The Picaros, or how Hergé saw Latin America
Tintin is a young reporter who travels around the world fighting evil, cruel but memorable villains. “Tintin and the Picaros” is the last fully published adventure of this famous saga. By the time it was written (1976), Hergé is believed to have been exhausted from his work and not as engaged with the project as in previous novels. Nevertheless, the novel still has the great graphic and literary qualities of every Tintin adventure.
Hergé had a way of portraying countries, races and people with a somewhat too stereotyped vision. When Tintin travels to the middle east, he deals with an incredibly rich but cruel Emir. When he goes to Chicago, he finds a country where every citizen is either a gangster, a native American or a policeman. When reading Tintin and the Picaros, I experienced a sense of déjà vu. The characters portrayed in the novel were based on the Cuban revolution of 1953, but resemble greatly with some of the continent’s leaders of today.
In this adventure, the protagonist and his two companions: Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus, travel to the imaginary south American country of San Theodoros. There, an old friend: General Alcazar, is leading a revolution against the country’s leader General Tapioca, with a guerrilla called The Picaros. General Tapioca is a ruthless and vain leader who has even changed the country’s capital city name to Tapiocapolis. San Theodoros’ economy relies heavily on a profitable commodity that is exported to foreign powers. The fictional corporation The International Banana Company plays a prominent role in the countries politics. General Tapioca blames foreign agents for the revolt his regime is experiencing. Specifically, he blames Tintin of plotting with General Alcazar to overthrow him. Moreover, he is an authoritarian leader that consistently curtails the citizen’s rights.
At the end, Tintin is able to help General Alcazar but not the poor citizens of San Theodoros. For a hero who was able to defeat the American mafia and get to the moon fifteen years before Neil Armstrong; it seems like a major failure. Benoit Peeters, a Hergé biographer, states that it was the author’s way of humanizing a hero while also showing his disenchantment with the modern world. George Santayana said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. In this case, we are able to read it in the form of a graphic novel. While the gangster era is already part of the United States history, “Tintin and The Picaros” stand as a colorful reminder that some Latin America’s political leaders have not evolved.
