Weeks 1 & 2 The Blue Lotus
Questions. Chose one or two questions to answer rather than all of them. Some questions might be combined in your answer. Remember to respond to other bloggers. Please answer in the comment section - do not create a new blog!
1) Are comics just a children's medium. What does Blue Lotus show us?
2) How does Farr (1991) justify Tintin's appeal to adults?
3) How does The Blue Lotus relate to what Said (1997) terms 'Orientalism' ?
4) Is The Blue lotus a racist text? Give your reasons.
5) Herge used the expression 'the wind and bone' to refer to his art work. What do you think he meant.
Blog post week 1 – 2: THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN – THE BLUE LOTUS
ReplyDelete3) How does The Blue Lotus relate to what Said (1997) terms 'Orientalism' ?
Hergés - THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, THE BLUE LOTUS is the fifth book in the ‘Adventures of Tintin series’. In this comic Tintin goes to Shanghai, China. This comic is a continued story of ‘Cigars of the Pharaoh’. Where Tintin pursues an international group of drug distributors through the middle East and India. It’s interesting to note that the comic was originally titled ‘in the Orient’ and later changed to ‘The Blue Lotus, (Tintin.wikia.com). ‘The orient’ is defined as “countries of Asia, especially East Asia”. Whereas, ‘Occident’ is defined as the “countries of the west, especially Europe and America” (Dictionary.com). Said (1997) explains that “orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the orient and (most of the time) the occident”. Orientalism can have both positive and negative effects. Legendary artists such as Van Gogh sought inspiration from Japan to create his beautiful works of art. On the hand, texts such as ‘The Blue Lotus’ shows the stereotypical connotations which people (both orient and occident) had about each other which Hergés tried to portray throughout the text. “The foreign lands which Tintin had travelled and their peoples conform to the pictures and clichés held in the 1920’s – 30’s” (Farr, 1991). Examples of this within the text can be seen with the European men wearing only suits and smoking cigars. Portraying them as powerful, cruel, and in charge. Another example is when Thompson and Thompson dress in disguise to go and capture Tintin; they wore stereotypical Chinese clothes with ‘pig tails’. This obviously made them stand out from the crowd; yet they still failed to realise it “Just as we came in disguise… imagine the sensation we’d have caused coming to a place like this in European clothing” (p.45). Tintin also points out the all the stereotypes the western world has about the eastern. “you see, different peoples don’t know enough about each other. Lots of Europeans still believe… that all Chinese are cunning and cruel and wear pigtails, are always inventing tortures, and eating rotten eggs and swallows’ nests…. They’re even convinced that Chinese rivers are full of unwanted babies, thrown in when they are born” (p.43).
References:
Dictionary.com. Orient/Occident. Retrieved on 26th July, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/orient?s=t.
Farr, Michael. (1991). Introduction. In Tintin: the complete companion (pp.8-9). London: John Murray.
Tintin.wikia.com. the blue lotus. Retrieved on 26th July, from http://tintin.wikia.com/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus
Said, E. (1977) Orientalism. In Ashcroft, B. Griffiths, G. & Tiffin, H. (Ed.), The Postcolonial Studies Reader (pp. 87-91). London: Routledge.
Blog Post 1 - The Blue Lotus
ReplyDelete1. Do you think comics are a children's or adult genre/media?
In my opinion, I think comics are both children’s genre/media and adult’s genre/media. The content of comics can be various and functional; it generally depends on the authors’ personal preferences. Some comics are only for an entertaining purpose, the entire context of the comics are usually quite amusing and without consequence, in order to provide the audience a mental distraction. Another kinds of comics like Tintin, is somehow with a purpose of revealing something that has been twisted and misunderstood by people. According to The Blue Lotus, Hergé was trying to sweeping away the prejudice of how “the orients” in that generation see and understand the eastern world. The messages that the author was trying to convey usually hiding deep inside the context and take time to figure out. Comics like this would generally preferable to be read by adult or sometimes teenagers, they are more difficult to comprehend and lack the flavour of humours.
2. How and why are comics becoming more accepted as an art form? Can/should they be regarded as a literary genre?
Personally speak, comics for me are the visual versions of novels, they basically separate and shorten the whole bunch of text on the book and put them onto the graphics. Also I think they somehow even work out better than the typical novels. As you may realise, more people tend to prefer reading text with visual aids as it gives more fun tastes to the text and make text more understandable, plain words seem too boring to read sometimes? So as the demand increased, no wonder why comics are becoming popular and gradually accepted. In my opinion, comics should be and also can be regarded as a literary genre because the way it exists is to inform and spread messages to the audience, same to novels and any other terms of literary genre, they should be considered as a special types of literary genre which belongs to a trendy evolution of literary.
You need to reference secondary sources, use a range of examples to back up your answer. Answer could be more in depth.
DeleteBlog Post 1: Tintin - The Blue Lotus by Herge
ReplyDelete1. Are comics just a children’s medium. What does the Blue Lotus show us?
