Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Graphics of History
In Persepolis, Satrapi gives us brief segments where she quickly explains the history of oppression of the Iranian people. In McCloud's article, he says that cartoons provide the audience with better understanding of the conceptual and I definitely see this theory working in these particular passages of history in Persepolism (30-31). Because the drawings in Persepolis are simplified, this allows Satrapi to effectively compress hundreds of years of history into a couple pages. The simplified drawings are not excessively detailed, but they are detailed enough to get certain concepts across. For example on page 11 when Marjane visually lists the many people who have tyrannized the Iranian people, she clearly adds details like a crown and sword to depict the Iranian kings, beards and specific clothing to portray the Arabians, bow and arrows to visually describe Mongolians, and lastly, Satrapi uses symbols such as the British flag and Uncle Sam to relay the concept of "modern Imperialism" to the audience. These abstract concepts of different types of people are only successful when given these details because without them, the audience would not be able to discern Mongolians from Arabians or any other group. For me, I believe that the visual aspect of Persepolis is almost more important in explaining concepts than the text that comes along with the panels.
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I agree with you, Ly, in that the pictures in "Persepolis" are incredibly helpful to understading the political and social milieu at the time being depicted.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that came to my mind when you mentioned the simplified drawings so that the reader can "discern Mongolians from Arabians or any other group," was the danger that might come with the simplification McCloud discusses. If art is supposed to show the audience some type of truth, or bring to them an understanding of something, I think there is an unaddressed risk of stereotyping.
As we all know, in America as well as most of the rest of the world we have a problem with racism. I wonder if visually simplifying characters, so that a reader recognizes Arabians as having beards for example, encourages a simplistic understanding of the complexity that comes with ALL people, regardless of their role in a narrative. Maybe I should give more agency to the reader, in that a person who is conscious of racial politics will bring this understanding to a reading, whereas a person who is unaware (or doesn't care) will bring that to a reading regardless of the portrayals they see.