"Persepolis" as Propaganda, and the World of Comic Books.
I've read a lot of comic books over the years. So while looking through the 'Picks and Pans' section of the forum, Marjane Satrapi's animated film adaptation of her comic book jumped out at me. I have some definite and strong opinions regarding this. First I need to talk a bit about comic books. . .
In the world of comics over the 80's, 90's and early 00's, I have identified three groups or modes of thinking. Three different personality types which result in three different kinds of books. (None of these include the fascinating phenomenon of Japanese Manga or the legions of young readers which follow them. That's a much newer pattern and it has its own characteristics which I'm not going to touch on here. To understand "Persepolis", I think we need to look at the evolution of Comics published in the West, not re-prints from Japan.)
Three groups. . .
The First revolves around the standard Super-Person trope. --It is generally full of color and immaturity. Little boy power fantasies. It is distracting and dream-like, and for the most part on the creative side, it is populated by nervous men who grew up without really growing up. I've had the opportunity to meet several of its writers and artists, and I would characterize them as largely unknowing. "D&D geeks." Those which become writers and artists in that field tend to have their personal lives more together than the average 14 year-old male comic book reader of the 80's and 90's, which is to say they have social skills which make them generally friendly and benign. The whole Super-Person scene seems rather like the lunch hall in a high school where the Sci-Fi fans hang out. You can find some interesting conversation but it tends to dull quickly; pop culture and geek culture remain king, but it is limited and many of the top people in the field are clearly bored by it. I've met more than a few who have tired of the whole Bat-Man scene which filled them with passion in their youth, but having acquired the skills to create comics, the more accomplished seem often to be searching for something more and do not know how to find it. That's the Super-Hero scene.
The Second group is that of the Indy comic book artist/writer. This scene is much more volatile, it makes less money and so it has less stability. Comics made by this group have included books reproduced on photo-copiers and distributed by hand. It includes cheaply-pressed black & white books which are moved through the official channels (but survive on the fringes), and today proliferates on the internet as the phenomenon of 'Web Comics'. While the Web Comics scene has exploded, (the zero-cost of publishing means that thousands of amateurs dilute the scene), the serious career indy artists remain. While the scene itself has changed a lot, the career artists have not changed much in terms of personal character. They stay away from the typical Super-Hero model of story-telling as writers focus not on established and pre-sold cultural icons but rather their own personal dreams and fascinations. Through the 90's, many indy comics were printed in black and white and published by the creators themselves, so there was no editorial oversight to inflict its wishes. Virtually anything could be explored. Skill levels in writing and illustration varied, as there was nobody to weed out the lesser talents before artwork was sent to press. It was possible to find people expressing their ideas in ways which had never been explored before. Generally, these people were and are individualists, and their stories ran the gamut, but on the whole, I always found that there was a kind of happiness and light-heartedness across the spectrum. --Even those Indy comics which were filled with angry imagery and violent stories, (though there weren't many like this), seemed to have a 'bounciness' to it. Perhaps the therapeutic value allowed by being able to freely explore one's internal stuff provided some sense of relief which could be felt by the reader. I've met a lot of the creators in that group as well, and while many of them were clearly struggling with various personality twitches, (more so than the established 'big guys' in the first group who typically seemed locked into the garden-variety societal neuroses), they were more directly involved with the battle of waking up than the Super-Hero drones, who by and large, seemed better integrated into society. Few indy comics people made very much money; something which also cannot be said of the First Group.
Now the Third Group. . . This is where things get strange and creepy.
The Third Group looks by all outward appearances to be very much like the Second Group. --No Super-Hero comics, and little (apparent) constraint regarding the subject matter being explored, (though interestingly, there seemed always to be a certain vibration to it all which was rarely strayed from), and any and all art styles were allowed. Often, like the first group, they would self-publish works, though there was a big difference in this. Self-publishing was seen here, when it was done at all, as a stepping stone to alliances and contracts with larger publishers. There was (and is) a sense that publishing by oneself is not a happy place to be, which cannot be unilaterally said of members of the Second Group, who, should they have found monetary success, would in various cases have chosen to remain in that mode. The Third Group seems/ed to fit better in the classic top-down publishing model. "I'd rather have somebody else do all the book-keeping and public relations work. I just want to draw and write and be recognized. And paid." --But more than that. . , the concept of self-publishing is not far from the unpopular odor of 'Vanity Press'. While the Second Group seemed far less concerned by this notion, often instead taking pride in maintaining sovereignty over itself, the Third Group, (and I say this in a very general way), seemed to me somehow more offended by the idea of not being officially accepted by some larger authority. That's the impression I always had.
Perhaps because of this, the Third Group has also been the most out-spoken about the apparent lack of respect for comics as a literary and intelligent medium. As such, awards which are won are lauded as prestigious and important achievements. Much ado was made of the Pulitzer won by the oft-mentioned graphic novel, "Maus", (a re-telling of the Holocaust drawn using cartoon cats and mice). I've met a number of artists from within what I call the Third Group as well, and the impression I got was one of the whole black beret-wearing, un-appreciated tormented poet shtick. --Lots of highly intelligent nihilists celebrating their collective bleakness and misery, all with a recognition of the world is shite, but not a single one of them with the will to do anything about it except sneer at, "all the stupid people who don't get it". The whole scene made me angry whenever I encountered it, though I found it difficult for a long time to pinpoint exactly why I felt this way.
--In reading the "Laurel Canyon" series with regard to the music scene, a lot of new light began to shine and a lot of things I had previously pondered began to firm up.
As a child of the 70's, I always found the celebrated rock music of that decade and the one before it to be scary and unsettling in some horrible way. I avoided music and never really began to enjoy listening to the radio until much later on when small and less lucrative bands with no large industry associations began finding their way into the public conscious. The more recent, so-called 'alternative' music of the 90's much like the Second Group of comics, struck me somehow as more lucid and sane; even if much of it seemed born from frustration, it wasn't sick-feeling. There was significantly less druggy 'Purple Haze' about it.
Speaking of which, it might well be noted that Persepolis' author, Marjane Satrapi, spent time as a heroin junkie.
Another point of note is that one of the biggest publishers within the Third Group, --which spends a great deal of energy vaunting the intellectual superiority of comics, (and themselves), also happened through the decades of its existence (and perhaps still today, though I haven't checked recently) to underwrite a vast portion of its accounting through the printing and sale of comic book pornography. While the general intelligence level is higher, it has in ways a very similar 'smell' as the Laurel Canyon scene, if not the same evidence of debauchery.
Anyway. . .
While reading Persepolis, and seeing how the media was holding it up as a powerful, intellectual success story, I think it is important to step back and look at what the final message carried forth by it actually is. --In an industry where only one other comic I can think of has received such high (and similar) praise is a book condemning the Holocaust, it is damned curious to me that Persepolis paints a picture of Iran which is so conveniently oriented and timed given today's political activities.
Despite the appealing main character and her story, I came away after reading "Persepolis", (and I must admit, I haven't seen the film, although I understand it holds fairly true to the graphic novel), with the impression that Iran is a Bad Place under the rule of Bad People Who Cannot Be Trusted and who make the lives of Appealing Main Characters terrible.
How convenient.
While there is no direct connection, for some reason my brain jumps to the incident of the Atrocity Story where Iraqi soldiers smashed incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals. --A sob story told by Nurse Nayirah, an appealing 15-year old girl who nobody realized at the time was also the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador. (link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_Nayirah)
