Hi Midnightblueowl, OK I am here to help you with your first effort to rewrite the passive voice you have been introducing into your writing. Below I have pasted in the entire Tintin in America article, with the passive voice identified in bold. Your challenge is to consider each of the sentences with the bold phrase and decide how, if possible, you can rewrite it in the active voice. (Notice I did not say, "how, if possible, it can be rewritten in the active voice!" Ha ha.)

I have found that, yes, occasionally I leave the passive voice in place as I decide it works better, but I also have found that it is possible and preferred to rewrite the sentence at least four out of five times. When the passive phrase has both its subject and its object, it is often a simple matter to reverse the two and rewrite the sentence in the active voice. However, very often the passive phrase does not contain its object, and when examining what can be done, you will usually realise the sentence would be stronger if the missing object were added. For example, the passage, "they are cleared off by the U.S. army, and a whole city is constructed on the site within 24 hours" contains two passive phrases, one with its object and one without, the former an easy fix and the latter more difficult. The solution in this case could be, "the U.S. army clears them off, and industrialists construct an entire city on the site within 24 hours." You can see how the sentence became ever so slightly more powerful. An example of considering the inclusion of the missing object and then rejecting that idea and leaving the passive voice in place could be, "Tintin is sent to the Soviet Union." "His editor sent Tintin to the Soviet Union" unnecessarily brings the editor into the spotlight when it was better before when that object was not mentioned, but as I said, this is rarer solution.

As you accept this challenge to improve your work, you may find it difficult to get started. You may find yourself getting angry at the task and at me. You may be tempted to rationalise the entire process and consider leaving your passive writing in place, having convinced yourself is fine the way it is. I believe this will be a natural reaction, and I wish to encourage you through those tough moments. I hope you can see that it is not fine the way it is and that it needs to be fixed, and that you cannot just keep doing this and expecting others to clean up after you. When you see your own work become more alive by your own re-writing, you will feel much better about this process. I have faith in you and I know you possess the skills to do this. Good luck and let me know if I can help further! —Prhartcom (talk) 15:14, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tintin in America

Tintin in America (French: Tintin en Amérique) is the third volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper Le XXe Siècle as anti-capitalist propaganda for its children's supplement Le Petit Vingtième, it was serialised weekly from September 1931 to October 1932. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his fox terrier Snowy who travel to the United States, where Tintin reports on organized crime in Chicago. Pursuing a gangster across the country, he encounters a tribe of Blackfoot Natives. Following on from Tintin in the Congo and bolstered by publicity stunts, Tintin in America was a commercial success, appearing in book form shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Cigars of the Pharaoh, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1945, it was re-drawn and coloured in Hergé's distinctive ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman, with further alterations made for a 1973 edition. The comic was adapted for a 1991 episode of the Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin.

Synopsis

In 1931, Tintin, a reporter for Le Petit Vingtième, goes with his dog Snowy on an assignment to the city of Chicago, Illinois, to report on the city's organised crime syndicate. Kidnapped by gangsters, he is brought before mobster boss Al Capone, whose criminal enterprises in the Congo were previously thwarted by Tintin. With Snowy's help, Tintin subdues his captors, but the police refuse to believe his claims, and the gangsters escape. After several attempts on his life, Tintin meets Capone's rival Bobby Smiles, who heads the Gangsters Syndicate of Chicago (GSC). Smiles unsuccessfully tries to persuade Tintin to work for him, but after Tintin orchestrates the arrest of his gang, Smiles escapes and heads west.

Tintin pursues Smiles to the Midwestern town of Redskin City. Here, Smiles convinces a tribe of Blackfoot Natives that Tintin is their enemy, and when he arrives, they capture him and plan his execution. Escaping, Tintin discovers a source of underground oil, following which the U.S. army forces the Natives off their land, with oil companies moving in and building a city on the site within 24 hours. Tintin evades a lynch mob and a wild fire before discovering Smiles' remote hideaway cabin; after a brief altercation, he captures the gangster.

