What gaps are there in Hergé’s representations of women?
Throughout The Adventures of Tintin, there persist numerous issues with Hergé’s representation of women and the roles that they occupy within each respective story. Hergé often relegates female characters to either extremely simplistic or inactive roles, with little to no character depth or development. Mountfort (2020) elaborates that throughout the Tintin series, women are almost solely confined to either background, domestic or quotidian roles. Evidence of which has been present within the Tintin series since the very first volume, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1930).
In this adventure, there is a distinct absence of meaningful female characters. The only females present are demoted to merely background props in crowds with no lines of dialogue. This nonexistence of female characters continues in later volumes of Tintin. Throughout both Explorers on the Moon (1954) and The Shooting Star (1942), females make exceptionally few appearances and contribute very little to each respective adventure.
In addition to the few appearances female characters do make in the Tintin series, they are also very limited in the roles which they play. Most of the female characters are assigned stereotypical domestic or maternalistic roles, evident in the numerous housewife and nursing characters spread throughout the series. Furthermore, in later volumes of Tintin, while more impactful female characters are introduced, such as Peggy Alcazar in Tintin and the Picaros (1975), they typically tend to serve as either comedic relief or a nuisance to the main characters.
This poor representation of women in Tintin suggests to the reader that such adventures are not suitable for women. Which is a dangerous message to send, considering the global success and influence of the Tintin series.
Hergé has attempted to justify his poor representation of women by stating that ‘women have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s. I like women far too much to caricature them. And, besides, pretty or not, young or not, women are rarely comic characters’ (Sadoul, 1989, p. 93, as cited in Mountfort, 2020). Despite being aware of his poor representation of women within the Tintin series, Hergé does very little to remedy these issues in later volumes.
References.
Hergé (1930). Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
Hergé (1942). The Shooting Star.
Hergé (1954). Explorers on the Moon.
Hergé (1975). Tintin and the Picaros.
Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin, gender and desire. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829
Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin and gender part 1 [PowerPoint Slides]. Blackboard. https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/
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