Memín Pinguín
| July 16th, 2008There’s been a fair amount of blog discussion of this extremely popular Mexican comic book — which started in the 1940s, but is kept going today through reprints — because Wal-Mart recently began stocking it, and then pulled it off their shelves almost immediately.
Why did Wal-Mart pull the comic? Well, take a look at a typical Memin illustration (the little boy is the title character):
Both now, and when there was a similar Memin-related controversy in 2005, Memin’s defenders claimed that the image only seemed offensive to Americans, but never to Mexicans. For example, Adalisa writes:
Most of the posts in México were about how hystericals americans were at some stuff, not delving in the fact that there’s a huge cultural difference between the States and México, and that most of the problem American’s have with Memin is due to those cultural differences.
First point in fact: There’s not that much racism in México against PoC. We have our own problems against the indigenous habitants, but not against PoC, and that makes us have troubles to relate to the situation north our border. What we have is a huge problem of class discrimination. Upper class looks down on Middle Class, who looks down on the poor. You could have green skin and purple hair but as long as you don’t stray away from your own economical class, no one would bat an eye at you. [...]
The Wikipedia entry on Memin touches it a bit, but it doesn’t quite goes in depth enough to explain why Memin is so popular here, or why no one in their right minds see him as a racist caricature.
Adan makes a similar argument:
So, while Memin Pinguin may seem racist to Americans steeped in racism (though not necessarily racist themselves), this simply is not the case in Mexico. It’s not viewed that way by any segment of the population.
But it’s simply not true that no Mexicans see Memin as racist. When the Mexican government released commemorative Memin stamps in 2005, hispanicnews.com (quoted on A Spirited Life) wrote:
The stamps have also drawn fire from Mexico’s tiny black community. The Asociacion Mexico Negro, which represents some 50,000 blacks living on the Pacific coast, said in a letter to [Mexican President Vicente] Fox that they were stereotypical and racist.
Another 2005 news account, found on Freedom Rider, quoted a black Mexican activist:
“One would hope the Mexican government would be a little more careful and avoid continually opening wounds,” said Sergio Penalosa, an activist in Mexico’s small black community on the southern Pacific coast.
“But we’ve learned to expect anything from this government, just anything,” Penalosa said.
So no, it’s not only a matter of knee-jerk Americans projecting racism onto a Mexican comic that no Mexican would ever find offensive.
* * *
Anti-Racist Themes In Memin Pinguin
That said, Memin isn’t one-notish, and it’s not simply a KKK tract. I haven’t read the comics — they’re not available in English, as far as I know — but I’ve read several summaries of Memin plotlines, and it’s clear that Memin and his mother are positive characters. Here’s how Adalisa describes one plotline:
The second one, and probably the most offensive to Americans was when, for some reason I can’t remember, the school football team wins some tournament and is selected to go to play against an American team in Texas. The whole gang is on the team, and so they go. This cover, that I found thanks to Supermexicanos, shows pretty much the summary of that particular storyline when Memin faces for the first time in his young life institutional racism. While he had met some nasty people like the aforementioned scout leader, he had never been denied service in any place, or treated like if he was somewhat inferior until he had gone to the States. In the story, he and Carlos go to have a milkshake, and when the man refuses to serve Memin….
I’ve seen that storyline described by a few people who have read it, and all of them agree that the story itself is anti-racist. And that’s one of a few anti-racist Memin storylines. So why do I still think there’s a problem?
Well, here’s the cover image for that story, showing Memin with his apparently white friend Carlos:
I can’t read Spanish — but I can read cartooning. No matter how anti-racist the storyline is, the design of Memin, which is not intended ironically, screams a contrary message. It’s saying that Memin is stupider, animalistic, dependent, and less human than Carlos. It’s saying that black and white are two separate species, and the black species is inferior.
I think it’s good that this and other Memin storylines had anti-racist themes — but that doesn’t magically erase the racist themes carried by the artwork. And although only a small fraction of Memin stories had anti-racist themes, 100% of Memin stories had racist, anti-black artwork.
(I want to acknowlege that Adalisa does recognize the problems with how Memin is drawn, and is starting a fan project to redesign Memin’s appearance.)
