What is the alleged connection between Hergé’s early comics and propaganda?
The Oxford Dictionary (2020) defines propaganda a “ideas or statements that may be false or present only one side of an argument that are used in order to gain support for a political leader, party, etc”. Though Herge had earlier comics such as ‘Toror’ (1926) and ‘Le Pitit Vingtieme’ (1928), propaganda within his works were not fully realized until the release of his most well-known comic series; ‘Tintin’. The first comic, which was first released in 1929, was entitled ‘Tintin In The Land Of The Soviets’. Scorer (2008) describes the comic as “an unabashed piece of capitalist propaganda satirizing Soviet Russia”. It expresses Herge’s anti-Bolshevik point of view to his readers. For example, one of the panels depicts soviet citizens attending their election while at gunpoint (Herge, 1989). It is viewed by most as a work of anti-communist propaganda and has a strong opposing view against Russia. In 1930, ‘Tintin In The Congo’ was the second of the series to be released, which also has been critically regarded as propaganda. It gives an extremely toned down version of the colonisation in the Congo, replacing the violence and death with comic panels of Tintin educating the native children on their new home country, Belgium (Mountfort, 2016). Though this series as a whole and its characters are beloved by publics to this day, it cannot be said that Tintin’s earliest comics were without right-wing undertones.
Another comic he published, roughly ten years later was ‘The Shooting Star’ (1941), in which the villain was a corrupt Jewish banker (Scorer, 2008). Stereotypes of the Jewish commonly used by Nazis and extreme right-wings were present in this comic (Frey, 2004). For example, Hergé featured a gag in which two Jews hear the prophetic news that the end of the world is near. They rub their hands together in eagerness, and one comments: “Did you hear, Isaac? The end of the world! What if it’s true?” The other responds: “Hey, hey, it vould be a gut ding, Solomon! I owe my suppliers 50,000 francs, and zis way I von’t haf to pay vem!”. This exchange implies that Jewish people are untrustworthy and greedy (Lofficier, Lofficier, 2002). This sort of work cast a negative lens on the Jewish people, and as a result, in 1954, this comic was altered, changing both the villains name and the location.
McCarthy (2006) says that Tintin’s political origins lie on the right, and that there is a good reason why Hergé and his legacy is accused of racism, stereotyping, propaganda and suspect politics. Herge has publicly stated that he was not spreading this propaganda unconsciously. The images and views he was expressing aligned with his right-wing political outlook (Frey, 2004). He had even been working as an illustrator for Léon Degrelle, the far-right leader in Belgium during the Nazi occupation of Belgium (Frey, 2004). These probably stemmed from his worries of retro-colonisation, which was common in this part of Europe at the time. To conclude, the links between Herge’s earlier comics and propaganda are obvious, however this has been mostly amended, with rewrites and reillustrations of his earlier works, and his growth of self-awareness meaning changes were not required for his later comics.
References
Frey, H. (2004). Contagious colonial diseases in Hergé’s The adventures of Tintin. Modern & Contemporary France, 12(2), 177–188. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1080/09639480410001693043
Lofficier, J, Lofficier, R (2002) The Pocket Essential Tintin. Pocket Eseentials.
McCarthy, Tom. (2006). Tintin And The Secret Of Literature. Granta.
Mountfort, P. (2016). Tintin as Spectacle: The Backstory of a Popular Franchise and Late Capital. Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 37-56.
Oxford Dictionary (n.a) Propaganda. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/propaganda?q=propaganda
Scorer, James. (2008). Imitating Incas and becoming llama – Tintin in Latin America – or the Latin Americanin Tintin? SAGE Publications.
https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/doi/pdf/10.1177/1367877908089261?
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