According to Mountfort (2012) ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ album by Hergé “has been accused of bundling right wing, reactionary and racist viewpoints into its codes of visual representation and storylines.” This is due to the representation of ‘race’, ethnic and cultural stereotyping within Tintin which were raise by readers and critics. For example, within Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929) Hergé representation of the Chinese were of pigtailed torturers, as characters have a face that are similar to a pig.
Later Hergé was introduced to a Chinese art student, Chang Chong-chen, they became friends and did a collaboration. Hergé were trying to make up for his mistake with the Tintin’s 5th velums, ‘The Blue Lotus’ (1935), with the story’s setting in China around the mid 1930s. In this volume, Tintin saved and befriend a Chinese boy Change and they talk about the issues of race. However, the issue of stereotyping can still be seen within his work, with the way he represented the japanese character, Mutsuhito with big teeth and round glasses.
According to Mountfort (2012) ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ album by Hergé “has been accused of bundling right wing, reactionary and racist viewpoints into its codes of visual representation and storylines.” This is due to the representation of ‘race’, ethnic and cultural stereotyping within Tintin which were raise by readers and critics. For example, within Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929) Hergé representation of the Chinese were of pigtailed torturers, as characters have a face that are similar to a pig.
Later Hergé was introduced to a Chinese art student, Chang Chong-chen, they became friends and did a collaboration. Hergé were trying to make up for his mistake with the Tintin’s 5th velums, ‘The Blue Lotus’ (1935), with the story’s setting in China around the mid 1930s. In this volume, Tintin saved and befriend a Chinese boy Change and they talk about the issues of race. However, the issue of stereotyping can still be seen within his work, with the way he represented the japanese character, Mutsuhito with big teeth and round glasses.
Mountfort (2012) argues “that the pervasiveness of the series, its institutionalization in francophone culture, and its currency as a global franchise makes the question one of particular relevance at a time…” As this volume is still his “first serious attempt to depict the Other in less than pejorative terms.” It also showed Hergé courage relating to political at the time and that he is capable of changing his point of views.
References:
Mountfort, P. (2012). ‘Yellow skin, black hair … Careful, Tintin’: Hergé and Orientalism. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 33-49. doi: 10.1386/ajpc.1.1.33_1
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