Returning to Chicago with his prisoner, Tintin is praised as a hero, but Snowy is kidnapped and ransomed. Tracing the kidnappers to a local mansion, he hides in a suit of armour, allowing him to free Snowy from the dungeon. The following day, Tintin is invited to a cannery, but it is a trap, and he is tricked into falling into the meat-grinding machine. Saved when the machine workers' go on strike, Tintin apprehends the mobsters responsible. In thanks, he is invited to a banquet in his honour, where he is kidnapped and thrown into Lake Michigan to drown. He manages to float, but is again captured by gangsters, this time posing as police. He once again overwhelms them, and hands them over to the authorities. Finally, Tintin's success against the gangsters is celebrated by a public ticker-tape parade, following which he returns to Europe.

History

Background

Georges Remi—best known under the pen name Hergé—was employed as editor and illustrator of Le Petit Vingtième ("The Little Twentieth"),[1] a children's supplement to Le XXe Siècle ("The 20th Century"), a staunchly Roman Catholic, conservative Belgian newspaper based in Hergé's native Brussels. Run by the Abbé Norbert Wallez, the paper described itself as a "Catholic Newspaper for Doctrine and Information" and disseminated a far-right, fascist viewpoint.[2] According to Tintinologist Harry Thompson, such political ideas were common in Belgium at the time, where "patriotism, Catholicism, strict morality, discipline, and naivety were so inextricably bound together in everyone's lives that right-wing politics were an almost inevitable by-product."[3]

Blackfoot settlement, with ookóówa tents ("wigwams"), 1933.[No period]

In 1929, Hergé began The Adventures of Tintin comic for Le Petit Vingtième, revolving around the exploits of fictional Belgian reporter Tintin. Hergé had wanted to set Tintin's first adventure in the United States and highlight the plight of the Native Americans, whom he called "Red Indians".[4] He had been fascinated with the indigenous communities of the continent since boyhood, being interested in the connection between their traditional way of life and the Belgian Scouting tradition.[5] However, Wallez had ordered him to set his first adventure in the Soviet Union to act as anti-socialist propaganda for children (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets),[6] and commanded that the second adventure be set in the Belgian Congo to encourage colonial sentiment (Tintin in the Congo).[7]

Tintin in America was the third story in the series. At the time, the Belgian far right was deeply critical of the United States, just as it was of the Soviet Union.[8] Wallez—and to a lesser degree Hergé—shared these views, viewing the country's capitalism, consumerism, and mechanisation as a threat to traditional Belgian society.[9] Wallez wanted Hergé to use the story as a denunciation of American capitalism, but had little interest in depicting Native Americans, which was Hergé's primary desire.[10] As a result, Tintin's encounter with the natives would take up only a sixth of the comic's narrative.[11] Tintin in America would demystify the "cruel savage" stereotype of the Natives that had been widely perpetuated in western films.[8] Hergé's depiction of them was broadly sympathetic; yet he also depicted them as gullible and naïve, much as he had depicted the Congolese in the previous Adventure.[11]

Research

Hergé attempted greater research into the United States than he had done for the Belgian Congo or Soviet Union.[12] To learn more about Native Americans, Hergé read Paul Coze and René Thévenin's 1928 book Mœurs et histoire des Indiens Peaux-Rouges (Customs and History of the Redskin Indians),[13] and visited Brussels' ethnographic museum.[14] As a result, his depiction of the Blackfoot Natives was "essentially accurate", with artefacts such as wigwams and traditional costume copied from photographs.[14] To learn about Chicago and its gangsters, he read Georges Duhamel's 1930 book Scènes de la vie future (Scenes from Future Life). Written in the context of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Duhamel's work contained strong anti-consumerist and anti-modernist sentiment, criticising the U.S.'s increased mechanisation and standardisation from a background of European conservatism; this would have resonated with both Wallez and Hergé's viewpoint. Many elements of Tintin in America, such as the abattoir scene, were adopted from Duhamel's descriptions.[15]

Chicago gangster Al Capone was included as an antagonist in Tintin in America, the last time a real-life individual would appear as a character in The Adventures of Tintin.

