Good Karma
In Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and The Blue Lotus, there is a persistent theme of exploiting common stereotypes from Hergés generation that also sadly continue to exist in our own. As discussed in class, various volumes of Tintin have been reworked for modern publications that omit racist terms and ideas that are inexcusable in today's world (and should have always been).
Interestingly, however, while in Tintin in America Hergé blatantly degrades both American and Native American cultures, the latter a more "sensitive" one, in The Blue Lotus Hergé constantly reinforces a positive message to his audience that combats unjust stereotypes and prejudice behavior. When discussing the first two Tintin stories in class, it was noted that Hergé portrays his stories with only the knowledge he had acquired from Charlie Chaplin movies as well as British and American authors; likely providing the reasoning for his culturally challenging depictions in the first two Bande Dessinées. We saw corrupt American mobsters, incapable American government and police forces, as well as a Native American tribe abused by corporate America who behave as stereotypical of that culture as possible.
While in The Blue Lotus we do see Hergé project prejudiced Western stereotypes, such as when Mr. Mitsuhirato, the Japanese villain of the story says, "A true Japanese knows everything, honourable sir" (pg. 138) while addressing Tintin, there is a consistent theme of Tintin reprimanding these injustices as well as being rewarded for doing so. For example, on page 137 Tintin stops Mr. Gibbons, a prejudice Western man, from beating a local Chinese man for accidentally colliding into Gibbons. Tintin's good deed comes back to him, as the man he saved from the beating's brother later saves Tintin from capture as a thank you for his earlier deed (pg. 157). Furthermore, after a drowning boy Tintin rescues questions Tintin's reasonings for doing so under the assumption that all "white devils were wicked", Tintin lectures the boy about the irrationality of the prejudices that exist and ends up teaming up with the boy for the remainder of his mission.
It is evident that there is a change in Hergé's mindset from the first two stories to the last: the former being foolishly prejudice, while the latter includes stereotypes that are shunned, however. Without any knowledge of the historical context for which Hergé composed The Blue Lotus, it is difficult to understand why this change occurred. Was he unwillingly influenced by his publisher, the media, his viewership? It's a mystery for Tintin to solve.
I think that Hergé himself brought about this change in tone between his stories. The change in his use of racial stereotype between Tintin in America to The Blue Lotus is definitely a dramatic one. While still using some stereotypes from the time, Hergé is able to limit their use. However, in Tintin's conversation with the boy in the river, we can catch a glimpse of Hergé's own conscience. Tintin and the boy's conversation is almost an apology from Hergé. As they are admitting their own racist thoughts, we can see that Hergé is as well. I think that this scene in particular gives us a good idea behind the authors intentions. He seems aware of the mindset he had from the first few stories!
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of The Blue Lotus when compared to the other stories we read was Hergé's use of foreign language. In The Blue Lotus, we found that he used real mandarin even in the speech bubbles! He put forth effort to get the language right! However, in Cigars of the Pharaohs, Hergé depicts several characters yelling in what seems to be Arabic. However, not knowing Arabic myself, this text does not seem to be legitimate, but rather more cartoon-y. We see Hergé transition into valuing the cultures that he is depicting enough to put their actual language in, rather than scribbling jibberish on the page.