Blog Feed

What gaps are there in Hergé’s representations of women?

In the story of the adventure of Tintin, women have always been disadvantaged. The image of women portrayed by Herge is basically neglected or rarely appears, even if they appeared, they are only referred as second-class characters as clumsy, foolish and suppressed by men. Just ike racial discriminations by Herge with intense meaning of stereotype.

Herge utilized the way that men are superior to women. As according to Mountfort (2020),’ Women have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s’ shows the neglect of women, and the ability of women is worse than men, even if women are given some of the most important roles but merely to help men with chores as a secondary unit to men in order to reveal that men are superior to women. Nevertheless, the way Herge narrated women in his book has never drawn much criticisms, because, in the traditional era men supremacy was very common in every field of society at that time, this can be said as attributed by the patriarchal system at the time. As according to (Santos, 2019), patriarchy refers to the division of power based on gender, emphasizing the power operation mode of advocating masculinity and despising femininity, which means that women are always been devalued object, and compliance to men is the only option for women.

Many feminists advocate challenging patriarchy, they believe that patriarchy is the oppression of women and the main factor leading to gender inequality. However, as womens’ employment and education levels increase with times, the conditions and values of women have much improved, but the influence of the traditional patriarchal structure on many levels such as social habits and systems is still huge (Santos, 2019). At least, film and television work with sex discrimination rarely appear on the market. And the adventure of Tintin film directed by Steven Spielberg also used a rational way to eliminate stereotyped images of women, at least without any discrimination or harm (FEM, 2012).

Mountfort, P. (2020). ‘Tintin, gender and desire’. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829

Santos, R. (2019). Challenging patriarchy: gender equality and humanitarian principles. Reliefweb. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/challenging-patriarchy-gender-equality-and-humanitarian-principles

 FEM. (2012). The Adventures of Tintin,” Gender and the Power of Nostalgia. Femmagazine. https://femmagazine.com/the-adventures-of-tintin-gender-and-the-power-of-nostalgia/

What issues do his albums raise in terms of representation of ‘race’, and particularly ethnic and cultural stereotyping?

The stereotype is a fixed term of the impression, it is a kind of fixed impression instilled in the minds of people to derive a solid view towards particular people and things. The scope of the stereotype usually including race, gender, culture, country and politic. In society today, these opinions or views mainly come from the multimedia transmission, including news, film and television and entertainment works, which involve an ironic impression of others. For example, Asians know martial arts, French and Italians are very lively and romantic, Black Africans are very athletic, and women are the worst drivers (Quinn & Neil, 2007, P.2-3). Whether it is a positive or negative stereotype, it is always disgust people. 

The adventure of Tintin’s comics created by a Belgian cartoonist Hergé, which involves many controversial racial ironies. From the perspective of dialogues and narratives of Tintin, Herge utilized various stereotypes to depict other races to highlight his own racial superiority. For example, in “Tintin in the Congo” refects the colonial attitudes over African ethnic groups, in which Black Africans are portrayed as lazy, slaves and unintelligent like childish people who speak in pidgin French (Mountfort, 2020). Tintin even refers to Belgium as the fatherland of African, meaning European people are superior over Black African (Mountfort, 2020).

In the Blue Lotus where the plot set in China, there are still many discrimination or contempt meanings towards the Chinese nation, which characterized the view of the world towards the Chinese, like how Herge narrated in Congo. For example, the Chinese were depicted as pigtailed torturers, also implies the Chinese government as brutal (Mountfort, 2011, P.30-35), just as most of the Western media criticizing the government of China today, as “commie” as a “tyranny regime” and without fairness judgement of good side of the Chinese government(Wu, 2010, P.1 & 5). In the story, there are also abusive dialogues towards Chinese people as dirty little yellow Chinese. When Herge describing the invasion of the Japanese in China, Herge did not consider views and feelings of the Chinese ethnic group (Mountfort, 2011, P.38-42). Besides, the adventure of Tintin also involves racial discriminations on Muslims, Indigenous peoples of the Americas and people of the Soviet Union. It despises the patriotism of the Soviet Union people is because of brainwashed by propaganda (Ha, 2015), which indirectly implies that the patriotism of Westerners is because of cleverness. Herge uses stereotypes throughout “Tintin”, and negatively described different races.

As for the reason why Herge had a discriminatory description, it can be said that the main reason was due to the environment in which he lived in Europe at the time, so the information he received was all positive news about the Western or negative news about other countries. As according to Mountfort (2020), Herge was subjected to the prejudices of the bourgeois society and under the purely paternalistic indoctrination during 1930, so he narrated those other non-Western ethnic groups based on the standards Herge received or heard. Furthermore, Herge was within in a European environment at the time, so he did not have a broader international outlook regarding the cultures and situations of other countries. As according to (Ha, 2015), Herge was only 22 years old who had never left Europe when he started drawing “Tintin” comic book, besides, it was a period of prosperity for Western civilization and modernization.