A special edition of radical anticonformist magazine La Crapouillot (The Mortar Shell), published in October 1930, also influenced Hergé. Devoted to the United States, it contained a variety of photographs that would influence his depiction of the country.[16] Its images of skyscrapers were used as a basis for Hergé's depiction of Chicago, while its account of Native Americans being evicted from their land when oil was discovered there was also an influence.[17] He was particularly interested in the articles within written by reporter Claude Blanchard, who had recently travelled the U.S., reporting on the situation in Chicago and New York City, and meeting with Native Americans in New Mexico.[18] Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès thought that the character of Bobby Smiles was based on the gangster George Moran, who had been discussed in Blanchard's article.[19]

Hergé would also have been aware of American cinema, providing another influence on his depiction of the country, [20] while cinematic imagery provided a key influence on his illustrations.[21] Tintinologists Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier thought that Tintin's arrest of Smiles had been influenced by the Buffalo Bill stories, and that the idea of the gangsters taking Tintin away in their car came from Little Caesar.[22]

One of the individuals that Hergé could have learned about through Blanchard's article was the Chicago-based American gangster Al Capone.[20] In the preceding story, Tintin in the Congo, Capone had been introduced as a character within the series. There, he was responsible for running a diamond smuggling racket in the Congo that Tintin exposed, setting up for further confrontation in Tintin in America.[11] Capone was one of only two real-life individuals to be named in The Adventures of Tintin, [20] and was the only real-life figure to appear as a character in the series.[22] In the original version, Hergé chose to avoid depicting him directly, either illustrating the back of his head, or hiding his face behind a scarf; this would be altered in the second version, where Capone's face was depicted.[23] It is not known if Capone ever learned about his inclusion in the comic, [24] although during initial serialisation he would have been preoccupied with his trial and ensuing imprisonment.[25]

Original publication, 1931–32

Tintin's in America began serialisation in Le Petit Vingtième on 3 September 1931, under the title of Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter, à Chicago (The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in Chicago). The use of "Chicago" over "America" reflected Wallez's desire for the comic to focus on a critique of American capitalism and crime for which the city was internationally renowned.[26] The story was renamed Les Aventures de Tintin, reporter, en Amérique (The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter, in America), after Tintin left Chicago and headed west.[27] Tintin in America marked a diminished role for Snowy, containing the last instance in the Adventures where Tintin and Snowy have a conversation in which they understand each other.[28] In the scene in which a banquet is held in Tintin's honour, a reference is made to a famous actress named Mary Pikefort, which is an allusion to the real-life actress Mary Pickford.[29] That same scene also featured a prototype for the character of Rastapopoulos, who would be properly introduced in the following Cigars of the Pharaoh story.[30]

The social commentary was toned down in the second edition, as evidenced by this scene.

The comic's serialisation coincided with the publication of another of Hergé's comics set in the United States: Les aventures de "Tim" l'écureuil au Far-West (The Adventures of Tim the Squirrel Out West), published in sixteen instalments by the Brussels department store L'Innovation. Produced every Thursday, the series was reminiscent of Hergé's earlier Totor series.[31] Alongside writing and drawing both of these stories, Hergé was involved in producing his weekly Quick and Flupke comic strip and drawing front covers for Le Petit Vingtième, as well as providing illustrations for another of Le XXe Siècle's supplements, Votre "Vingtième" Madame, and undertaking freelance work designing advertisements.[25] Part way through the story's serialisation, in September 1931, Hergé took a brief holiday in Spain with two friends, and in May 1932 was recalled to military service for two weeks.[32] On 20 July 1932, Hergé married Germaine Kieckens, who was Wallez's secretary. Although neither of them were entirely happy with the union, they had been encouraged to do so by Wallez, who demanded that all his staff married and who personally carried out the wedding ceremony.[33] Spending their honeymoon in Vianden, Luxembourg, the couple moved into an apartment in the rue Knapen, Schaerbeek.[34]

