Week 2 - Hergé and his friend Chang

It is no secret that the large bulk of Hergé's early Tintin comic strips were full of propoganda, political satire and racial stereotypes. The prejudices he portrayed surrounding race, particularly with regards to the Congolese people in "Tintin in the Congo" and his portrayal of the Chinese in "The Land of the Soviets"/"Tintin in America" for example, appear to be issues of great interest to academics today.

According to Cendrowicz (2010), in Hergé's 1931 comic "Tintin in the Congo", the native Congolese people are portrayed as "childish imbeciles" who have not evolved in the same way as their Belgian colonisers. Hergé himself has expressed great regret for his portrayal of the Congolese people in this way, stating "I was fed on the prejudices of the bourgeois society in which I moved… It was 1930. I only knew things about these countries that people said at the time: 'Africans were great big children… Thank goodness for them that we were there!' Etc. And I portrayed these Africans according to such criteria, in the purely paternalistic spirit which existed then in Belgium." (Far, 2001). Thompson (1991) sides with Hergé, and explains that while the characters in "Tintin in the Congo" may appear as little more than clichés and stereotypes, it was not meant to be "deliberatly racist" and only reflected the colonial views of the time. And when one considers the fact that Hergé himself was but an armchair-traveller, and had never even been to the Belgian Congo, it is clear as to why the characters are the way they are.

It was in writing "The Blue Lotus" that Hergé said he "had discovered a new world" (Farr, 2001), putting all of his previous works in which racial prejudices and misrepresentations existed, behind him, striving to "counter myths by presenting as accurate a picture of China as possible." (Farr, 2001, p. 51). But why the sudden turn-around? What happened to make Hergé give up such clichés and focus on presenting an accurate picture of where the adventurous Tintin's expiditions were to be set?

Really, it comes down to his friend Chang.

Farr (2001) states that a priest at the Université de Louvain, Father Gosset, introduced Hergé to a young Chinese student by the name of Chang Chong-Chen in 1934. After meeting, they became life-long friends and thanks to Chang, Hergé is said to have discovered a love of Chinese poetry and writing. (Far, 2001). Their long discussions also taught him of the history, geography, language, philosophy and religion of China. (Far, 2001). So fascinated by what Chang had to tell him, Hergé began his "documentalist" period whereby he collected anything and everything he could to do with the "real" China. One such example is his use of the Chinese script in "The Blue Lotus", which was real Chinese writing, relating to current events of the time (i.e a banner in the background which says "Down with Imperialism!") compared with a generalised Arabic that he made up for Cigars of the Pharoah. (Farr, 2001). 

On the flip-side however, one could argue while reading the Blue Lotus that in fact, nothing really did change at all. I say this because Hergé's friendship with Chang may have even made his story baised, and that he has taken current events of the time to go on to portray the Japanese as evil instead (the blowing up of the train tracks). What are your thoughts on this? In trying to be PC and as accurate as possible, did Hergé really just fall into the old trap?

REFERENCES

Cendrowicz, L. (4 May 2010). "Tintin: Heroic Boy Reporter or Sinister Racist?. TIME. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
Farr, M. (2001). Tintin: The Complete Companion

Thompson, H. (1991). Tintin: Hergé and his Creation