3. How would you characterise Hergé’s politics, and how did they apparently change over time?
Georges Remi, known by his pen name Hergé, shifts and changes in political views can be evidenced throughout the volumes of the Adventures of Tintin. While working for the conservative Catholic newspaper Le Vingtiéme Siécle he was mentored by one of the newspapers editors, Abbé Wallez, a Belgian priest and journalist. Wallez possessed a strict and firmly held ultraconservative ideology and was a great admirer of Mussolini (P, Assouline., 1996.). It is believed that Abbé Wallez was crucial in Hergé’s decision in the first three destinations of Tintin, Soviet Russia, Belgian Congo and the United States (P, Assouline., 1996.). As such, Hergé’s earlier ideologies and political views and beliefs were highly influenced by his mentor and demonstrated through Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo and Tintin in America, which were designed as conservative and anti-socialist propaganda with a sympathetic and endorsed perspective on colonial sentiment (Frey, H., 2004.). Later, with Tintin in America however, it was notably his first chance to explore scenarios of his choice which pressed ideologies of anti-capitalism and anti-consumerism while maintaining a clear ultraconservative ideology (Peeters, B., 2002.).
Hergé maintains these political ideologies throughout until the German occupation of Belgian in which his views on neutralism (Peeters, B., 2002.) becomes evidenced not only through his work with the Adventures of Tintin but also through several letters addressed to his long-time friend Charles Lesne and his subsequent arrest and trial following the end of the Second World War. Hergé notes his support of Leopold III’s surrender to the German military (Peeters, B., 2002.) and later is one of the few cartoonists and journalists to continue publishing their work while Brussels was under Nazi occupation (Benoît-Jeannin, M., 2001.). He worked for Le Soir, a newspaper that was under strict surveillance of the Propaganda Abteilung, where his works depicted the American portrayals as being severely underhanded while the portrayal of Blumenstein was an extreme caricature of a Jewish man that drew on popular stereotypes of Anti-Semitism (Peeters, B., 2002.).
While Hergé allowed himself an open mind in certain cultural and racial representations, as most notably seen with The Blue Lotus, his political views remain for the most part unchanged by his life experiences. That is to say, his political views remain as a conservative, neutralist with strong anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist and anti-communist ideals and beliefs.
References
Assouline, P. (1996) Hergé, Paris: Editions Plon.
Benoît Peeters (2002) A never ending trial: Hergé and the Second World War, Rethinking History, 6:3, 261-271, DOI: 10.1080/13642520210164490
Benoît-Jeannin, M. (2001) Le Mythe Hergé, Villeurbane: Editions Golias.
Hugo Frey (2004) Contagious colonial diseases in Hergé’s The adventures of Tintin , Modern & Contemporary France, 12:2, 177-188, DOI: 10.1080/09639480410001693043
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