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Thomson and Thompson: What is their relationship, if any?

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mct16
Member
#21 · Posted: 5 Oct 2008 17:40
It might be noted that a number of European comics featured male duos who lived together. I think that this was because it was easier for the artists and writers in terms of plot rather than making any kind of social comment. How would the "Castafiore Emerald" have developed if Tintin had been continuously going to and from his old flat in the city (like in the "Seven Crystal Balls")?

Other comics featuring male duos living in the same house, but with separate beds and sometimes separate rooms, have included "Spirou and Fantasio" and "Tif and Tondu". There are no hints of gay relationships that I have seen, in fact Tif and Tondu, for instance, have had a number of girlfriends.

Other popular comics included Italian versions of Walt Disney characters. I remember a number of Italian comics had Goofy and Mickey Mouse often sharing a bed on the course of their adventures. So tell me where Minnie comes in.

This thread was started by the fact that, as they are about to be shot in "Picaros", one of them tells the other to kiss him, a reference to Admiral Nelson's dying remark to Captain Hardy.

In the original French version, the other remarks "San Theodorans, oui, je vous ai compris" ("San Theodorans, yes, I understand you"), a reference to a speech made by General Charles de Gaulle in Algeria in 1958.
Balthazar
Moderator
#22 · Posted: 7 Oct 2008 11:05
Harrock n roll
There's also the theory they share the same mother but have different fathers, i.e half-brothers who kept their father's family name. This would also account for their physical similarities despite their different surnames.

I'm all for adding another new theory to the mix, but if they were merely half brothers, rather than full brothers or twins, would they look so nearly identical? I suppose their mother might have had a very particular taste in men, so that their two different fathers looked very similar!

mct16, I agree that neither of the reasons for this "Are they gay?" speculation - the fact they share a flat and bedroom, and the "Kiss me Thompson" quote (which isn't in the French original and is clearly a famous historical reference anyway) - are in themselves good reasons for thinking that Hergé intended them to be seen as gay.

I just think it's interesting that, in our era, they do have something of the air of a gay married couple with a fetish for dressing alike, and interesting that they might have had some influence on gay culture. And given that Hergé chose to give us no background explanations for their identicalness or their different surnames, I'm not sure he'd have minded people considering the doppelganger gay couple theory as one interpretation.

To be honest, I think it's most likely that Hergé didn't have a precise background reason for their different surnmes and near-identicalness when he created the Thom(p)sons - or rather, the Dupondts - for the Cigars of the Pharaoh (any more than he knew what Captain Haddock's ancestory and Christian name would be when he first created him for The Crab with the Golden Claws.) My guess would be that Hergé just liked the idea of a pair of idiot detectives who are made more comical and bizarre by having almost the same looks and surname. Maybe, as someone suggested, it's meant to be a joke on how all plainclothes policemen look the same. Maybe it was influenced by his twin father and uncle. But maybe it was mostly just a funny visual idea, expressed visually without the need for rational explanation. Hergé was a great surrealist.

I wonder whether Hergé's fellow Belgian, surrealist René Magritte, was influenced by the Thom(p)sons/ Dupondts when painting his pictures on identical men in black suits and bowler hats (most famously his 1950s painting, Gondola, of the faceless identical bowler-hatted men raining from the sky.) But maybe that's another topic!
ZGDK
Member
#23 · Posted: 7 Oct 2008 20:06
I have to disagree with the above post, it's like the whole thing about Ernie and Bert being gay for lack of a better example. The Thom(p)sons are just children trapped in adult bodies.
Personally I've always felt that all the main characters aside from Calculus are asexual.
waveofplague
Member
#24 · Posted: 8 Oct 2008 06:55
ZGDK:
Personally I've always felt that all the main characters aside from Calculus are asexual.

Dare I ask you to elaborate?
ZGDK
Member
#25 · Posted: 9 Oct 2008 21:49
waveofplague:
Dare I ask you to elaborate?

Think about it: do you ever see Haddock, Tintin or the Thom(p)sons with any romantic attachments?
Calculus is the only one who ever shows any romantic feelings, towards Castafiore.
Therefore I have deduced that they're asexual.
Tintinrulz
Member
#26 · Posted: 10 Oct 2008 00:50
Asexual means to change it's sex at will (like a worm or something). Tintin or any other character in Herge's world is incapable of doing such a thing.
Pretty narrow-minded if you ask me.
Balthazar
Moderator
#27 · Posted: 10 Oct 2008 13:32
Tintinrulz
Asexual means to change it's sex at will (like a worm or something).
Actually, acccording to my dictionary, asexual means without sexuality, so I think ZGDK was using the word quite correctly to say what he meant about the way he sees the Tintin characters as not seeming to have sexuality as part of their psychological make up. (Asexual can also mean not having sexual organs, but it doesn't have to mean that.)

Isn't the biological thing you're thinking of, Tintinrulz, called being hermaphrodite, rather than asexual?

And, regarding worms, although some hermaphrodites can change sex at will, I think that applies to certain species of hermaphrodite fish, rather than worms. Worms (and snails) are in the category of hermaphrodites that permanently have both male and female organs at once, rather than ever actually changing sex. I think some hermaphrodites like worms might sometimes choose who's using their male organs and who's using their female organs on any given mating occasion, but they've still got both sets on hand at all times. And other hermaphrodites, like snails, often use both sets of male and female organs simultaneouly and each impregnate the other on the same occasion.

Anyway, we're a bit off topic, and I'm sure none of us are suggesting that the Thom(p)sons would get up to any of that sort of simultaneous dual-impregnation malarkey even on their wildest nights in.
I was just pointing out that I think ZGDK had the right word with asexual for what he meant.
MissMartine
Member
#28 · Posted: 17 Mar 2012 01:58
Thompson and Thomson are twins. Why would they be gay? Plus cartoon characters can't be gay! I know they are twins because Tintin says "The Thompson Twins" and they live in the same house. Plus they look alike so they are twins! Not gay.
Blistring_Barnacles
Member
#29 · Posted: 19 Mar 2012 23:34
I personally don't think they're gay. It just doesn't seem like it to me.
They could be twins, separated at birth and adopted by families with similar last names. Twenty years later they meet at Scotland Yard...:)
guarani
Member
#30 · Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:28
Well, yes, In my view they are.

In fact, it is a possible and perfectly consistent interpretation of the text that Thomson and Thompson as well as Tintin and Haddock are all closeted gays. Though not a strictly exclusive possibility.

The question of whether Hergé intended this to be the case is completely different.
This is possible as well, but a far more complex discussion that involves his religion, societal pressures and so on.

When analyzing a work of fiction the original intent of the writer is not all that matters.
The work acquires a life of its own, and any reader interpretation that is consistent with the work is a valid one.

Furthermore, I think the Tintin series becomes more interesting and richer in depth when viewed from this angle.

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