In class yesterday, someone (and I feel terrible for not remembering who) brought up the notion that the treatment of law enforcement by Tintin throughout his journeys is always respectable. No matter what trouble our junior journalist finds himself him, he is always quick to trust the police or an authority figure. And through I agree with Tintin the character showing kids the "acceptable" way to interact with law enforcement, I think Herge has a different opinion on the reality of the world's police forces.
For Herge, the morality of police is not so black and white as it may appear to Tintin. He shows cops assisting Tintin as well as some harassing, misleading, mistrusting, and down-right attempting to kill the young sleuth, and yet Tintin's trust never waivers. In Tintin in America we see cops thwarted again and again by crooks and gangsters (Tintin's first interaction with police is them attempting to catch a kidnapper, only to be outwitted and have their car smashed). The sheer incompetence of the police leads one to postulate that police were well-meaning, but ultimately useless against diminishing crime. It takes a young boy with a smart wit to do that.
Later in America, once Tintin makes his way to the "wild" West, we watch a sheriff over six panels (p. 38) drink himself into a stupor rather than save the young boy. Again, he is well-meaning but essentially flawed. And I think this is Herge's point. Law enforcement, no matter their esteem or duty, are people before anything else. There is only one character that is true to a fault and often endangers himself because of it: Tintin.
Through this dichotomy of flawed police and an infallible vigilante, Herge shows ideal versus reality. Tintin is who we want police to be (kind, honest, understanding, virtuous), but this is impossible because he is removed from societal pressure. Through his constant moving from place to place, Tintin does not have the opportunity to be corrupted by a region or gang, he only ever comes in to clean things up. The police, on the other hand, must stay and deal with the socio-political consequences of their actions, virtuous or not.
Hi Collin, I agree with your point that Tintin represents the ideal police whereas the police mentioned in the book show the reality. I also agree with the point that the police are depicted as normal people who make mistakes. This view is supported on the first row of page 191 in the Blue Lotus when Thompson and Tompson apologize for their actions.
ReplyDeleteI am unsure, however, how this depiction would have an impact on children. Would they end up making generalizations that real-life police are not trust-worthy, or the other way around? What's your opinion?
I definitely agree with you that Tin Tin represents a kind of ideal and incorruptible force for good. It is fitting, then, that he is an 'icon' amongst more realistically-depicted characters. I think it's easy to see Herge's boy reporter as a precursor to the comic book superhero that we know today. Superman, like Tin Tin, is a globetrotting do-gooder without the regional ties that might corrupt local law enforcement. The law enforcement of TinTin in America is almost universally corrupt. It is no surprise that America would be the birthplace of the superhero. Tin Tin is also shown to reject the racist attitudes of certain characters in 'The Blue Lotus.' It seems as if Herge meant to use Tin Tin as a means of correcting not just the failings of law enforcement but also his personal failings as a human being.
ReplyDeleteThere were two instances of police impotence where TinTin was clearly in the wrong, yet the comic is skewed to depict the police as if they committed the wrongdoing. One example is on page 50 of tintin in America where TinTin assaults an innocent police officer with a pole (by mistake, but still...that could have killed him) and is able to walk out of the jail with his head held high for no other reason than because he is TinTin boy reporter extraordinaire. In a scene in The Blue Lotus on page 140, TinTin runs into a police officer, discharges his gun, runs away and is still able to walk out of jail right afterwards because he is "innocent." TinTin transcends the law.
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