Opinion: How can Memín Pinguín get his groove back?
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Memín Pinguín, the controversial funnybook character who has caused some U.S.-Mexico friction in the past (most recently in 2005, when President Bush protested Mexico’s issuing of a stamp in his honor), is in the news again. Wal-Mart announced earlier this week that it would stop selling Memín Pinguín comics. In an announcement, the retail giant, which had been offering Memín books at stores in Texas, Florida and California, stepped carefully to avoid angering either fans or detractors.
‘We understand that Memin is a popular figure in Mexico,’ said Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez. ‘However, given the sensitivities to the negative image Memin can convey to some we felt that it was best to no longer carry the item in our stores.’
More coverage in our own Hoy.
Most of what I know about these kinds of images I learned from Spike Lee’s not-perfect-but-not-to-be-missed 2000 joint ‘Bamboozled.’ It’s a tall order to try and argue that Memín, whose simian features and hysterical demeanor seem excessive even by genre standards, is actually some kind of progressive figure. Nevertheless, some do make that argument. Adalisa Z says the new controversy reveals the huge cultural differences between the U.S. and Mexico, and during the stamp controversy, historian Enrique Krauze wrote in the WashPost that umbrage at the character was misdirected:
To Americans, the figure, with his exaggerated ‘African’ features, appears to be a copy of racist American cartoons. To Mexicans, he is a thoroughly likable character, rich in sparkling wisecracks, and is felt to represent not any sense of racial discrimination but rather the egalitarian possibility that all groups can live together in peace. During the 1970s and ‘80s, his historietas sold over a million and a half copies because they touched an authentic chord of sympathy and tenderness among poorer people, who identified with Memin Pinguin.
I generally think dealing in racist stereotypes while arguing that you’re attacking racism is like having your cake and eating it too. I mean, in the arm-wrestle between authorial intent and reader response, reader response wins every time: How much difference does it really make whether a particular character is tagged as amiable or villainous within the context of the story? But again, some do make that argument. The Wiki page on Memín details the comic’s progressive pedigree.
For the same reason, I’m never sure of arguments from historical context: i.e., you have to remember that this stuff was commonplace in the 1940s. But again, the counterargument: Occasional Superheroine tracks the divergent careers of Memín and Will Eisner’s Ebony White, who got a subsequent makeover designed to make him more palatable to modern audiences.
One argument from context that I do find plausible is about the context of our own age. It’s possible the history of minstrelsy is becoming so remote that stuff like this will no longer be radioactive simply because nobody knows to be offended by it. I certainly have to reread ‘Sweeney Among the Nightingales’ to remind myself that respectable people thought my own ancestors looked like monkeys back in the day. (And no, I’m not arguing that the Irish had a particulary hard time in America. Just sayin’ is all.)
In other words, what do you think:
Photo courtesy of Armando Mota/EPA.