Tintin Forums

Now, we all know Hergé didn't support fascism, but here are some points to show that:
- Hergé makes the Fascist Bordurians baddies.
- The Nazis banned two of Hergé's books, Tintin in America, and The Black Island.
- There are 'non-Aryans' as goodies in the books.
- Hergé helped conceal his brother, a resistance fighter, when the Nazis overtook Belgium.

When this subject crops up it's more racism my friends seem to worry about.
He said he was ashamed of the way he portrayed Africans in the Congo book, and yet years later in Red Sea Sharks he protrays them again as simpletons.
The Japanese in The Blue Lotus are portrayed as bad people and nothing but.

The Soviets are also seen as evil stereotypes.
I very much doubt he was racist, as he portrayed the Tibetans in a good light.

Hergé & Tintin are certainly no Fascists, but according to Belgian Rexist SS Leon Degrelle, Tintin & his quiff were inspired by a portrait of himself when he was aged 20!

but according to Belgian Rexist SS Leon Degrelle, Tintin & his quiff were inspired by a portrait of himself when he was aged 20!

We mustn't forget that he probably did have an effect on Herge, as they were both young men working for the same newspaper. Even if Hitler described him as 'the son I never had', we can't dismiss that he may have had an effect on Tintin, however small.

As far as I know, Degrelle never worked at Le Soir...

Degrelle never worked at Le Soir...

No, they both worked at Le Vingtème Siècle before the war.

The Japanese were quite evil when they invaded China in the 1930s. Read something about the Rape of Nanking e.g. Are WWII movies which portray Germans in a bad light racist?

Moderator Note: Welcome to the forums! The thread has wandered a little over its course, but the topic is facism, rather than racism, per se, so let's try to focus on that aspect.

From what I can see the big problem for many Europeans was Communism.

Land of the Soviets seems to be an exposé of the Soviet regime, Hergé refers to fake industry, and the oppression of the Kulaks for example, and the dangers of traveling there.

The fascists were opposed to the communists, and if one reads of the Cheka's terror, and the forced starvation in the Ukraine, one would say they and everyone else had good reason to be concerned.

We see fascism through the post-war Nuremberg Nazi-criminalizing lens, but the Europeans of occupied Europe did not, many saw it as a bulwark against the Red Terror.

I wonder if Hergé had been captured by the Communists, whether he would have lived. A lot of Europe was happy to live and let live under the Occupation.

Hergé seemed to make fun of everyone, including the Bordurians, as militarists, and Americans as banker exploiters and drug runners, insurance salesmen everywhere, and opera singers.

I don't think there was anything political here at all. His characters were just plain funny!

Maybe so, but it seems to me like Hergé was at least trying to do Africans better that time around. I would say that the Nigerians in "Sharks" also are less crude than the Congolese in Congo.
We have to remember that those Japanese were occupying another country, so it was natural that they would be portrayed negatively. And there is also a more sympathetic Japanese character in Crab with the Golden Claws.