Tintin, gay?

And let's not even get into Batman's relationship with Robin.

This is a very funny post and I enjoyed it.

That said, if I had a nichol for every married man with children and/or an athlete or otherwise 'masculine' guy who, yes, turned out to be 'gay', I could pay off my car loan that has three years remaining. But I knew Tintin was gay when I saw him holding hands with that teletubby 'Tinky Winky'.

I thought Matthew Parris's piece was written tongue in cheek, and as such, I thought it was quite funny.

Rod, do you really think there may be homoerotic undertones to some [fictional] male-male relationships?

I’m one of the gays who don’t buy into that stuff. Can’t two guys just be really good friends? Can’t a couple of totally straight men have a deep and meaningful relationship without being called ‘gay’? My gosh, maybe they could even admit (on some level, probably while drunk – kidding) that they love one another.

The problem is that mainstream society views homosexuality as a ‘thing you do’, not a part of ‘who you are.’ The ‘thing’ is namely sex. Intimacy on any level between two men becomes sexualized in the eyes of many people. It isn’t. Being gay is first and foremost about who you have the ability to fall in love with. Two straight men may love each other very much, but they can never be ‘in love’ with each other. That’s the difference. However, this difference is not typically perceived, and so we are left with a society where any form of (dare I say) tenderness between two men is taboo.

Consider: it is socially acceptable for straight men to laugh together, insult each other, even fist-fight... but share a hug? Heavens no.

And I for one think that’s just sad.

To digress a moment: I believe that the English language needs more words to describe ‘love.’ In other languages around the world there are several words, each describing specific types of love. Example: the love between a mother and child is different from the love she feels for her spouse. Yet in English that distinction is implied to be understood, and we use the word love (‘she loves her kids’, ‘she loves her husband’) interchangeably.

However, when discussing gay relationships, the implied nature of the word becomes murky to most non-homosexuals. For some people, hearing one gay man say ‘I love you’ to another man conjures images of being intimate with a brother or father-type figure; because that may be one of the only form of male-male emotional ‘love’ they can understand. Thus they understandably react with a sense of disgust. Heck, in that context I would too!

But it having said that, it is also not fair to compare the love shared in a gay relationship to a heterosexual one. I’m not straight. Neither one of us is a woman. There is no ‘female role’ one of us is ‘playing.’ It is different, but there is no word or adequate way to describe it to people who can’t feel it or truly know it for themselves.

Well, I’ll leave off that thought for now. Thank you for provoking it. Getting back on topic...

Maybe the tide is turning for the next generation of straight guys. Rod, go to YouTube and search “gay chicken.” Maybe some straight guys are finding an outlet to physically express intimacy that is socially acceptable and can be laughed off afterwards, no stigma attached. Or maybe they've found another way to have a laugh at the gay communities expense... but I chose to beleive the former.

And don't even get started on Jerry and George Castanza.

On the other hand, a Belgian Nazi who became a SS officer during WW2, wrote a book, "Tintin mon copain" (you can find it on the web), arguing he was the model for Tintin.
When such an iconic personage is created, everybody will try to have a piece of its fame.
And so it goes!
Yves M.

I had never heard of "Tintin" before this. Not that I care now that I have....

You had me real confused there for a second. I was thinking of RIN Tin Tin.

I can't believe that Matthew Parris got paid to write that piece. Who gives a flying leap what Tintin was/is?

The lengthy comments by "NightLad" at 6:10 PM are wise. If you just entered this thread I suggest that you scroll up and look for it and read through it. The money quote for me from "NightLad's" post is this one: "Can’t two guys just be really good friends? Can’t a couple of totally straight men have a deep and meaningful relationship without being called ‘gay’?"

Re: the place of sex in human life, our culture has swung from one extreme to another: from Victorian prudishness in the 19th century to hyper-sexualization in the early 21st century.

Maybe I should have clarified my "conservative Catholic" comment. What I meant was that he was married for many years, albeit unhappily (and he did have affairs with other women). But the fact stands that there's no evidence that Hergé was gay.

Matthew Perry hasn't written for a week--his tongue is still stuck in his cheek and requires surgery.

Herge had good reason to make Tin Tin Goody Goody Two Shoes. Read the recent story in the Economist (hardly a gay bashing magazine) and you will discover that the French after World War II past legislation forbidding anything unseemly in young folk's literature and slanting the rules to prevent an invasion of American comics. Leaving out amorous subplots and giving Tin Tin a French speaking boy scout image gave him a much bigger audience than that of tiny Belgium.

Describing this as "one of Europe’s more startling laws. In 1949 France banned children’s books and comic strips from presenting cowardice in a 'favourable' light, on pain of up to a year in prison for errant publishers. It was equally forbidden to make laziness or lying seem attractive. The law created an oversight committee to watch for positive depictions of these ills, along with crime, theft, hatred, debauchery and acts 'liable to undermine morality' among the young.

"Taken literally, the law suggests that an ideal comic-book hero would resemble an overgrown boy scout, whose adventures involve pluck, fair play, restrained violence and no sex." (Economist, December 18th, 2008.) Sounds like Tin Tin, no?

We have gotten great pleasure from Tin Tin (and Asterix) and have never had to have the worries about what our kids are doing when they are watching the tube. We even have Tin Tin movies in German as a sneaky way to have them learn another language. (As parents get older they try to make up with guile what they have lost in vigor.)