* * *
Memin Pinguin: U.S. Racism, Exported
Quoting again from the article reprinted on A Spirited Life:
Lost in the storm of American outrage is the strong probability that Memin Pinguin was, in his own way, born in the U.S.A.
He is the visual twin of “Ebony White,” a black comic character who was the taxi-driving sidekick in cartoonist Will Eisner’s enormously successful “Spirit” strip, which ran from 1940 to 1952. It is very likely that Cabrera was familiar with Eisner’s “Ebony White” and modeled Memin Pinguin after him, visually. The two are almost identical, facially. [...]
With its immense global reach in the arts and entertainment industry in the 1930s and 1940s, America did more to spread racial stereotypes than any country on earth, though Britain ran a close second.
The resemblance of Memin to Ebony White (pictured to the right) is pretty impressive. Eisner eventually wrote Ebony out of The Spirit, thankfully. (Full disclosure: I took a class from Eisner at SVA.)1
Whether or not Memin’s character design was directly influenced by Eisner, I’m fairly sure that this racist approach to drawing blacks originated in the United States (and did so decades before Eisner created Ebony). Modern cartoonists don’t draw Black characters that way anymore, of course, but you can still see the old style in prestige reprints of comics from the 1950s and earlier, such as reprints of Frank King’s Gasoline Alley strips.
More blogging about Memin Pinguin: Occasional Superheroine, Racialicious, Ann at “Beautiful, Also…”, and The Comics Reporter.
- Ever notice how some people use “full disclosures” as a covert way of name-dropping? (back)
July 16th, 2008 at 7:41 am
hm, i wonder if the “nope, no racism here” meme is also a norteamericano export. or if it’s something that is liable to appear in any country which benefited from an imported african slave labor force. there’s an interesting article about the gaps in many people’s memory regarding slavery in mexico up at the smithsonian web site.
i certainly don’t feel comfortable pointing the finger at someone else’s country regarding racism in their society, when we’re in such denial about our own, but it is certainly a valuable mirror to look in - if an uncomfortable one.
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July 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I think it’s a problem you’ll see with any older cartoon materials involving people of colour - whether they’re portrayed in a racist way or not. I always remember Asterix comics being a great example - Asterix characters are all over-the-top cartoons with big noses, expressive droopy beards, pin-shaped heads, and cartoony eyes, so the black characters don’t stand out the way Amp’s example did - I mean, to my eyes having read some older stuff, Memin didn’t look bad until I saw the severe, realistic way that white folks were drawn. Anyways, in Asterix, the only African character is a pirate, a nameless bit-part who second guesses the hapless captain. The only problem with him is that, in the older comics, he spoke broken English. But it’s hard to get away from the way the character is drawn - a black man with big red lips that encompass half his face. But either way, once they got rid of his pidgin speech, the character didn’t seem racist if you got away from the kneejerk reaction at the dated drawing style.
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July 16th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I’m not seeing the particular resemblance between Memin and Ebony White. Of all the racist caricatures of blacks in that basic style, I don’t see why you’d specifically pinpoint Ebony as the source of Memin’s looks.
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July 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I’m not certain that Ebony is the source.
But it certainly is a widespread belief, presumably because at the time that Memin was created Ebony was the best-known child character with that general design. (One web page I read, which I can’t find again now, claimed that The Spirit was published in Mexico in the same magazine that eventually published the original Memin comics.)
Wikipedia claims that the long-running artist of Memin (not the original artist, but the primary artist for most of Memin’s run) specifically cites Ebony as a source for Memin’s design, for whatever that’s worth.
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July 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
So, the racist depictions of Memin Pinguin is taken off the shelves at Walmart, while the racist depictions of Ebony are sold for $50 a pop in the Complete Spirit hardcovers collector’s editions (Twenty-some and counting! Own them all for just $1000!).
Because people who can afford the Eisner hardcovers are comics afficianadoes who can understand and contextualize the cultural influences and historical racism involved in Ebony’s character, and can understand that while the depiction is racist, they will not have their own personal prejudices reinforced by reading the book.
