His smooth and ageless face has nothing to do with it: the character of Tintin continues to make ink flow and criticize 40 years after the death of her creator Hergé.
In 2019, two of the albums featuring the famous reporter were destroyed in the book burnings that ravaged the libraries of the Providence, Ontario Catholic Schools Board. These were the albums Tintin in America and The Temple of the Sun, which it has been argued conveyed false and derogatory information about First Nations.
The album Tintin in the Congo, written at the time of Belgian colonialism, has been heavily criticized in recent years for its portrait of the Congolese. The album was withdrawn from several UK bookshops and will not be translated to South Africa. Already during his lifetime, Hergé had removed from the album a box in which Tintin made racist remarks about shameful colonialism…
Not to mention the book Céline, Hergé and the Haddock Affair by Émile Brami, which argued in the early 2000s that several of Captain Haddock’s profanities were taken from an anti-Semitic manifesto written by Céline. Also, from the album The Mysterious Star, Hergé once again removed a box in which a Jew rejoices at the end of the world because it will save him from paying a debt. The mystery star also originally appeared in Le Soir Volé, a collaborative daily newspaper published during the German occupation of Belgium.
Despite all this – and in light of this – Renaud Nattiez, an admirer of Tintin from the start (he flipped through it before he could read), reiterates his admiration for Hergé in his latest book Shall We Burn Tintin? and his work.
In this book, which follows several others that the author has dedicated to Tintin, Renaud Nattiez lists the arguments that fuel the discourse of the “tintinophobes”, or more generally those indifferent to the adventures of the reporter of the last century.
Tintin, he asks, is he overwhelmed? Politically incorrect? Is he a reactionary colonialist and racist? Is he misogynist? antiecologist? Too moral or just completely humorless? In each of the chapters of his new book, Renaud Nattiez dissects each of these criticisms without dismissing them.
“While some remarks deemed obsolete have been redacted from the original version published in Volume 1 of the Hergé Archives, the fox terrier’s favorable judgment on the actions of the White Fathers stands in the current version: ‘Quels as , die Missionaries!'” he notes.
Not to mention the weak female presence in Tintin, even ranting compared to other literature of the same period. “We don’t see doctors or surgeons in Tintin. And if we look at Hergé’s contemporary literature, it seems to me to be more objective towards women who played a social role at the time, ”says Renaud Nattiez in an interview.
But Tintin’s big absence is family, he notes. So much so that at the time, the Catholic newspaper Coeurs vaillants protested to the publisher of Tintin, who then forced Hergé to create the comic strip Jo, Zette et Jocko, which depicts a family and a monkey (and of which Hergé grew tired). after five albums).
Tintin, too smooth a hero?
Depressed, Hergé apparently had an ambiguous relationship with Tintin: he himself found him “too perfect”. This is undoubtedly also the opinion of his readers, who tend to choose Snowy or Captain Haddock as their favorite characters in the polls.
“Hergé had consultations with a psychoanalyst from the Jungian school,” adds Renaud Nattiez. Back in the late 1950s, he advised Hergé to rest and eliminate what he called the demon of purity, the obsessive pursuit of purity. He had said to him: “First of all, give up this project of Tintin in Tibet”, an album streaked with the white of the mountain. Hergé disobeyed him. He continued Tintin in Tibet and said it was good for him. »
The fact remains that Tintin’s quest is for good to triumph over evil, he admits, to the point that his critics often criticize him for not being very funny. Hergé made the same accusation to his main character. Renaud Nattiez recalls a letter that Hergé himself wrote to Tintin. “He texts her: ‘I’ll never be like you, you annoy me, you’re too perfect.’ But he also says “Tintin, it’s me”, as Flaubert would have said, “Madame Bovary, it’s me”. But Hergé also said “Haddock, it’s me”, like the Dupondts and Professor Tournesol. It’s normal, they are his creatures. »
Renaud Nattiez wants to save all these Hergean creatures from the great fire of oblivion, including their myriad flaws. And the worldwide sale of Tintin albums, which continues even if no new album has been released since the death of its creator, would tend to prove him right.
Should we burn Tintin?
Renaud Nattiez, Sepia Editions, Paris, 2023, 224 pages