Being an avid graphic novel fan, I appreciate the fact that we are looking at this medium in a serious way as an authentic form of artistic expression. Satrapi could have easily written a New York Times Bestselling novel with her subject manner. By choosing this form, she was able to appropriate a Western form of art to tell her story about an Eastern society. This gave her a visual way of rewriting the veil, child soldiers, bombings, and all the other fare that makes the evening news with barely any notice.
This form also engages a different way of viewing her story as both a teenage coming of age and an Iranian outcast in a hostile Western world. The pictures of her teenage school mates having tons of sex and smoking weed in the 70s-80s reflects not only the signs of her age, but it also illustrates the differences between a "traditionalist country" and the public displays of affection of the bohemian Western world. It would be difficult to explain all the details of the frames on 188 without using Proustian attention to detail.
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1 comment:
Good work. I agree that this is the perfect medium for the complexities of her topic and themes.
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