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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/

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

Herge’s representation of Women within his works display significant gaps that need to be addressed, in order to understand his stance on Women. The absence of Women within many of his works are painfully noticeable. In the rare occasion that Women are featured, their portrayal is unfavourable, and they are provided with little to no character development.

Female characters within Herge’s works are merely background ornaments, passerbys’ amongst the crowds. Women are often seen carrying out domestic duties such as preparing foods and managing their children. They are wiped off any rights to dialogue or contributions to the storylines. Herge makes Women seem unsubstantial, diminishing and failing to acknowledge their necessity within the setting. Mountfort’s supports the claim by stating “In many of Hergé’s albums there is an almost total absence of female characters, and the only women we do see are background characters who do not speak (Mountfort, 2020).” He further states ‘If Women were present within the story, the portrait was hardly flattering’. (Mountford,2020). This can be seen in Tintin in the Congo, in which a couple of female characters are surprisingly given dialogue yet limiting it to simple hostile phrases. For example, poor Mrs. Wang’ first appears in Lotus weeping over the fate of her mad son and is given three lines of dialogue ([1946] 1983, 29) and a woman is seen upset over her husband being sick within Tintin in the Congo (Mountford, 2012). Herge’s portrayal of Women is misleading, often domesticating them to stereotypical roles with no room for development. Women are portrayed as extensions of their husbands with no agency of their own (Mountfort, 2020).

Although Herge does not directly bash Women, he associates them with inferiority by portraying them as the weaker class whose emotional needs are accommodated by the superior class, Men. This shows a dangerous gap within his representation of Women, as he fails to acknowledge the rise of second wave feminism along with the many social movements  during the time of publishing his works. Herge, ignorantly so,  failed to understand the struggle and plight for  freedom of Women; failing to change his notion of thinking by including more female characters  or by representing Women in an equivalent manner to Males. Accordingly, Herge chose matters that he thought were worthy of publishing while completely disregarding the second wave feminist movement (1960’s-1980’s)- his orthodox views on Women being the home maker while Men were portrayed as the saviour, suggests that his primary ideologies were both mysogynistic and chavinistic.

Another gap in Herge’s representation of Women is his need to hypersexualise and display overprotectiveness over Women, within his works. Herge explains his need to eradicate Women from his works through claiming that  ‘[w]omen have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s. I like women far too much to caricature them. And, besides, pretty or not, young or not, women are rarely comic characters’ (Mountfort, 2020, p. 2). Herge’s justification of alienating Women from his works derives from his love towards Women, making it seem as though he is intentionally trying to keep them away from the limelight, in order to savor their innocence from comedic adventures. While Herge may have positive interests, he discloses benevolent sexism rooting from mysogynistic values, which essentially causes more harm than good to the female sex. Herge perpetuates stereotypes that once again reinforce the idea that Women are inferior to Men, drawing a bold line of distinction between the two by shunning one gender, and raising the status of the latter through including them within his works. 

 It is blatantly obvious that Herge’s representations of Women were prejudiced, he constantly reinforced the statement that Women have no place in the world of Tintin by subjecting them to sexist stereotypes or by completely wiping off their mere existence.

Mountfort, P. (2020). Tintin, gender and desire. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1080/21504857.2020.1729829

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

Herge’s albums illustrate a number of racist  stereotypes towards certain ethnic and cultural groups. His ideologies present cultural stereotyping that are apparent in his works, Tintin in the Congo, and The Blue Lotus.  Unseemly, his negative portrayal of targeted ethnicities such as Congolese and Japanese peoples raises concerns to readers due to the apparent support of colonial beliefs. 

