What gaps are there in Hergé’s representation of women?
Hergé’s representations of women are not mocking, sexualized or offensive by any means, they are simply not there at all. In an article by Europe Comics, studies highlighted how women were notably pushed to the background, discarded or side-lined in favour for male dominated representation in Tintin wherein between the years 1946 and 1963, 134 women made an appearance, comparative to 998 men (“Women in Belgian comics” 2020).
Women are almost completely absent in Tintin’s world (Joseph, S., 2013) portraying most in his earlier volumes with single panel dialogues, if they had dialogue at all, wailing inconsolably fainting or presented as faces in a crowd (Mountford, P., 2020). The only two notable and recurring female characters with any agency at all consist of poorly demonstrative annoyances and “irritants” (Mountford, P., 2020). Bianca Castafiore, a domineering, jewel-obsessed opera star who drives Captain Haddock mad with her demanding self-centered nature and irritating affections. Alcazar’s wife, Peggy, was apparently inspired by a Ku Klux Klanswoman that Hergé saw on television (Marion, J., & Syrotinski, M., 2017) in which Peggy is a bullying gold-digger while any other minor female characters are domestic workers, caretakers and housewives (Mountford, P., 2020).
Hergé has a history of defending his poor representation of minorities, or his lack thereof, as being a “product of the time” (Benoît-Jeannin, M., 2001), but while in later additions he attempted to rectify the offensive caricatures of his racist stereotypes, he made no such efforts to address or correct his representations of women. Rather, Hergé continued to portray women as invisible, subservient, domestic caretakers when they were visible, and when they weren’t, as desexed silhouettes, faceless in a crowd. Hergé himself denied being a misogynist, saying that “for me, women have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s, which is the realm of male friendship”. Something reiterated in a conversation between Hergé and Roger Leloup following the success of Yoko Tsuno, an unlikely female protagonist and Japanese adventurer in The Curious Trio, to which Hergé said “Women don’t belong in comics!” (“Women in Belgian comics” 2020).
Something which Hergé has reiterated throughout his life whenever the representation of women in his comics is addressed by either colleagues, friends or interviewers.
Curtly, the “gaps” in Hergé’s representation of women, is that there is none.
References
Benoît-Jeannin, M., 2001. Tintin and the World of Hergé. Little Brown & Co.
Joseph, Sarah, A Human Rights Reading of Tintin (August 6, 2013).
Marion, J., & Syrotinski, M. (2017). Terrifying, Wondrous Tintin. Yale French Studies.
Paul Mountfort (2020): ‘Tintin, gender and desire’, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829
Women in Belgian comics P1: Invisibility to objectification. (2020). Europe Comics. http://www.europecomics.com/women-belgian-comics-invisibility-objectification-pt1/
Pop Genres 2020 