Quinn, K. A., & NEIL, C. (2007). Stereotyping and Impression Formation: How Categorical Thinking Shapes Person. The Sage handbook of social psychology: concise student edition, 68. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292932601_Stereotyping_and_impression_formation_How_categorical_thinking_shapes_person_perception

Mountfort, P. (2020). ENGL602 Popular Genres: Tintin and Blue Lotus[PowerPoint slides]. Blackboard.  https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-5273121-dt-content-rid-12501818_4/xid-12501818_4

Mountfort, P. (2011). ‘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

Wu, J. (2010). An Empirical Study of Stereotyped Images of China in American Media. Journal of Language Teaching & Research, 1(6). Quingdao University. http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol01/06/26.pdf

Ha, T, T. (2015). Is Tintin racist? Uproar in Winnipeg opens new chapter in old argument. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/is-tintin-racist-uproar-in-winnipeg-opens-new-chapter-in-old-argument/article23552666/

Week: Cosplay part 2

What are some of the problematics around cosphotography in terms various (potentially unwelcome) gazes?

Unwelcome gaze in cosplay mainly comes from the crowd of photograph shootings, and most of these crowds are known as male gaze, and these male gazes will be specifically towards on female cosplayers and making female cosplayers feel distressed. Several factors can be discussed for this type of problematic gaze.

First of all, there are a large number of females participating in the cosplay community. The main reason is that females tend to prefer to express themselves on the platform stage. As according to (Leng, 2014, P. 97-99), it is the nature of women to dress up beautifully, and they prefer to show their own characteristics. As a result, cosplay platform has become a performing stage for females to express their beauty and self-confidence. Just as Mountfort (2018, P.48-53) said, cosplay has become the yearning performance of many females as a culture of “Do It Yourself”, that is to say by playing their favourite fictional characters to benefit the audience or spectators, and then through the responsive feedbacks of audiences to satisfy their desire for beauty. However, this phenomenon could attract many unwelcome gazes from male spectators inevitably.

Second, high population of male audiences. If women are performers, then men are the admirers or enjoyers who are here to appreciate the elegance of female actors, Just like the 5th element of cosplay described by Lamerich, the male audiences are also part of cosplay process in guaranteeing the so-called authenticity” (Mountfort, 2018 P. 58), by taking photos and requiring particular poses of cosplayer, as long as not to breach the limit of the personal boundary, cosplayers are willing to accept or cooperate. However, some photograph audiences might overexcited and likely to request excessive requirements. For example, too much demand for sexual demands(poses) will also cause distress to female cosplayers. Furthermore, the main reason for the high population of male audiences in cosplay exhibition show is that males tend to focus on their favourite hobbies; such as appreciating or enjoying anime, video games, collecting items, etc., so they are particularly sensitive and even excited about females cosplayers to play their favourite visual female characters, this is also one of the phenomena of so-called otaku culture like in Japan (Ikeguchi, 2018, P.251-253).

Thirdly, the scope of female cosplay, specifically on female cosplayers in which if the female character that female cosplayer play is too sexy, such as the character like “Chun-Li” in Street Fight or “Mai Shiranui” in King of Fighter, it is easily to attract a lot of unnecessary or unwanted attentions including sexual harassment and stalker (Leng, 2014, P. 107). However, if the characters they played are categories like ugly, funny, horror, or a female playing a male role, there will be no harassment of being physically assaulted, because usually male is stimulated by the female due to the way of dressing.

Finally, the gaze of laymen or an outsider of cosplay community is another unwelcome gaze, these people are also one of the audiences, but their purpose is not to appreciate the efforts of cosplayers, instead, to offset their performances by some kind of abnormal behaviours. For example, some audiences will use sharpness eyes to make performances decline or to make cosplayers scared and nervous. Another is the unwelcome gaze is much more like discriminative gaze, where these outsider audiences will laugh and joke cosplayers by photo-taking their imperfect or flaw of the cosplayers. For example, these outsider audiences are likely to upload the imperfections of cosplayers, to ridicule in a stereotypical way including their looks, body shape, and even ethnic race which is equivalent to a personal assault that declines their confidence and dedication (Mountfort, 2018, P. 62-65).

Leng, R. H. Y. (2014). Gender, sexuality, and cosplay: A case study of male-to-female crossplay. The Phoenix Papers. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13481274/Gender-Sexuality-and-Cosplay-by-Rachel-Leng1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Mountfort, P. (2018). Cosphotography and Fan Capital. In P. Mountfort, Peirson-Smitth, Anne, & A. Gaczy, Planet Cosplay (pp. 45-74). Bristol: Intellect Books.