While Memin Pinguin readers are those poor shmoes who shop at Walmarts in Mexico.
Your arguments about how and to what degree Memin Penguin is racist is likely accurate. But that doesn’t get you to the bottom line of whether or not you think they should be stocked at Wal-Mart, whether my Borders should stop ordering the Spirit for the bookshelves, and what — if anything — the difference is.
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July 16th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
How are Mexico’s indigenous people not PoC? *scratches head*
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July 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Are you saying this is what you believe? In which case, I’m surprised.
Or are you saying this is what I believe? In which case, you’re wrong.
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July 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Not to undermine your general point about racist caricatures, much less challenge it but I think you may be making some unjustified assumptions vis a vis the cover image from the Texas/seg storyline. At first glance my impression was of a black character clinging to a white character presumably for protection. I took a second look though and began to question my first impression. Is Memin seeking a savior in Carlos or is he trying to restrain Carlos?
This may strike you as a silly idea. I really don’t know, since I have no idea how the relationship between M and C is portrayed in the comics. Neither do I have story’s action to test these contrasting perceptions against. What I do know from personal experience is that it’s not at all unusual for white folks, with only the best of intentions, to make a bad situation worse by confronting racism in a manner that only increases the danger to those they are attempting to aid. I know of more than a few occasions where black folks have had to restrain white folks in a state of exalted self righteousness before a situation got out of hand.
Again, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in that picture. Perhaps if I were a fan or had read the story it’d be clear. However, It’s possible that assuming M is emploring “Massah” to save him might have more to do with what we expect to see than the intent. I know you don’t read Spanish but does the story show M running to C for rescue?
Eisner was pretty forthright retrospectively in interviews about the racist aspects of Ebony. He only allowed that in the fourties Ebony was what passed for a “positive” black character in the white controlled public discourse. Of course, Scarlett’s “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind was likewise considered a “positive” character by white folks. Didn’t Eisner eventually “replace” Ebony with a black police Detective?
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July 16th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
The article linked doesn’t say that all “Memin” issues were pulled from Wal-Mart’s shelves; rather, that just the “Memin para Presidente” was pulled.
Which kind of adds a new dimension or two to the controversy.
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July 16th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
AFAIK, the use of the term “PoC” is pretty much limited to the US. I’ve heard it said here in the UK that many of the people who are in minority groups actually find it a bit offensive, but I don’t know if that’s actually true. However, I’ve never heard anyone from the Black or Asian communities use it to refer to themselves.
So, if people in other countries aren’t familiar with the term “PoC” and all that it implies, maybe it’s possible that to a Mexican it sounds like a US way of saying “Black”? That would be my guess.
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July 16th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Anyways, in Asterix, the only African character is a pirate, a nameless bit-part who second guesses the hapless captain. The only problem with him is that, in the older comics, he spoke broken English.
Actually, he’s speaking broken French. I never found that character particularly wince-worthy* for the time it was written, possibly because it’s clear that he’s smarter than the captain. Anyway, the Asterix cartoons are, shall we say, not politically correct all around. There’s serious implicit sexism as well (though some do pass the Bechdel test, oddly enough) and the national stereotypes are extreme.
*That is to say, yes, I initially winced at it but then after grading it on the 1950s France curve decided it could have been worse.
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July 16th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
While I don’t deny that some or all afromexicans might dislike the comic, When I read this:
“One would hope the Mexican government would be a little more careful and avoid continually opening wounds,” said Sergio Penalosa, an activist in Mexico’s small black community on the southern Pacific coast.
“But we’ve learned to expect anything from this government, just anything,” Penalosa said.
If I recall correctly, this was said regarding the stupid comments said by Vicente Fox back then about the stamp and about other subjects that offended the african american community. The wounds mentioned would be beetween USA and Mexico, not beetween mexicans and afromexicans.
Just to add something: I bet Adalisa indeed took the term PoC as a US way of meaning “black”. Racism might permeate Mexico (althought in different ways than it does the USA, as I’ve commented elsewhere) but most mexicans would have to be real crazy to think of themselves as “white”.
