On March 10, 2021 comes the comic strip "Niala", published by Glénat. While this book has not yet been released, it is already causing a stir on social networks due to sexist and racist comments, visible from the summary on the cover.
It all starts with a pitch spotted by Internet users. The story of Niala, the heroine who gives her name to the new comic book by screenwriter Jean-Christophe Deveney and designer Christian Rossi. We will follow there, the cover and the summary tell us, a young black woman. "Alter ego" from Tarzan, Niala lives in the jungle "and benefits everyone, especially Westerners who, in the midst of the colonial era, risked their lives and ventured into this land so far removed from their habits, customs and homes". The summary of the comic, which will be released by Glénat editions on March 10, 2021, continues: "All these colonizers, whether men and women of God, adventurers or adventurers … thanks to Niala, they can forget themselves. With a naturalness that succeeds in disconcerting them, they realize the range of possibilities offered by distractions. of the body when the mind escapes its habits and its prejudices… Above all tribute to the uninhibited adventure comics of the 1950s, Niala achieves the miracle of shaking them. " Enough to bristle more than one …
A black woman sexualized and fetishized
If this synopsis does not pass, it is because of a series of racist clichés and a problematic treatment of the colonial era, because it is light and totally out of step with its violent reality. A user notes on Twitter: "There is nothing that goes in this synopsis. Between a racialized, animalized and sexualized character and these poor 'colonizers' who risk their lives, we walk on the head. Is the colonial question so little deconstructed in France ?! ”. Another protests:
These hints of colonialism and racism are not found only in the summary, but in the entire comic, which the aufeminin editors read. Several stories follow one another. Good sisters first come across Niala masturbating in the middle of the jungle. Thanks to the young woman, they will discover their own sexuality. Then, as the stories unfold, we contemplate Niala, object of all desires, sexually initiating the settlers who explore (and appropriate) the forest. The character of Nialia, dreaded forest spirit at the start of the book, is indeed reduced to a purely sexual mission, where Tarzan, her so-called "alter ego", fights his enemies bravely and educates himself (but he is a white man). We can only join this twitta which writes: "Niala is a sack of meat. A vagina. An object. There you go. Just the 'disoriented' settler outlet."
On several occasions, the heroine herself is delighted to educate, to act as first sexual experiences and to be of service to the oppressive colonists. A way of trivializing, of making colonization "sympathetic". The same goes with pedocriminality: on two occasions, the comics show sex between Nialia and a teenager, which totally trivializes this act by presenting it as playful and exciting for everyone (including, the reader). How to justify such a choice of publication?
A parody, really?
On Twitter, Glénat editions responded to the criticisms of Internet users: "We have heard your fears about the Niala comic which comes out on March 10. We want to shed some light on you: Niala is an erotic and transgressive story, that's for sure. Nevertheless: This book does not seek to fetishize or belittle its On the contrary, it is the colonizers, the evangelizers and their so-called 'civilized' society who are ridiculed. This is a parody of colonialist comics from the 1950s, which takes up the clichés. are, precisely, voluntarily put in the comics to be dismantled and ridiculed. The summary which was communicated about this book was intended second degree, but, let us face the obvious … It was undoubtedly clumsy and left to hear that the comic book was the bearer of very different ideas about its subject and the opinions of the authors. Our teams are correcting it. "
If, indeed, the comic makes a mockery of the puritanical ideology of a certain era, that answer is not enough, as booktube Anna and Book notes on Instagram. In story, she says: "In the summary, we talk about 'tribute.' I think that parody and homage are not synonyms… " Same story with a twitta who writes: "Colonization is described as an adventure. The people impacted by it deserve nothing better, I imagine. Negroes are just hapless extras of the colonial epic."
Tribe, totem animals, ritual, constant nudity … If some punchlines try their hand at pseudo-feminist and ecological impulses, Niala's world serves above all as a caricatural representation of Africa: "The fact that she is a black woman, raised by bonobos, is too full", expresses, once again, Anna and Book on her Instagram account, which recalls the racist stereotype of comparing black people to monkeys. On social networks, despite the publisher's denials, a petition was launched by the Instagram account saaam.smt. She calls purely and simply for the suspension of the publication of Niala, a work worthy of a bygone era.