Ikeguchi, B.T. (2018). The Otaku Culture and Its Cultural Ramifications. Tsukuba Gakuin University, Tsukuba City, Japan. http://www.davidpublisher.org/Public/uploads/Contribute/5c3d54466acfc.pdf

Week 5:

What genre or genres is Princess Mononoke? How does it relate to its ‘prequel,’ Nausicaā ?

Princess Mononoke is a fictional genre or a subgenre of fiction which related to the adventure fantasy and natural ecological enlightenment. “Princess Mononoke” is always referred to as a prequel to “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind”, so here are three perspectives including; historical settings, genre setting and the compensation of the Author to rationalize the prequel statement.

On the historical setting, “Princess Mononoke” is set in the background of the Muromachi period in Japan around the year from 1392 to 1572. It is an era for the flourishing of art and literature such as Noh theatre, Zen garden and tea ceremony, and prosperity of commercial, agricultural and architectural (Mounfort, 2020). The author Hayao Miyazaki utilized visual effects to depict the features of the Muromachi era such as the Shinto Shrine and other Japanese-style buildings to represent the symbol of the establishment of Japanese culture and relics (Cavallaro, 2006). While the setting Nausicaa is set in the postmodern or near-future collapsed world, because of the Apocalyptic war, civilization declined, created the vast toxic jungle, and giant mutant insects that can be seen everywhere (Miyazaki & Takahata, 1984). The two have one thing in common which is the militarism, in both stories, there is this kind of military group, behind the group there is always a warlord leader with arrogant ambitious like Lady Eboshi, Kushana and Kurotowa, they will trample innocent lives without hesitation as well as environmental destruction for the sake for the power and interests (Miyazaki & Takahata, 1984). As according to Mountfort (2020), most of Miyazaki’s films portray the dangers of militarism, problems include nationalism and the spectre of the arms race, and meaningless implicit criticism of the war.

In terms of genre setting, both “Princess Mononoke” and “Nausicaa” are eco-fable, as both stories are adventures for the purpose to prevent humans from destroying the natural ecology. The only difference is that “Princess Mononoke” has inserted many myths, spirits and gods into the story. For example, other than the protagonist “San” has psychic abilities to communicate with animals and gods, animals, the animal characters who pose with god’s spirit like Kodama (the souls of the forest), Nago (boar-God) and Okkoto (Old boar-God) represent the anger towards the destruction of nature by humans, and further expanded the “fantasy” element of “Princess Mononoke” and created essentially a personal myth (Cavallaro, 2006). The most prominent is that Hayao Miyazaki utilised the Shishigami character (forest spirit and Night Walker) as the nature itself to convey the message of nature, and implies that the development and destruction of greed will eventually lead to the destruction of mankind. Nausicaa, on the other hand, is a pure fantasy type anime without mythological elements, the author only used the role of Nausicca as the mediator for between mankind and nature through communication with animal and ecology, just like the character Nausicaa from Homer’s Greek epic the ‘Odyssey’, and with the combination of Japanese mythology featuring a girl who could be able to interact with animals and eco-environment (Mountfort, 2020).

The compensation of the author. As mentioned above, although “Princess Mononoke” implies that the development and destruction of nature will eventually lead to the destruction of mankind, I think that after “Princess Mononoke”, mankind still caused disasters to nature for the sake of prosperity which henced the collapsed world of Nausicaa. As according to the Miyazaki himself, that he did not intend to solve the global problems from “Princess Mononoke”, and claimed even the war between the forest gods and mankind did not end successfully or even the hatred and massacre are continuing, that still cannot stop humans from over-enjoying or excessive-using resources from nature as there are still many places to survive(Cavallaro, 2020). Furthermore, Miyazaki did not satisfied with “Nausicaa” as he feels very sloppy about the setting of Nausicaa, many aspects including the setting of the world, have not been explained enough of why it constructed on this way (Vavallaro, 2020). Therefore, “Princess Mononoke” was created as a supplement for the lack of settings of Nausicaa. In other words, “Princess Mononoke” explains and paves the setting of Nausicaa’s world.

Mountfort, P. (2020). ENGL602 Popular Genres: Anime part two[PowerPoint slides]. Blackboard.  https://blackboard.aut.ac.nz/bbcswebdav/pid-5326017-dt-content-rid-12629965_4/xid-12629965_4

Miyazaki, H. (Director). & Takahata, I. (Producer). (1984). Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. [Film; special ed. on DVD]. Toei Company.

Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. In The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki (pp.5-13). London: McFarland & Company.