Herges’s portrayal of Colognese people is observed through an imperial vision, often  using white saviorism as the focal lens. We see this through Tintins addressing of African students by teaching them about Belgium. He says “ Today I’m going to talk to you about your country: Belgium!’ (Hergé, 1931). Belgium’s occupation and colonisation of the Congo saw the Congolese population halve from twenty million to ten million – a genocide carried out through torturing and executing civilians (Mountfort, 2012). Tintin insists that Belgium is their own country despite knowing the colonial history; denying the Colognese people their basic right of distinguishing their land as free-standing at any point in time. Herge almost fetishises white saviorism throughout his works,  and uses it to contribute to the ideology of normalising colonisation, ignorantly disregarding the many consequences it followed including the homicide of Congolese peoples. He contributes to promote racism by incorporating the paternalist mindsets that colonists embrace towards the people of the land they have colonised. Mountford suggests that even Hergé himself justified his portrayal of the Congolese as being through the eyes of the paternalism that existed in Belgium, meaning they viewed their colonisation as an act of saviorism rather than invasion (Farr, 2001, cited in Mountfort, 2012). 

Visual codes such as describing Africans with ogling eyes and juju lips within Tintin in the Congo evidences for  racial discrimination. “..Tintin in the Congo, as evidenced in various frames that depict Africans as virtual slaves with, again, exaggerated ‘ju-ju’ lips – representations which persisted unreconstructed into the colour version of 1955 (Hergé 1971a: 13)” The descriptions are xenophobic and alienates the Africans from the white, immediately sentencing them to ethnic stereotypes.  His representation of ‘native’ Africans is of the grossly caricatured ‘juju-lipped Negro’ variety that mars early Disney creations, along with many other early/mid-century cultural artifacts. Bundled with these visual codes is the whole raft of colonialist prejudices: Africans as, variously; credulous, untrustworthy, bloodthirsty, servile, lazy and childlike (Mountford, 2012). This ideology is supported by an example in which the  use of pidjin within Tintin in the Congo is used; Tintin cuts a hat into two that a pair of Africans were arguing over, he proceeds to state ‘White master very fair! Him give half-hat top each one.’ (1930; Hergé 1991: 47). There is an implication that the use of pidjin makes the Africans sound uncivilised and dull-witted which is a common stereotype associated with all those who do not speak according to ‘white standards’ This incident makes Afriacans look foolish and implies that there is a great need for the white to save them. That Africans could not possibly resolve their issues without the interference of a European to provide a solution. The pidgin, which is modified in the later colour editions, merely adds insult to injury. (Mountford, 2012)

Blue Lotus is another one of Herge’s works that summon yet another culture to prejudice; the Japanese to cultural stereotypes.  Despite Herge’s collaboration and friendship with a Chinese student, his understanding and empathetic nature towards Chinese after learning about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, failed to disassociate a culture with a minority. “If we can assume that racism can be defined by the identification or disengagement from a group of peoples, then we can begin to see in The Blue Lotus the deasianization of the Chinese versus the hypera-sianization of the Japanese”. (Lasar-Robinson n.d: 6)The Japanese are portrayed under a stereotypical light, proclaiming them as the villains- the use of iconography exhibits the Japanese with ‘slit’ eyes as well as other exaggerated features that are lessened for the Chinese to represent them as more ‘neutral’ catering to the Europeans, appearing as less ‘alien’ in comparison to the Japanese. (Mountfor ,2012).  This racial typing anticipates intensifying anti-Japanese graphiation as the war progressed, typified by Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates (1934−42) strip (see Mullaney 2007).  Herge skillfully used imagery to allow readers to side with the Chinese by attempting to merge their identity with that of the Europeans in order to seem valued while on the other hand, alienating the Japanese through dehumanising and exaggerating their physical features so much so, that they become ‘extraterrestrial’; a common tactic used by Herge in order to strip of ones identity, and subdue them to cultural and ethnic stereotyping as seen in ‘Tintin in the Congo’.

Hergé, 1935. Tintin: The Blue Lotus.

Mountfort, P. (2012). ‘Yellow skin, black hair… Careful, Tintin’: Hergé and Orientalism. Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 1(1), 30-48.

Mountfort, P. (2016). Tintin as Spectacle: The Backstory of a Popular Franchise and Late Capital.

Farr, M. (2001). Tintin: The Complete Companion. John Murray. 

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