Question 4: What issues do his albums raise in terms of representation of ‘race’, and particularly ethnic and cultural stereotyping?
Hergé’s representation of ‘race’, and particularly ethnic and cultural stereotyping have often been controversial and got him into hot water with accusations of racism and bigotry amongst other criticisms.
His provocative racial, ethnic and cultural depictions began very early on in his career. For example, in 1934, in the Nazi edition of The Shooting Star there is a stereotypically depicted Jewish character called Blumenstein. The character is now known as Bohlwinkel but little else has been changed around the crude stereotypes he is portrayed as conforming to (Frey, 2004).
Another example given to us by Frey (2004), is how Hergé represents indigenous people and culture in some of his albums. For example, in ‘Tintin and the Temple of the Sun’, despite the Europeans explorers being historically responsible for stealing artefacts and other items, exploiting the indigenous populations, and countless other atrocities, Hergé focuses on portraying the Indigenous Incas as responsible for infecting the Europeans with a sickness. The Europeans save themselves from the sickness by using science which shows them as superior and as more advanced.
Moreover, the only deaths that occur in that album are of the Incas not of any of the European characters. These scenes are to show that the Incas got what they deserved for trying to hurt the Europeans and the Europeans are painted as victims and heroes for surviving against the odds. This is a typical example of Europeans’ views of colonialism at the time and the perceived minimal importance of Indigenous people’s lives compared to their own (Frey, 2004).
These xenophobic themes are reflected in many of his other albums as well. A famous example of both colonialism and the racist representation of native people is Hergé’s ‘Tintin in the Congo’. He drew his native African characters as caricatured ‘juju lipped Negroes’ which was a popular European depiction at the time. Along with his racist characterisation of native Africans Hergé projected his colonialist views into the album as well, presenting native Africans as untrustworthy, lazy, and childlike to state a few (Mountfort, 2012).
There are two defining scenes in this album that also shows how ignorant Hergé was about the Belgian occupation of the Congo. The first scene is one in which Tintin mediates a fight between two native Africans over a straw hat. He ‘resolves’ this issue by splitting the hat in half in which the Congolese men reply ‘White master very fair!’ This comment is designed not just to show the natives as objects of stupidity and ridicule but also to confirm that colonialism was “necessary” to bring civilisation, education and justice to the Congo. It also reinforces the view that the native Africans themselves desired this state of affairs.
The second scene is one in which Tintin is conducting a lesson and begins the class, starting ‘‘Today I’m going to talk to you about your country: Belgium!’ In addition to being racist such comments came from a place of instilled ignorance about the history and background of colonialism. In fact it is now recognised that Belgium was not only extremely paternalistic, exploitative and cruel in its approach to the indigenous population during its colonial reign of the Congo but also did very little to advance the plight of the people through education or development. Hergé himself very rarely travelled and much of his research was conducted in the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium. This stands to show the power that Belgium and other colonising countries had over censoring their own people (Mountfort, 2012).
Hergé ethnic and cultural stereotyping does not stop there, in his album ‘The Broken Ear’ he describes the Arumbayas as people whose ‘Long, black, oily hair framed their coffee-coloured faces’ (Dunnett, 2000, p. 592). This description links the Arumbayas to their country’s natural resources namely oil and coffee. The native’s appearance contrasts to that of Europeans who are presented as dapper, respectably dressed and well removed from associations with the natural environment. The storyline of the album also involves the search to find a missing explorer who they presume was killed by the Arumbayas. Eventually the explorer is found safe and is shown to be educating the tribe by engaging them in typically European activities such as golf, a further representation of the “positive” effects of colonisation (Dunnett, 2000).
References
Dunnett, O. (2009). Identity and geopolitics in Herge’s adventures of Tintin. Social & Cultural Geography, 10(5), 583–598. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360902974449
Frey, H. (2004). Contagious colonial diseases in Hergé’s the adventures of Tintin. Modern & Contemporary France, 12(2), 177–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639480410001693043
Mountfort, P. (2012). ‘Yellow skin, black hair … Careful, Tintin’: Hergé and orientalism. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.1.1.33_1
Pop Genres 2020 