The Islamic Revolution in 1979 was the movement involved in overcoming the reign of the Shah regime, which had been in power for close to four decades. The wealth gap between the rich and poor began to grow during the 1970s due to the modernization and westernization of Iran in an oil based growth, resulting in an increasing prevalence of distrust in the Shah’s regime. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an Iranian national seeking exile in Paris wanted to overthrow the Shah’s regime and he proposed reinstalling traditional values back into Iranian culture. These anti-Shah ideas triggered a series of protests; some for the Khomeini policies and others for the imperial regime, which crippled the Iranian economy and society, whilst political instability was significantly increasing. Months into 1979 Khomeini won the referendum and was appointed the religious and political leader of Iran, leading to a serious of drastic changes in Iranian culture including abolishing rights and protections for married women, enforcing strict dress codes associated with religion and brutally repressing political groups that were not a part of the new political order among many other significant, strict and often repressive cultural adjustments.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of Return are memoirs in comic form, written after the Islamic Revolution by Marjane Satrapi. Satrapi writes from the perspective of her childhood as she grows from a six year old before the overthrow of the Shah regime, to a twenty four year old having experienced the Islamic revolution , the war with Iraq and rigorous fundamentalism present in Iran. Satrapi choses to write Persepolis in the form of a Western Comic to accommodate Western popular culture whilst still “[preserving] Iranian cultural and historical identity in the face of mainstream diffusion” (Malek, 359). This is important because throughout Persepolis Satrapi details her negotiation of culture throughout the events explained and described in the memoirs in an attempt to accurately translate Iranian culture, whilst accommodating Western readers.
Through the use of the comic Satrapi is able to verbally and visually illustrate the hybrid culture she creates as she fluctuates between extreme rebellion of her punk identity and the strict regulations she has to conform to in Iran, including wearing the veil. In the second book Marjane explains that after being sent to Vienna to escape the fundamentalism and war with Iraq and exploring her identity for over a year she “no longer wanted to be marginal” (45). Her physical appearance was one of the many factors in making her “marginal”, but it was one of the few factors she was able to control; Satrapi’s origin, citizenship and national events were out of her hands, she could not change them nor explain to them to everyone. Through her identity she no longer had to explain her culture as she was able to compose a hybrid identity that at stages conformed to the European appearance without totally abolishing her Iranian heritage. The comic images that accompany the statement of no longer wanting to be “marginal” are of Satrapi in a basic trousers and long sleeve top, her hair is tied back and she isn’t wearing obvious makeup (like she does in other images in the book). From the monochrome images, readers are able to tell that her hair is dark, but other than that it is impossible to distinguish her nationality. So from the combination of verbal and visual it allows readers to realize that Satrapi is no longer physically marginal, whilst she continues to possess her unique upbringing she no longer is “marginal” in the sense of her physical identity. This is important because the stereotypes and stigmas attached to identity and the associated nationalities becomes very prevalent when you are able to realize the connections that are made between appearance and cultures. The concept of an “us” and “them” is created which provides a potential barrier to a multicultural society. A barrier is a possibility due to the lack of understanding and acceptance for other cultures (Naghibi and O’Malley, 225) by classifying someone else an “other”, it means that they are culturally different and may suggest inferiority or other associated discrediting characteristics which are to imply that other cultures are lesser than one’s own.
