What IS missing??

[purplesubmarine]

Hi guys
Seems to me the reason Uderzo is apparently running out of new ideas is not the absence of we-know-who by his side, but rather that the spirit the series was created in is gone. I mean, wasn't the village supposed to be an emblem of the French Resistance and Rome the image of the absolute oppressor. Today France and Germany are friends, and complaints about injustice arise from people coming from places that used to be or still are occupied by France instead. I mean if the original spirit is gone, then what good is Asterix now? What function does it perform?

[Christine]

What function does it perform?

Well, Asterix is not written by any Ministry or Propaganda Bureau.
It has no FUNCTION, it is just a comic series, isn't it ?
After all, Uderzo's family came from Italy.
The only resistance I ever saw in Asterix is a resistance against modern ways of life ( or a least parodies ): big cities, bureaucracy, money and business... Many people in France and other neighbouring country will find in Asterix a way of life they have lost and feel nostalgia for : a village, where everybody knows his neighbours, friendship and brawls, gossips, gardening, simple food, little ambition...
Nobody is really antipathic (with very few exception), everybody has his share of stupidity, and nobody gets really badly hurt whatever the blows.

Injustice does rise everywhere war and occupation take place, in the past and nowadays, but this is an other story. This forum is a bit of friendship and fantasy in a cruel world.

[shr]

I see the point you are making and to some extent I agree, Asterix was no doubt shaped by a collective memory of wartime resistance and resiliance in the face of an invading army. However, Asterix was largely written in the 60s and 70s, long after the Nazi occupation of France, for children who had no memory of those events, and whose own parents may have remembered them only vaguely.

If anything, I would argue that the real context for understanding Asterix as a French hero is the cultural and economic imperialism of America. The Romans are hardly Nazis - they are absurd figures of authority. Their most insidious schemes to conquer the gauls are economic: they try to isolate the village in Asterix & the Banquet; they attempt to colonise it with their cultural values in the Big Fight; they try to seduce it with capitalism in Obelix & Co; and they try all three approaches in Mansions of the Gods. On that level, Asterix works brilliantly as a satire of Americanisation, the best emblem of which is that they set up Parc Asterix as a home grown rival to Eurodisney.

Interesting to note that Asterix has taken off all over the world, but not in America!

So I believe that the cultural context for Asterix as a resistance hero is still very much with us. Sadly, Uderzo is not as good a writer as Goscinny, nor is his writing as sharp as it once was (unlike his art, which remains undiminished).

[SingingGandalf]

(unlike his art, which remains undiminished).

I'd say better, but anyway more on topic

'The Adventures of Tintin' is even more anti-Nazi than 'Asterix' in my opinion. In fact, the Gestapo even threatened Herge because of it. It is ironic that a man who hated Fascism like Herge would be labelled a Fascist so completely unjustly. In fact, in one book, 'King Ottokar's Sceptre', Herge sends Tintin to a country called Syldavia, where he battles the invading fascist Borduria, who use meshersmits. Borduria is obviously a parody of Nazi Germany. Interestingly, the Bordurians are not called fascist, but 'tashist', an idea to tasch, being slang for moustache. Hitler had a famous moustache. Also the Bordurians favourite saying was 'by the whiskers of Kuvi-Tasch', - meaning 'by the whishers of curly moustache', another metaphor to Hitler. The leader of Borduria is called 'Mustlerr' - Mussolini/Hitler.

[purplesubmarine]

Sorry guys - thanx for your posts.
Yeah, I know those accusations against Herge are not just unfair, they're plain stupid. I was recently listening to a show in which a journalist went as far as to say that "Tintin has saved Hergé's life" !! Like Hergé did something wrong or what. Were people going to stop drawing, cooking dinner and mopping the floor because of the Collaboration.
The Collaboration is a deep wound in the heart of the French I think, still is. In my view Asterix did help that nation heal the horrid wound, in its own small, gentle, humorous way it did play a social role I think. We all agree that Asterix was always more than just a comic strip.
Tintin was born 30 years before Asterix so it figures it became an antifascist tool in the hands of its creator.
As a teen I used to read Asterix and it never, ever even occurred to me it was antiamerican in any way. Maybe the first Asterixes weren't, but then the series gradually grew so, I don't know. I've been reading up a bit on Uderzo and it seems to me he doesn't particularly like Americans or American culture much, if I'm wrong please correct me.

[shr]

The Falling Sky is dedicated to Walt Disney - despite the publisher's attempts to spin it as an anti-Bush satire, I think it's fairly clearly a homage to Disney and other American comic strips. So I don't think Uderzo is anti-American as such - I think the stories are more about cultural protectionism, a sense that French culture is being besieged by more dominant cultural values and needs to stick together, stubbornly, to its own way of doing things. That's the anxiety that underlies the big fight, when the authentic gaulish chief Vitalstatix has to fight against the Romanised chief of another village. I don't think the books are any more anti-American than they are anti-Roman, but they do have something in common with, say, French attitudes towards English words creeping into the French language.

[Christine]

(...) they do have something in common with, say, French attitudes towards English words creeping into the French language.

Just 2 remarks about the late Goscinny :
* he spent some times in the US, and I do not think he was anti-american (he could have settled there had he had success, who knows ?...)
* he was against 'language nationalism', and he caricatured it in a one-page story called (I think) "et cetera" : the druid reproaches the villagers their use of roman word (Aquarium, decorum, forum...), and suggests some Gaulish -weird- equivalents, and concludes his speech by 'et cetera'.

J'ai terminé mon speech, bon week-end à tous !
(I'm finished with my speech, have a nice week-end !)

[shr]

* he was against 'language nationalism'

I never said he wasn't. I think you quoted me a bit 'out of context'.

[Christine]

I never said he wasn't. I think you quoted me a bit 'out of context'.

No, indeed, you never said that.
You said justly that French people are 'language nationalists', or at least some official Bureaus are.
I just wanted to mention this 'et cetera' story. No offence meant.

[finealeix]

Seems i have some time to waste on my holidays so, making lots of pointless posts! Sorry!
Anyway...
The resistance fighter image is there in 'the Banquet' predominantly but also in 'Britain' and 'the Cheiftains Shield'. Asterix still serves a purpose with it's protest against the invasion of cultural and moral space, in various ways, as seen in 'secret weapon'. above all though Asterix is a comic and I love it for that, the humour, caricature and sterotypes which are then carried on into some relevent politiccal debates.
There are undercurrents in Asterix, but, don't look to hard for them and enjoy the laughs?
What europeans like the yanks anyway, everyone thinks we English do but this is absolutely not true as a whole. Although we can get along fine with individuals if ye get me?!