Marjane Satrapi, in her graphic novel Persepolis, paints a picture of her life growing up in Iran amongst the Islamic Revolution. Given relatively recent events involving terrorism and Muslim extremist groups, we could suggest that in her novel, Satrapi may be trying to represent herself as well as her culture amongst a time where racism can be directed towards Muslim people. Additionally, we can see how this can relate to G.T Couser’s rhetorics of disability memoir in his book Signifying Bodies. Satrapi’s novel, not being a disability memoir, can play on the idea of using a certain rhetoric to represent Muslim people and the people of Iran. In particular, I argue that Satrapi uses G. T Couser’s idea of the rhetoric of emancipation –using one’s own “ongoing personal and collective struggle” in order to recognize the values and rights of a group of people — to liberate Iran and Muslim people from racist Western views (Couser,47). With this purpose, this novel could be helpful in educating the Western world about the history and culture of Muslim people, perhaps specifically in Iran, or Syria who face not only external pressures of racism but also internal issues of civil war and revolution.

G.T Couser’s theory of an emancipation rhetoric can be used in explaining why Satrapi may have decided to produce a graphic novel highlighting her culture. For example, in Signifying Bodies, Couser uses Sienkiewicz-Mercer in conversation about the emancipation of people from a stigma surrounding disabled people. In explanation of this type of rhetoric, Couser states, “The comic resolution is not a function of removing her impairments, but of getting the world to accommodate them” (44). This may relate to Satrapi’s work of expressing her culture to possibly educate Western communities about the history of Iran. Thus, instead of the West being cautious of Muslim culture, they can learn to accommodate their differences and beliefs and live peacefully alongside them. The spreading of this history may be important for the world to understand why Iran is constantly in and out of both internal and external conflict including the Iran-Iraq war and the Islamic Revolution (BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14541327). In fact, in the introduction to Persepolis, Satrapi addresses a call to action for the emancipation of Muslim people from racism. In this section of her graphic novel, Satrapi gives a basis of knowledge of the Islamic Revolution, as well as addresses the need for the Iranian people that sacrificed their lives in the revolution to never be forgotten. Most importantly to the act of emancipation from racism, Satrapi explicitly voices her opinion in the introduction explaining, “I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists” (Satrapi). This voice of Satrapi’s opinion is extremely helpful in making Persepolis a rhetoric of emancipation. In particular, this claim allows Satrapi to speak for a community that she identifies with which also sets her apart from the extremist groups that many people in the Western world associate Islam or Middle Eastern countries with.

Marjane Satrapi’s, Persepolis is an exceptional graphic novel that tells the horrific and beautiful details of the Islamic Revolution. In her explanation of her own experience with the history and trauma of the country of Iran, Satrapi has created a novel that may be used to educate the international sphere about the historical and political struggles of Middle Eastern countries. Using G. T Couser in conversation with Persepolis we can see how the novel may use the rhetoric of emancipation to liberate the Islam terrorist stereotype given by a history of terrorism between Middle East extremist Groups and the Western World. This understanding of the use of this novel to eradicate this stigma is extremely important not only for bringing a stop to racism among Muslim peoples but also to encourage peace between the West and Muslim extremist groups. Thus, it is my hope that Marjane Satrapi’s, Persepolis succeeds in acting as a form of emancipation for Iran and Muslim peoples all over the globe.

 

Works Cited

Couser, G. Thomas. “Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing.” Project MUSE, University of Michigan Press, 2009, muse.jhu.edu/chapter/162047.

“Iran Country Profile.” BBC News, BBC, 2 Jan. 2018, 10 April. 2018 www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14541327

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Pantheon Books, 2003.

Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young, in Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse discuss the “frames” in which news media covers the missing women of the Downtown East Side and shape the way that these women are represented in the media (Jiwani & Young, 902). Framing provides a means for scholars, artists or researchers to search and relay information so that it revolves around a certain set of issues. In addition to frames, counter-frames can occur in different forms of media or art, that reject dominant views of society such as peoples “gender, [race] and class-based understandings” (Jiwani & Young, 903). Thus, in Maggie De Vries’ book Missing Sarah provides a counter-frame of protecting the dignity and identity of Indigenous women of the Downtown East Side and defying society’s dominant frame of these women as drug-addicted sex workers. Therefore, in this blog post, I will be discussing how Missing Sarah developed a counter-frame for society’s dominant frame of Indigenous women in the Downtown East Side.  