Just as he had done with the prior two Adventures, Wallez organised a publicity stunt to mark the culmination of Tintin in America, involving an actor portraying Tintin arriving in Brussels.[24] It proved the most popular yet.[24] In 1932, the series was collected together and published in a single volume by Les Editions de Petit Vingtième, [35] coinciding with their publication of the first collected volume of Quick and Flupke.[36] A second edition was produced in France by Editions Ogéo-Couers-Vaillants in 1934, while that same year Casterman published an edition of the comic, the first of The Adventures of Tintin that they released.[37]

Second version, 1945

In the 1940s, when Hergé's popularity had increased, he redrew many of the original black-and-white Tintin adventures in colour using the ligne claire ("clear line") drawing style he had developed, so that they visually fitted in with the new Tintin stories that he was creating. Tintin in America was reformatted and coloured in 1945, [37] before seeing publication in 1946.[11]

Various changes were made to the comic for its second edition. Some of the social commentary regarding the poor treatment of Native Americans by the government was toned down.[11] The name of the Native tribe was changed from the Orteils Ficelés (Tied Toes) to the Pieds Noirs (Black Feet).[22] Perhaps because Al Capone's power had diminished in the intervening years, Hergé visually depicted Capone's scarred face in the 1945 version.[22] He removed the reference to Mary Pikeford from the ceremonial dinner scene, and deleted two Chinese hoodlums who tried to eat Snowy.[38] References to Belgium were also removed, allowing the story to have a greater international appeal.[17]

Later alterations and releases

When the story was translated into English by Michael Turner and Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, they made a number of alterations to the text. For instance, Monsieur Tom Hawake, whose name was a pun on tomahawk, was renamed Mr. Maurice Oyle, while the Slift factory was renamed Grynd Corp.[39] Other changes were made to render the story more culturally understandable to an Anglophone readership; whereas the factory originally sold its mix of dogs, cats, and rats as hare pâté—a food source uncommon in Britain—the English translation rendered the mix as salami.[39] In another instance, garlic, pepper, and salt were added to the mixture in the French version, but this was changed to mustard, pepper, and salt for the English version, again reflecting British culinary tastes.[39]

In 1957, Hergé considered sending Tintin back to North America for another adventure featuring the indigenous people. He decided against it, believing it a retrograde step, and instead produced Tintin in Tibet.[40] Although Tintin in America and much of Hergé's earlier work displayed anti-American sentiment, he later grew more favourable to American culture, befriending one of the country's most prominent artists, Andy Warhol.[41] Hergé himself would first visit the United States in 1971, accompanied by his second wife Fanny Rodwell. With a letter of recommendation from his friend Father Gall, he was invited to indulge his childhood desire to meet with real "Red Indians"—members of the Oglala Lakota on their Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota—and take part in their pow wow.[14]

American publishers of Tintin in America were uneasy regarding the scene in which the Blackfoot Natives are forcibly removed from their land by the U.S. army, following which a city is built on the site in 24 hours. Hergé nevertheless refused to remove it.[42] For the 1973 edition published in the United States, the publishers made Hergé remove African-American characters from the book, redrawing them as Caucasians or Hispanics, because they did not want to encourage racial integration among children.[43] That same year, the original black-and-white version was republished in a French-language collected volume with Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, the first part of the Archives Hergé collection.[37] In 1983, a facsimile version of the original was then published by Casterman.[37]

Critical analysis

Hergé biographer and Tintinologist Benoît Peeters considered Tintin in America to exhibit "a quality of lightness".

Tintinologists Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier opined that Hergé had made "another leap forward" with Tintin in America, noting that while it still "rambles on", it is "more tightly plotted" than its predecessors.[22] They believed that the illustrations showed "marked progress" and that for the first time, several of the frames could be seen as "individual pieces of art."[44] Believing that it was the first work with "that intangible epic quality" that they thought characterised The Adventures of Tintin, they awarded it two out of five stars.[44] They considered Bobby Smiles to be "the first great villain" of the series,[22] and also thought that an incompetent hotel detective featured in the comic was an anticipation of Thomson and Thompson, while another character, the drunken sheriff, anticipated Captain Haddock.[22] The Lofficiers believed that Hergé had successfully synthesised all of the "classic American myths" into a single narrative that "withstands comparison with the vision of America" presented in Gustave Le Rouge and Gustave Guitton's La Conspiration Des Milliardaires (The Billionaires' Conspiracy). They were of the opinion that Hergé's depiction of the exploitation of Native Americans was an "astonishing piece of narrative."[45]

