Comics Reporter notices a piece on the BBC’s site where a reader is outraged by the racial terms and images used by our predecessors in a new facsimile annual of an old Dandy annual. While the modern sensibilities might be a bit taken aback with what we’d consider the more casual racism of several decades ago it seems a bit silly to judge the work by modern sensitivities; re-reading some Alan Quatermain adventures recently I found some parts relating to the character and role of women or other races obviously quite different from what we would say today, but that’s to be expected when a reader delves into work from another era (including books which most would consider important parts of our literary heritage).
I’d rather it was left in, partly for authenticity (just look at how annoyed many were at the revisions Marvel made to recent collections of their 70s horror for example) but also because airbrushing out past attitudes does not improve today’s society, it just sweeps the problem under the carpet, which is rarely a clever approach to any problem. Next we’ll have people complaining Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is elitist and fails to celebrate how special each and every one of us is… At least DC Thomson are sticking by their book. Besides, I suspect the use of the ‘n’ word was less than the average hardcore rap track. And many of us would like to see DC Thomson releasing a lot more of the vast library of British comics material they hold in collected editions; in fact it was one of the questions I asked Beano and Dandy head honcho Euan Kerr back in British Comics Month. Let’s hope this doesn’t put them off.
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July 13th, 2007 at 10:28 am
[...] It also seems to endorse a message anyone who has studied history knows is foolish – trying to judge the past by modern standards. If we apply this reasoning to Tintin in the Congo what other, older books will someone demand is withdrawn next? Even a venerated, campaigning text like Uncle Tom’s Cabin could be seen as reinforcing stereotypical imagery of people of African descent. Maybe we should demand that the Simpsons withdraw Groundskeeper Willy and apologise for this stereotypical portrayal of Scotsmen? Maybe DC Thomson should have edited that facsimile 1930s Dandy annual from the other year which also attracted accusations of racism? Where do we draw the line if we start banning books on these grounds? Some work is always going to be offensive to someone; if we start pulling books on grounds of offensiveness we will have few books on the shelves. And in the process we will effectively airbrush out a section of history which may be distasteful to modern eyes, but nonetheless it happened. Hiding from it won’t change it. Use it positively – encourage kids to read it and use it as a positive weapon to show them how we’ve changed those attitudes and how we still have more work to do in building notions of equality. You cannot make people’s minds up for them by committee – you need to engage with them and you don’t achieve that by banning books, you achieve it by reading and discussing them. Reading and debate, folks, the greatest tools we have against ignorance. Print this Story Send to a Friend [...]
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