Last class, we learned that Tintin had a dark past. Profanity was edited out because children's first introduction to that word shouldn't be in a comic, especially in the dumbed down language of the American version where social critique must be as subtle as possible. But if we do replace the word "fellers" in the fourth panel on page 36, we get cartoon polemic of white America's frenzy for hanging black citizens without cause. The whole panel is coated in absurdity. A bank robber just escaped, and instead of chasing promptly after him, they hang a few unrelated black men... and then pursue the thief, yet still are perplexed how the robber made his escape. They "hang a few fellers" right away, not "pursue the thief right away". In my opinion, Herge is highlighting the existing racism in American culture, not inventing it. Black America was lynched without reason, and Herge is bringing this to light with a brief sentence that is easy to overlook or misinterpret. He makes this same type of commentary, as we discussed in class, on the treatment of Indians, and how the tone and $$ offered by the oilmen dip when they find the landowners to be Indian. It's difficult to detect these critiques because there is no character with a moral conscious to comment explicitly on the racism. Tintin never stands up for the Indians. Despite the constant action, Tintin is a very passive character rarely making decisions. It's the villains that drive the story, Tintin is just a lucky passenger along for the ride.
Even though Herge exhibits the mistreatment of Blacks and Native Americans, he ridicules them to further degree. The commentary is a subtle comment thrown in a panel, while the racism, especially in regard to the Indians, is quite salient and lasts for pages. The Indians are bumbling fools, manipulated by the white man, Bobby Smiles, with incredible ease. The depiction of the Black sailors in Cigars of the Pharaoh were subhuman, and the one dialogue bubble is spoken in fragmented sentences connoting base intelligence. Those panels and ideas are racist. Herge critiques the treatment of these peoples, while making fun of them in another panel. It leaves the reader, or at least myself, uneasy and left to wonder what he intended to accomplish.
I think that instead of saying that Hergé was racist, as the reader we should take a step back and view this in the historical background of when this was made: It was when Hergé was working in a conservative Catholic newspaper, "Le Vingtième Siècle", that he made the comics. With his limited exposure to the foreign cultures, cinema as his insource, and the habit of exaggeration as a comic artist, I think that it is more than understandable why Hergé presented such a biased perspective.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree, and I wrote this post prior to reading The Blue Lotus, where it's easier to discern effort on Herge's part to paint a less one sided picture. The Western characters were portrayed as bullies, and ignorant. There were also a couple of quips directed toward non-minority groups in TinTin in America (the old PETA lady on the train and the drunk small town sheriff) that I should have mentioned in my first post. It's always tricky to justify instances of racism in the past, at least by today's standards, because they didn't know any better. You're right that this is a cartoon, and all the characters are caricatured to be unflattering. Maybe it's a critique against myself for reading this in Lower School and not taking offense to the offensive art/text in question.
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