Tintinologist Harry Thompson considered the comic to be "little more than a tourist ramble" across the U.S., considering it to be only "marginally more sophisticated" than its predecessors.[10] He nevertheless thought that it contained many indicators of "greater things", [28] remarking that Hergé's sympathy for the Natives was "a revolutionary attitude" for 1931.[46] Thompson also opined that the book's "highlight" was on page 29 of the 1945 version, in which oil is discovered on Native land, following which they are cleared off by the U.S. army, and a whole city is constructed on the site within 24 hours.[46] Biographer Benoît Peeters praised the comic's illustrations, feeling that they exhibited "a quality of lightness" and showed that Hergé was fascinated by the United States despite the anti-Americanism of his milieu.[47] He nevertheless considered it "in the same mode" as the earlier Adventures, labeling it "a collection of clichés and snapshots of well-known places."[48] Elsewhere, Peeters commented that throughout the story, Tintin rushes around the country seeing as much as possible, likening him to the stereotypical American tourist.[49]

"Hergé paints a picture of 1930s America that is exciting, hectic, corrupt, fully automated and dangerous, one where the dollar is all powerful. It rings true enough, at least as much as the image projected by Hollywood at the time." Michael Farr, 2001.[50]

Hergé biographer Pierre Assouline believed Tintin in America to be "more developed and detailed" than the prior Adventures, [20] remaining the cartoonist's "greatest success" in a "long time".[8] Opining that the illustrations were "superior" due to Hergé's accumulated experience, he nevertheless criticised several instances where the comic exhibited directional problems; for instance, in one scene, Tintin enters the underground tunnel, but Assouline notes that while he is supposed to be travelling downward, he is instead depicted climbing up stairs.[8] Such directional problems were also criticised by Tintinologist Michael Farr, [17] but he nevertheless thought the story "action-packed", with a more developed sense of satire and therefore greater depth than Soviets or Congo.[29] He considered the depiction of Tintin climbing along the ledge of the skyscraper on page 10 to be "one of the most remarkable" illustrations in the entire series, inducing a sense of vertigo in the reader.[41] He also opined that the depiction of the Blackfoot Natives being forced from their land was the "strongest political statement" in the series, illustrating that Hergé had "an acute political conscience" and was not the advocate of racial superiority that he has been accused of being.[11] Comparing the 1932 and 1945 versions of the comic, Farr believed that the latter was technically superior, but had lost the "freshness" of the original.[17]

Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University thought that in Tintin in America, Hergé had intentionally depicted the wealthy industrialists as being very similar to the gangsters, and that this negative portrayal of capitalists would continue into later Adventures of Tintin with characters like Basil Barazov in The Broken Ear.[51] He considered this indicative of "a more ambivalent stance" to the right-wing agenda that Hergé had formerly adhered to.[19] Another literary critic, Tom McCarthy, concurred, believing that Tintin in America exhibited Hergé's "left-wing counter tendency" through attacking the racism and capitalist mass production of the U.S.[52] McCarthy believed that the work exposed social and political process as a "mere charade", much as Hergé had previously done in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.[53]

Adaptations

Tintin in America was adapted into a 1991 episode of The Adventures of Tintin television series by French studio Ellipse and Canadian animation company Nelvana.[54] Directed by Stéphane Bernasconi, the character of Tintin was voiced by Thierry Wermuth.[54] In 2002, French artist Jochen Gerner published a socio-political satire based on Tintin in America titled TNT en Amérique. It consisted of a replica of Hergé's comic with most of the images blocked out with black ink; the only images left visible are those depicting violence, commerce, or divinity.[55] When interviewed as to this project, Gerner noted that his pervasive use of black was a reference to "the censure, to the night, the obscurity (the evil), the mystery of things not entirely revealed."[56]