Tintin and the Blue Lotus and the film
Do you think comics are a children's or adult genre/media?
Although Herge created the comic books of Tintin for the age of “seven to seventy-seven ” (Far, 1991) from reading the comic and watching the film of Tintin the Blue Lotus, I feel that the comic books of Tintin are more suited for adults. Simply because of the stereotypical views that adults would understand more than a young child would. For the film of Tintin the Blue Lotus, it is more suited for children because the film moved really fast in terms of the plot and would probably keep the interest of children. The film didn’t include all the stereotypical views of which the comic had, and by not including that made the film better suited for children to watch.
Hergé researched China through meeting Chang. In Farr’s (1991) second extract he states that when Hergé met Chang, he gave Hergé a “true taste of China” that gave him a better understanding that what he would collect from newspaper cuttings… “sweeping away of prejudices”. However, in both the comic and the film the Japanese are seen as “evil” through the characters, for example the character of Mitsuhirato. In an early Tintin comic called “Tintin in the Congo” it was seen that Hergés portrayals of Africans were racist. Hergé illustrated his Africans with having big “Negro” like lips and as seen in the NZ Herald, 19 July, 2007 overleaf, consumer affair reporter McNaughton states that “The material suggests to (children) that Africans are sub-human.” Borders of Asia during that time advised New Zealand and Australia to remove the copy of "Tintin in the Congo" from the children's section to the adult's section.
Comparing Tintin in the comic and in the film, it is noticeable that there were some scenes where Tintin was illustrated differently in the film and the comic. For example, on page 43 in the comic of Tintin when he saves Chang from drowning, Tintin is drawn with skinny arms but in the film Tintin has been drawn with some muscles. For children seeing their hero being drawn with muscles would be more appealing than a hero drawn with stick arms. With that said, Tintin’s companion Snowy is also appealing to children in the comic there is a thought bubble for Snowy but in the film audience can’t see what Snowy is thinking.
Other Tintin comics could contain stereotypical views on other races, which children could unconsciously pick up. As seen in Tintin and the Blue Lotus comic there are quite a bit of stereotypical views that weren't included in the film. I think this is done so it can be better liked not just children but also adults.
Reference
Farr, M. (1991). Tintin the Complete Companion. London: John Murray
McNaughton, M. (2007, July 19). It’s adults only for Tintin and Snowy. NZ Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10452498
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ReplyDeleteHi Emill,
Deletethanks for commenting on my blog. I definitely agree with you that the newspaper series targeted adults and I strongly think that the films are more targeted at children as I mentioned in my post. I also agree that Tintin is viewed as a intelligent individual, he is very independent.
Do you think comics are a children's or adult genre/media
DeleteAs Clarice’s suggestion, the market of The Adventures of Tintin is not only targeting to the children but as well as the adult. The reason is that The Adventure of Tintin first appeared in French in Le Petit Vingtième, a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le XXe Siècle as a strip in the Comics anthology. In my understanding, the audience of Newspaper are always adult so the first group of audience of The Adventures of Tintin is actually adult. However, this story was represented as children comics once it had been published as book later on. The image and character are simple and clean. It helps people to read and is also easy to let people to understand the whole thing. People will be easily got interested with the whole story without any age limitations. In this comic, Tintin is a teenager but also an intelligent individual. The whole story is about his extraordinary experiences in the world around travel and this kind of comic is always attractable to any age group.
Reference
Wikipedia, (2012). The Adventures of Tintin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin
High quality blog post, Clarice, and comment by emilll too.
ReplyDeleteClarice says: 'As seen in Tintin and the Blue Lotus comic there are quite a bit of stereotypical views that weren't included in the film.' What are these?
Clarice, this sentence is almost meaningless in English you attempt to write a double passive voice. Remember, English favors the active voice. (look up these terms if you don't understand them.
Hi Mike :)
DeleteThe stereotypical views that weren't included in the film was the part where Tintin firsts arrive in Shanghi. Tintin's driver almost runs into Gibbons and calls Tintins driver a "Dirty little China-man..." throughout the whole film Gibbons wasn't included. Another stereotypical view that wasn't included in the film was the conversation between Tintin and Chang when they first meet about how Chang thought that all "white devils are wicked" and Tintin says "Europeans still believe all Chinese are cunning".
Thanks for the feed back on my blog :)
Good examples. the film attempts to skirt the racial issues. What is interesting about Gibbons, too, is that he represents a certain class on European, their dress and manners and attitudes mark them as upper class. So Herge's having a dig at the upper class!
ReplyDelete