BTW I’m from Mexico
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July 17th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I think it’s a bit too close to “coloured” for a lot of people, which was almost exclusively applied to Black colonials and Black British people. I imagine that some British Asians and Orientals might possibly find it insulting on the grounds of its being erasure of their distinct identities.
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July 17th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Lost in the storm of American outrage is the strong probability that Memin Pinguin was, in his own way, born in the U.S.A.
This strikes me as a dodge, and a denigration of Memin’s creators and illustrators. They were artists, fully capable of identifying and selecting their influences. Emulating Ebony White, if in fact they did so, was their conscious decision. Moreover, American society has largely made images like Ebony White impermissible in polite culture, but Memin’s caretakers have chosen not to follow *that* influence. If they’re picking and choosing which influences to emulate and which not to, that’s an exercise of their own volition.
And they can’t have it both ways. If they say, “Memin’s appearance isn’t our doing; that’s a creation of American culture,” then it’s contradictory to brush off modern American critics by saying, “Memin is our creation; you’re not entitled to influence his looks.”
Finally, Adalisa is not black. Is she really in an authoritative position to say “There’s not that much racism in México against PoC”?
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July 17th, 2008 at 10:49 am
“Finally, Adalisa is not black. Is she really in an authoritative position to say “There’s not that much racism in México against PoC”?”
I’m not black either, but I’ll say this: There IS racism, to start with, the existence of black people in Mexico is largely ignored ’cause black population represents a very small percentage of people in Mexico, this changes the racial dynamics in mexico in enormous ways from those in USA.
The afromexican movement isn’t trying to separate afromexicans from other mexicans (”mexican” is not a race after all, but a culture that may as well vary from zone to zone, you can perfectly be black and mexican), they’re instead trying to make every mexican aknowledge their african heritage, whether it’s genetic or cultural. And this heritage, while obscured, is present. I find it funny that you mention “Adalisa is not black”, even many afromexicans don’t look obviously black, the truth is a very large portion of mexicans whether they know it or not are part black.
So while I support the idea that afromexicans should be the ones giving their opinion on this I just wanted to comment that in Mexico it’s not a “black/not black” thing as it may happen beetween afroamerican and mexican communities in USA.
When Adalisa says that there’s not much racism towarsds black people it’s actually more like the biggest racism is actually directed towards other people, mostly the people still living within their own indigenous culture and darker skinned mexicans but because they’re thought of as being more “indigenous”, not because theyr’e thought of as blacks, in fact in many states a black man might be as well thought of as being a foreigner.
Some more info:
http://racismoenmexico.blogspot.com/search/label/la%20tercera%20raiz
One thing that’s never being mentioned on this Memin matter is that depictions of afromexicans in mexican comics and media are very rare, black people in mexican media are mostly depicted as foreigners, mostly from Cuba, Africa and USA which make them carry their own stereotypes too, for example, a black character from USA will carry some of the “gringo” stereotype.
And these depictions of other black populations are rare compared with those where mexican media stereotypes the very mexican, While Memin might have been the only black character from that era of comics we had lots of depictions of the “indio”, the “chilango”, the “pachuco” and many others characters that weren’t nearly as heroic as Memín.
I suppose now I’ve made my country look racist as hell but as I’ve said, the dynamic are different, I’d say that in a person to person to basis race matters less while racism might show in more blatant ways (like in humor and media) while in USA media tries to make everything politically correct while people might be more biased on a person to person basis. Just different ways.
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July 17th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Whether or not Memin’s character design was directly influenced by Eisner, I’m fairly sure that this racist approach to drawing blacks originated in the United States
Why do you think this, since you haven’t actually presented a shred of evidence to support it? Have you read Tintin In The Congo, for instance, which was published in 1930, and pre-dates both Memin and Eisner’s Spirit? The red-lipped, wide-eyed caricatures used to depict all the black people in that comic are extremely similar to Memin’s look, and that’s hardly the only Euro-comic in which such depictions have appeared.
I guess all I’m saying is that European racism of the period was just as virulent and widespread, and it’s probably not terribly productive to point fingers at the US as the source of a racist meme without doing a little research to back up your accusations.
