Was Tintin gay?

What causes controversy? Well I was surprised to find out that Matthew Parris’ article Of course Tintin’s gay. Ask Snowy in The Times has caused a bit of a stir. Perry begins his article

A callow, androgynous blonde-quiffed youth in funny trousers and a scarf moving into the country mansion of his best friend, a middle-aged sailor? A sweet-faced lad devoted to a fluffy white toy terrier, whose other closest pals are an inseparable couple of detectives in bowler hats, and whose only serious female friend is an opera diva…

. . . And you’re telling me Tintin isn’t gay?

The wonderful part is that this has actually upset some people! A spokesperson for the Studio Herge is quoted in The Sun: “Just because there is an absence of women does not mean that Tintin was gay. “When the comic strip was created, women rarely featured in any stories of that time in the 40s and 50s. “Tintin is not at all gay – he was very macho in fact. He has many friends who are boys but they are not boyfriends.”

In the comments section of the Times article there are lots of people who seem genuinely upset over the thought of this sexual orientation in a cartoon character. The real response should be: Who cares! but I must admit I did enjoy reading the annoyed responses to the article. It’s amazing what people have the energy to get worked up about. Tintin is fiction, daubs of ink, enjoyable reading no matter what his sexuality.

That's just sick

Via Neatorama came a small report about the artist Wim Delvoye who has done lots of cool stuff. The towards the end of the article was this:

Wim is a vegetarian, but he has a pig/art farm outside of Beijing in China. He’s not thinking of bacon, however – Wim has other plans for his swine: he tattoos them! (He said that the pigs have better, longer lives than those raised for food).

I realise that this may make statements about the consumer society and the way in which we treat animals but I still really dislike the fact that the man tattoos animals. This, to me, is another example of an artist using animals to create “shock value” in order to move the jaded art scene into a reaction. It still does not make it art not does it make it right. And what the hell was the monoumentaly stupid comment that the pigs were happy and that he was a vegetarian about?

That an animal is more happy than another animal (how is this measured?) does not make abusing it a legitimate act. The fact that the artist refuses to eat meat does not legitimize his torment of animals. Just sick. As it happens it also may be pointless from a novelty point of view since he is not the first artist to tattoo pigs.

Why should work like this be dignified with the name art – isn’t it just animal abuse on a more premedited and cruel scale?