Until recently I would have answered this question with a fairly confident ‘yes’; comics are just a children’s medium. This is before I fully discovered the genre of graphic novels, and the complexities and intricacies often included in them. Growing up in the UK, Beano was the only comic I was properly exposed to with its slapstick storylines and ridiculous characters. The comic was and still is a bit of a Brit-pop culture phenomenon within generations since the 1930s. I have always known of and have had a somewhat uninformed familiarity with Tintin without ever reading the comics themselves. On reading the Blue Lotus, I was surprised at the often great paragraphs within speech bubbles and a rather in-depth storyline. Not that children can’t or don’t read things of complexity, but many would potentially find the large amount of words a boring addition to the exciting and colourful drawings. If it didn’t include harmful racial stereotypes, the Blue Lotus would have something for every age; colourful, action packed drawings and adventure for children and a generally multifaceted storyline and visual interest for adults.
2. How does Farr (1991) justify Tintin’s appeal to adults?
Michael Farr (1991) goes into specific detail on Tintin’s appeal to a spectrum of generations in the closing paragraphs of his Introduction, however it was his initial description of Herge’s comics that seemed to clearly justify Tintin’s appeal to adults. Farr (1991) states that the topics of each Tintin comic were ‘anchored firmly in fact’, due to their topical subject matter and level of specificity (e.g. the specific motor car/gun featured). This attention to detail is something that often makes adult fiction enjoyable and fascinating but is usually limited in children’s texts. His main justification for Tintin’s appeal to adults was that it tends to transcend generations through becoming somewhat of a ‘self-generating’ phenomenon, as people who were readers of Tintin as children often become readers of Tintin as adults.
Farr, M. (1991) Introduction . In M. Farr, Tintin: the Complete Companion (pp. 8-9).
You need to reference more secondary sources. Answer should be more in depth. writing style is good, research properly and you could do better.
DeleteBlog Post 1: The Adventures of TINTIN - The Blue Lotus.
ReplyDelete1) Are comics just a children's medium. What does Blue Lotus show us?
Comic books are something that I wasn’t an avid reader of as a kid. I leaned more towards books or even film. However, I was always aware of comic books and their popularity among children. The older I got the more I realised that it wasn’t just for kids. The walking dead is one among many comics meant for a more mature audience. The content is filled with violence which is not indented for children. Now that has turned into a tv show, the content clearly shows how it was not meant for kids, yet it is still a comic.
Before reading The Blue Lotus, I thought of TinTin as a kids’ comic. It may have been the art style that made me think that or the fact that it was always in the children’s section so I had no reason to believe otherwise. Themes of superhero adventures and magical fantasies are what generally come to mind when you think ‘kids comic’. Although The Blue Lotus is mystery and adventure themed, realistic and adult ideas are spread throughout the comic. Drugs, being one of the main theme of The Blue Lotus, could be a big indicator that this may not be just a children’s comic. The title is the blue lotus which refers to an opium den. Drugs are a very mature theme. It is not only hinted at but it is one of the main concepts in the comic. At the time of its making, such ideas may have been acceptable for a younger audience to read. However, now it seems almost wrong for a child to consume stories about drugs and moreover, slight racism.
The mature themes of TinTin may be what attracts adults to this comic book. Along with that, its accuracy to historical points in China and precision of locations are something that an older audience would seem to appreciate more than children.
Comic books aren’t always just for children. Comics can appeal to a wide age group. The multiple kinds that are out there, a person of any age can associate with one. Although, some may be more age specific and some may be marginally misleading in its appearance as in TinTin.
Good point about drugs being an adult theme. You need to research and use secondary sources.
Delete1) Are comics just a children's medium. What does Blue Lotus show us?
ReplyDeleteContrary to many people I know, I have never really thought of comics as only a children’s medium despite seeing mostly children’s comics such as ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Digimon’ growing up. I wasn’t much of a comic reader, mostly because for me, only normal books were readily available, however if I saw an interesting comic I did often attempt to read it. Throughout my childhood though, many people including my parents discouraged comic reading, the same as they did for watching cartoons, labelling them as “a waste of time” or “not a real book.”
Until now, I had never read a Tintin comic, and to be honest I find it more of an adult comic than something meant for children. I can appreciate it as an adult, but I think I wouldn’t have been so interested in it as a child, as it was written by Hergé with the intention of being as realistic as possible and has political and racial themes that wouldn’t have appealed to me, especially as I preferred fantasy stories as a child. Another reason I feel Tintin is more for adults is the fact that one the main themes of ‘The Blue Lotus’ is drugs, both use and distribution, as ‘The Blue Lotus’ itself is an opium den in the comic, that Tintin goes to and pretends to use the drugs in order to spy on his adversaries. Nowadays, most people wouldn’t consider a comic depicting any kind of drug use as appropriate for children, though it may have been okay in the time it was written. Aside from the drugs, parents may not want their child reading a comic with such obvious racism and poor treatment of ‘the native’ Chinese by the colonial whites, despite it being historically accurate of the time, this is actually shown near the beginning of ‘The Blue Lotus’ when Tintin first comes to Shanghai and stops a white man beating up a Chinese man while yelling racist slurs at him.
Aside from comics like Tintin, Japanese Manga, Anime and Graphic novels are other examples of popular mediums today, of which some are created for children, but a majority are written for people of all ages, especially young adults, given the large variety available to choose from. Many of these contain graphic violence, bad language or sexual themes which are definitely not suited for children and are intended for older readers. Many comics available now also contain these themes and are definitely adults only such as ‘Zenoscope comics’ an independent comic publisher which only publishes comics with extreme, often disturbing graphic violence which make ‘The Blue Lotus’ look tame in comparison.
Nicely broken into three paragraphs. You need to research and use secondary sources.
Delete