In Missing Sarah, Maggie De Vries uses counter-frames to represent Sarah, one of the missing women of the Downtown East Side, as a young woman fighting with identity issues rather than simply a drug-addicted sex worker. The use of Sarah’s letters followed by Maggie’s explanations of Sarah’s actions after these letters were sent, displays the struggles that Sarah had faced with finding happiness. In a particular entry on page 58 and 59 of Missing Sarah, Sarah writes to Maggie about her unhappiness, while still expressing love for her family that she was apart from while going to camp in Ontario. For instance, in this letter she writes, “I wish I could tell Mom how unhappy I am” as well as, “I love you” to both Maggie and her mother (Missing Sarah, 58). After this letter, Maggie De Vries is able to frame the meaning of the letter in ways that display how Sarah struggled with finding where she was felt she belonged, mentioning that though Sarah had said that she loved Maggie and her mother, she continued to run away more frequently after this letter was sent. This provided a counter-frame to dominant views of the Downtown East Side because this shows that Maggie De Vries was able to provide reasons such as her struggle to find her happiness that pushed Sarah to constantly run away, end up in sex-work, trying to make a living in a place with people going through similar identity issues as her. This bond with other women working as sex-workers in the Downtown East Side is shown in “Missing Sarah” when Maggie De Vries mentions the organization of PACE (Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education). She describes how this organization operates as a place that sex-workers can go and talk to ex-sex workers who truly understand their experiences. Maggie uses Sarah’s friend, Angela, to address how PACE is helpful to sex workers in the Downtown East Side in finding people to help them that truly understand what they are going through. Maggie De Vries quotes Angela saying, “Academics know book answers but forget all the variables of life, feelings, emotion, pain” (Missing Sarah, 99). In mentioning this organization, and quoting Sarah’s friend Angela, Maggie is able to address that PACE is a source of counseling for all indigenous women from people that they could truly relate to, while the rest of society could never understand their situation and why they initially got into sex-work. Thus, these aspects of Missing Sarah contribute to a counter-frame because they show that Sarah, along with others is struggling with internal issues such as figuring out their identity, that is much larger than their sex work and drug addictions.

In conclusion, Maggie De Vries in Missing Sarah was able to create a counter-frame for Indigenous women that defies their dominant representation in the media as drug-addicted sex workers. Through the use of Sarah’s letters and the mention of the organization of PACE, Maggie is able to show that there are many women struggling to find a place where they feel they belong. Thus, Maggie De Vries is able to highlight a counter frame of the Indigenous women of the Downtown East Side as women who have struggled to find where they feel a sense of belonging and true identity.  

 

Works Cited

 

Jiwani, Yasmin, and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 31, no. 4, 2006, pp. 895–917., search.proquest.com/docview/219564084/fulltextPDF/7BDBD373171E425BPQ/1?accountid=14656.

 

Vries, Maggie De. Missing Sarah: a Memoir of Loss. Penguin Books Canada, 2008.

The “Amazonia: The Rights of Nature” exhibit curated by Nuno Porto, displays a multitude of cultural artifacts and displays of the amazonian people. The exhibit showcases articles that were handcrafted by indigenous peoples of the amazon including a particular stool made by the Maroon peoples of Suriname out of brazil nut (Amazonia: The Rights of Nature). This stool is a representation of the political issues that indigenous peoples face with regards to exploitation of their resources and the colonization of their lands. This stool could also represent the translation of colonization in the 18th century, to a new modern type of colonization in the 21st century regarding companies taking advantage of the Amazon’s abundant resources of trees. Thus, for the purpose of this blog, I will be explaining the linkages between the colonization of amazonian lands to the current exploitation of indigenous peoples lands for deforestation.

This stool is a representation of colonization in the 1700’s by the Dutch, invading on the land of various indigenous groups in the Amazon. In particular, it reflects the conflict between the colonization of Maroon land in Suriname (Amazonia: The Rights of Nature). The museum label explains how it was not until the Maroon communities challenged the Dutch crown with war that the Dutch were “forced to recognize their right to be free” (Amazonia: The Rights of Nature). Thus, the Maroon people’s act of war against the Dutch cultivated a political issue over the right to the land. It is very possible to say that the land had belonged to the Maroon people before the Dutch had occupied it due to differences in opinion on property rights. Therefore, this stool represents political issues such as colonization and rights to land that lead to war between the Dutch and the Maroon peoples in the late 1700’s.

