are not, I suspect, hostile to Christianity because Christians are different, but because they perceive Christianity to be a threat to their way of life - and likely to do great harm to it.
One could say the same thing about anti-semitism in Germany in the 1930s. These people didn't hate Jews because they were different, but because they believed that Jews were doing great harm to their country.
Hergé may have been more correct than these people in his perceptions - but I believe that the motivation for the way that he depicted the Japanese in
The Blue Lotus is not actually that different.
Thank you, Balthazar, for that long and thoughtful reply to my post.
Balthazar:
Surely the really offensive thing about the book - more offensive than the stereotyped but not unkindly meant drawing of "rubbery-lipped natives" - is the way it whitewashes the horrendous reality of the Belgian Congo
Curiously enough, that is not always what the objectors seem to focus on.
Balthazar:
However, I wouldn't agree that Hergé was too jaundiced in his view of the Japanese occupation of China.
Indeed. I was careful to say "his jaundiced view of the Japanese" rather than "his jaundiced view of the Japanese occupation."
Balthazar:
Maybe it's this question of whether what's been shown is truthful which makes the difference between which Tintin books seem offensive or inoffensive today.
I would like to hope so.
mct16:
The Japanese are shown with beaming teeth, while the Chinese are shown as tight-lipped. This is just a way of telling one from the other.
I'm not convinced!
And finally, smoking.
My original comment was tongue-in-cheek, of course. But there is no doubt that the "war on smoking" has become much more aggressive in recent years, and as mores are changing rather rapidly at the moment, one wonders whether the depiction of smoking in children's books will come under more sustained attack in the future.
And I seem to recall that in a production of King Ottokar's Sceptre a few years ago, the habits of the two Alembick twins were transposed - so that whereas in the original, Hector (the good twin) was a smoker, whereas his wicked brother was a non-smoker - in this production Hector was now the non-smoker and his evil twin was the smoker.