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July 17th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Tintin certainly doesn’t predate Gasoline Alley (which had racist depictions of blacks, along the same lines) — and by the time Gasoline Alley came along, the traditional racist style of depicting black characters had already been well established in American cartooning.
It’s possible that the US picked it up from Europe, rather than vice versa. I don’t have access to European comics from the 1900s and 1910s, so I can’t say for sure.
My general impression is that US comics were much more influential on Euro cartooning than vice versa, for the first half of the century, and so I’d expect the line of influence to be from the US to European, rather than vice versa. But regarding this particular question, you’re right to point out that I don’t know for sure.
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July 18th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Are you saying this is what you believe? In which case, I’m surprised.
Or are you saying this is what I believe? In which case, you’re wrong.
The second one. The clear implication of your post is that you support the removal of the comic book because it is racist. Can I then assume that you also oppose the Borders stocking “The Spirit” Archives?
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July 18th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Rich, here’s what you wrote:
You’re not just saying that my position is that the book should be removed; you implied that I hold a lot of nasty, classist, and borderline racist opinions about the traits of well-off comics collectors versus “poor shmoes who shop at Walmarts in Mexico.” (By the way, the issue is WalMarts in the USA, not WalMarts in Mexico.)
And then, when I called you on it, you retreated to a much milder position, rather than either withdrawing or defending what you had implied about me.
* * *
That aside, let me address the question of the Spirit reprints versus the Memin reprints, which is actually a pretty interesting comparison.
Unfortunately, I’ve never read either one. (I’ve read a bunch of Spirit stories over the years, of course, but I’ve never read DC’s reprint collections). But when has any blogger been stopped from bloviating just because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about? :-p
So let me assume, for the sake of argument, that the Memin collection is a typical comics anthology (I own stacks of those), with minimal or no introductory material, a design that says “this is lighthearted escapist fun,” and basically nothing but the comics presented in a straightforward manner. And let me further assume, for the sake of argument, that the Spirit collection is similar to the Wally and Skeezix books, with a design that implies “this is a serious cultural artifact,” and introductory essays about the material and the historic context in which it was published.
In that case, no, I don’t think Memin reprints should be on the shelves of WalMart or of B&N in the USA; and I’ve have no objection to the Spirit being sold at either location.
And if we instead assume Memin is published in the scholarly edition, while old racist Spirit comics featuring Ebony White are published without any attempt to provide context, presenting them as innocent, light-hearted fun — then I’d say that I’m fine with Memin being stocked in either place, but I don’t think The Spirit should be carried.
Because design and presentation matters — they communicate messages, just as the comics themselves do. It’s artisitically and culturally important that both The Spirit and Memin be kept in print. But it’s also important that they be presented in a way that makes it clear that those racist images, while once normal, are no longer acceptable parts of fun, popular culture.
This is for two reasons. First of all, for Black readers, I think it’s important that the material be done in a way that treats objections to racism as legitimate and important, instead of treating racism as an unremarkable, not-even-worth noting element. (As an analogy, I have no objection to antisemitic Nazi cartoons being collected and sold in bookstores and walmarts, but I don’t want them sold in a popular, fun edition, without context.)
Second of all, for non-Black readers, it’s important not to normalize racism, or to send the message that expressions of racism like this are acceptable, light-hearted fun. This is not because these comics will turn otherwise non-racist readers into racists, but because all people get an idea of what is or is not acceptable behavior by what’s accepted in the culture around them. Treating the racism of these comics as ordinary, unremarkable and acceptable will encourage those who are already racist to feel comfortable expressing their racism, and discourage others from objecting to expressions of racism.
If my assumptions about how each collection is designed and presented are correct, then the Memin collection is more objectionable than the Spirit collections. But contrary to your insinuations, my objections have nothing to do with what the price tag says, where the books are stocked, or differences in abilities between walmart and B&N readers.
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August 2nd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Ric Reyes, I could be wrong, but if I recall correctly,Penalosa seemed to be saying that the Mexican gov’t has offended both the African American and Afromexican community by its dubious shenanigans on these issues.
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