Rarotonga and her complicated legacy

Apart from Rubi, which spawned its own bigger franchise, there is no Mexican adult comic as captivating as Rarotonga, even though it’s rather stereotypical by both Mexican and most developed countries’ standards.

Otherwise, keep in mind that despite its inherent objectification and misogyny (racism is also pretty bad in the comic, albeit not as obvious as the moderately toned down sexism), it remains the better written (1970s onward) and more captivating reboot of a 1950s Mexican adult comic named Taboo, which itself couldn’t hold up much in as early as the sixties, rather tellingly due to being more blatant in terms of sexism than even the original Astro Boy manga created in 1952. 

As suggested by looking at her somewhat ambiguous features in such a comic (itself somewhat fair for its day), Rarotonga surely is one of Mexican comics’ first mixed race baddies to gain consistent international popularity (at least in much of Latin America). Although she’s confusingly called a mulatto even in otherwise decent Mexican sources, in order to be distinguished from one of her real life inspirations (who’s a Mexican born American of mixed Euro-Chinese-Native Mexican ancestry), it’s safer to assume that she could have been a Tarara, which itself partly refers to a mixed Kiwi person with both Maori (definitely Cook Islands Maori in her case) and Croatian ancestry. 

 

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