Tintin's Bogus Adventure

'Openly homosexual' media commentator and former British MP Matthew Parris needs to go back to the playbook and find a new schtick because the jig is up on this one:

AS Belgian comic-book icon Tintin celebrates his 80th birthday, an age-old question has resurfaced: is the boy reporter gay? One commentator says the signs are unmistakable. "Billions of blue blistering barnacles, isn't it staring us in the face?,'' wrote The Times journalist Matthew Parris under the headline "Of course Tintin's gay. Ask Snowy", ahead of today's anniversary.

Proclaiming Tintin gay is straight out of the PR handbook After The Ball, written in the late ‘80s by Harvard social scientists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, themselves homosexual:

“...paint gay men and lesbians as superior — veritable pillars of society... famous historical figures are considered especially useful to us... invariably dead as a doornail, hence in no position to deny the truth and sue for libel.”

Being a cartoon character, Tintin is in no position to answer the claims either and one doubts author Georges Remi's estate would bother these days.

Way to go, Matty, spoiling a children's comic book character.

However, there's a lovely irony in other parts of Parris' column as he ignores Madsen and Kirk's admonishments to not talk about some of the more uncomfortable truths of homosexuality:

"Tintin never talks about his parents or family, as though trying to block out the very existence of a father or mother. As psychologists will confirm, this is common among young gay men,'' said Parris.

Sounds like a psychological disorder to me.

-- Nick