In current events, this stool made out of brazil nut represents issues with the conflict between indigenous peoples and large forestation corporations as opposed to imperialists in earlier centuries. Today, deforestation has infringed on the Indigenous people that use the Amazon’s plentiful and unique wildlife for their survival, resulting in a fight for “titling” (the legal right to land granted to indigenous peoples) (Allen Blackman). Allen Blackman in “Titling indigenous communities protects forests in the Peruvian Amazon”, explains that more than 1,200 indigenous communities have won their fight for title over their land, while representing a population of 11 million indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Though this number seems relatively small, it is an active display of resistance against larger corporations destroying parts of the Amazon that Indigenous communities depend on. This directly resembles the war of the 1700’s against the dutch as an act of resistance for the protection of their land and their communities.

In conclusion, the colonization of indigenous lands in the 1700’s and current deforestation of the Amazon rainforest are similar in the respects of using acts of resistance to combat the issue of rights to the land. The stool of the Maroon people displayed in the Amazonian exhibit is a reminder of various Indigenous communities fight for the right to live on undisturbed land and under the rule of others.

Works Cited

Blackman, Allen, et al. “Allen Blackman.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, National Acad Sciences, 17 Apr. 2017, www.pnas.org/content/114/16/4123.full.

“Amazonia: The Rights of Nature.” Museum of Anthropology at UBC, moa.ubc.ca/portfolio_page/amazonia/.

 

According to John Beverley, quoted in G. T Douglas’ “Signifying Bodies”, a testimonio is a testament to the oppression or marginalization of a group of people, represented by one individual (Douglas, 46). Also explained by Beverley, a testimonio can become an autobiography by the change of a few small distinctions such as “[losing] this connection” between the writer and the suppression of the group in subject (Douglas, 46). In this blog post, I will be analysing why it was effective for Rigoberta to write her story as a testimonio rather than an autobiography.

Menchu’s testimonio directs attention towards a larger population and larger issues than just her own. While she does mention her own experiences, her large focus is on the agrarian reform and the consequences of it on the entire Indian population of Guatemala. For example, when she explains that 106 peasants were killed in Panzos by coal workers during the reform, she states, “we felt like this was an attack on us” (Menchu, 160). By saying “we” in this moment, Mechu identifies herself with a larger group in order to convey how this suppression affected the entire Indian population. This differs from an autobiography in the way that it focuses on the justice of a larger population rather than an event that she personally experienced. Essentially, she is testifying for the natives of Guatemala. In the chapter Political Activity in Other Communities. Contacts with Ladinos, Menchu explains, “we have hidden our identity because we needed to resist, we wanted to protect what governments have wanted to take away from us” (Menchu, 170). Menchu explains how she, and the rest of the natives, felt that they needed to hide their identity from the rest of their nation to protect themselves from being exploited. She does not focus on the fact that she has hidden her identity alone, but rather situates herself with preserving the identity of natives in the effort to protect their culture. Essentially, in both examples that I have provided, she has used the pronoun “we” rather than “I” and this has effectively directed the attention of her book towards an issue of a population rather than issues of her own.

While Rigoberta Menchu uses personal examples to reflect on the trauma that has happened to her geographical surroundings, herself and the communities around her, she has reflected in a way that has drawn attention to a cause greater than her own life. Using the pronoun “we” and testifying for this larger population has caused her novel to make the distinction between autobiography and testimonio. In doing so, she has written a testimonio that represents the agrarian reform in Guatemala with great passion and emotion.

 

Works Cited

1. Menchú, Rigoberta, et al. “The CUC Comes Out into the Open.” I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala, Verso, 1984, p. 160.

 

2.Menchú, Rigoberta, et al. “Political Activity in Other Communities. Contacts with Ladinos.” I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala, Verso, 1984, p. 170.

3. Couser, G. T. “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir.” Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing, University of Michigan Press, 2010, p. 46.

There are a multitude of methods in which an individual living with a disability can produce their stories of living with a disability. I am particularly interested in the modern methods that artists have used to incorporate technology into a way of transforming their life into a work of art. In particular I would like to look at the way that Jason DaSilva has created an emancipation memoir, by using his illness with multiple sclerosis to enhance his creativity in his short film titled “When I Walk”.

