Week Three Questions

How and why have Tintin’s gender and sexuality been questioned?

There has been much debate over the course of Tintin’s adventures, about his gender and sexuality by many different readers and critics alike. In Mountfort’s (2020) article on topics of gender and desire in relation to Tintin, many critics have proposed several considerations on Tintin’s supposed gender and sexuality, including psychoanalytic criticisms to point out oedipal subtexts from different Tintin stories.

Objectively, Tintin’s sexuality has remained ambiguous, but has been criticized to exist somewhere outside of the heteronormative contexts. For example, one critic Mountfort (2020) cites, compares Tintin to Joan of Arc, as he exhibits feminine-like qualities of tenderness, being silent, as well as observant, and especially after meeting Haddock which, results in Tintin taking on a more passive role. These inferences consider whether Tintin is in a closeted relationship with Haddock, proposing ideas for Tintin’s sexuality. Furthermore, there is little to no female roles in Tintin’s stories, and women are visually scene as part of the background as bystanders, or part of a crowd, which leaves little romantic interests for Tintin in the heteronormative perspective.

Another point that is considered among Tintin’s ambiguous identity is that his stories are primarily fictional adventures for children, with Tintin supposedly being between 14 to 15 years of age. Although, his design was based on an actual journalist, Albert Londres, who was an adult rather than an adolescent. Overall, as Tintin is a fictional cartoon character, he does not have an actual biological age, which leaves many arguments about his gender and sexuality still up for debate.

In terms of sexuality, an example of Tintin’s homoerotic subtext can be found in Tintin’s The Crab with the Golden Claws, where Tintin and Haddock are both suffering from dehydration in the Sahara. Tintin has a hallucination of being stuck in a bottle of Burgundy with his head sticking out, signifying a cork. Then, Haddock bends over him with a raised corkscrew and the allotted speech bubble reads, “I’ll uncork it…”. Critics read this as Haddock symbolically penetrating and screwing Tintin in this scene, questioning the interchangeable gender roles, and whether Tintin could symbolically be bi- or pansexual. These criticisms along with many others show that Tintin is a more feminized character in comparison to Haddock. Mountfort (2020) also suggests that the term ‘male’ seems incidental to Tintin’s identity, as envisioning him as either a boy or a girl in his canon would make little difference to his depiction in the adventures.

Ultimately, Tintin’s gender and sexuality are quite enigmatic as he can be read as a boy or a girl, or as bi- or pansexual. Most of these criticisms come from the observations made on Tintin’s lack of ‘normative desires.’ His feminine qualities, and interesting relationship with Haddock also raise questions to Tintin’s persona.

References

Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin, gender and desire. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Doi: 10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829