Verkitso Member
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#8 · Posted: 13 Jan 2007 15:03
This is my first post on the forum, so be gentle if I say something that's wrong or misconceived...! As regards regressive ideologies in Tintin, I think you're right that racism and imperialism would be good themes to explore in your thesis; but I think that if you wanted to take a more interesting slant, you could claim that one of the triumphs of the way Hergé developed his characters and the medium was that he went from reflecting contemporary attitudes to challenging them.
So, in Tintin in the Congo, for instance, the indigenous population are crudely-drawn caricatures reflecting European attitudes of the time, but from The Blue Lotus onwards, Herge increasingly begins to challenge these attitudes and adopt more complicated positions. In Flight 714, for instance, the attitude to the Sondonesians is quite sophisticated: at first, they're the willing henchmen of Rastapopoulos; but, after being jabbed with Dr Krollspell's truth serum, Rastapopoulos reveals that they've been duped with promises of help in their struggle for independence, and their junks have been mined.
I also think that you'd be missing out on some good material if you ignored the Kurvi-Tasch regime, which goes through an interesting transformation, providing a surrogate for Nazi Germany at first and then, later on, taking on the role of the Soviet Union. You could argue that this shows Hergé's consistent defence of democracy, and older, established forms of order, in the face of arriviste, extremist forms of government.
I hope this doesn't sound too convoluted or pretentious..!
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