According to G.T Couser in Signifying Bodies, an emancipation disability memoir is written to describe how the author can connect with others by displaying their abilities rather than their disabilities. DaSilva’s short film has created a new type of emancipation memoir through film, in the way it displays his struggles with having a disability but also how he is still able to complete challenging tasks and create a work of art. “When I Walk” puts DaSilva’s audience into perspective, as he displays how he has accommodated himself into a world that is not build for people with disabilities. For instance, in a small excerpt of his film, featured in an interview conducted by The Lip TV, DaSilva documents his struggle to hold a camera steady and uses his shaky clips in his film to demonstrate how he sees the world and how he mobilizes through it. It is also apparent that it is difficult for him to see the shots that he is filming because of his deteriorating vision, however, he uses this challenge to capture unique clips that create and artistic film that embodies his disability. In other words, instead of marveling in the fact that he cannot get a clear shot, he uses the shakiness of his hands and loss of vision to create a unique film that represents how he is living with his condition. Additionally, DaSilva’s narrating during the film allows for him to express his emotions and thoughts verbally to his audience. As told in the interview with The Lip TV, DaSilva narrates in his film, “everything is getting slower and slower but inside I’m racing” (DaSilva, Jason). In this part of his film, DaSilva is verbalizing how he refuses to slow his work and activities in life even though it is getting physically more difficult to complete simple tasks such as talking, walking and holding a camera. This allows him to convey how he is not letting the severity of his condition impact his desire to follow his passion of filming. Overall, Jason DaSilva uses his art both in speaking and unique filming, to connect with his audience and display what he can do with his challenges rather than what he cannot do.

To conclude, Jason DaSilva has created a different platform for the emancipation memoir. Through his display of artistic narrative and filming, DaSilva has shown what he is capable of, despite his condition. Thus, he has created an emancipation disability memoir that allows for his audience to connect to how he has accommodated himself to move through life, through his art of filmmaking.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Couser, G. T. “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir.” Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing, University of Michigan Press, 2010, pp. 43–44.

 

DaSilva, Jason, director. When I Walk. When I Walk, Cine Mosaic, 2016, wheniwalk.com/about-the-film-makers/.

 

“WHEN I WALK Documentary with Filmmakers Jason DaSilva and Alice Cook.” Youtube, TheLipTV, 23 June 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_1ot-TNA0U&feature=youtu.be.

Strength in the Younger Generation

In Kate Douglas’s article, Youth, Trauma and memorialization: The selfie as witnessing she explains that selfie’s have become its own “genre” (Page 2, Douglas) of modern day autobiographies. It is seemingly apparent that through the evolution of generations, technology has changed; and consequently, so has the younger generations narrative of experiences. Selfies have developed into its own form of autobiography; telling stories that are seen below the surface of the image. Connecting this idea to an article called Selfies: There are groupies, ussies, shelfies and even sealfies – but self-obsessed portraiture isn’t just a modern phenomenon, Getchen McCulloch elaborates on an idea explained by linguist, Mark Liberman, (Liberman, 2014) that selfies have expanded its definition from a simple photo taken in the mirror or from arm’s length, to portraits, with the person the main focus and –depending on the circumstance- the subject in the background. As I briefly explained, selfies have evolved narrative from the traditional chronicling of a story, to posting a photo of oneself and leaving the story to the readers depiction. Relating to the photos of the girl and boy taking selfies at the Pearl Harbour memorial referenced in Douglas’s article; a reader can interpret the meaning of the article based on its “edgework” (Page 9, Douglas). Edgework, or the physical attributes of the photo that may serve as a risk to the viewing audience, give the portrait substance that is up for interpretation. Particularly at sensitive locations described by Douglas as “traumascapes” (Page 4, Douglas). For example, in the photo of the boy grimacing at the camera, one could interpret the image as simply acknowledging the presence of a war memorial where many had lost their lives. The expression on Easy E’s face is debatably neutral and the caption is of similar nature. Perhaps the slight grimace on the face of Easy E has less to do with the history of the site, and rather the sun was in his eyes as he took the photo. Perhaps regardless of the sun in his eyes, he wanted to post the photo with his simplistic caption because he wanted to prove that he visited a place that contributed to much of our history. As explained in Douglas’ article, this form of “second-person witnessing” (Page 8, Douglas) is the ability to experience an event or activity through the visuals of others, most commonly through social media. This leaves a large gap for what is interpreted by the readers, as I demonstrated above using Easy E as an example. Conclusively, the selfie has not only developed a new genre of autobiography, it has allowed for the younger generation to think critically of situations through second-hand witnessing, studying and interpreting the traumascapes that present themselves in social media. Therefore, selfies should be viewed as an autobiographical phenomenon rather than criticized for their vanity or appropriateness for these reasons.

 

References

 

Douglas, Kate. Youth, trauma and memorialization: The selfie as witnessing. Sage Publishing. 2017.

 

McCulloch, Gretchen. Selfies: There are groupies, ussies, shelfies and even sealfies –but self-obsessed portraiture isn’t just a modern phenomenon. The Independent. April 2, 2014

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