Persepolis Review

So for this week, I decided to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It is an autobiography of the author who lived through her childhood till her life when she is about to leave Iran for France. Her childhood life was filled with dark, scary life of the victim of the war. she is also the odd child as she lived through her live absorbing all the knowledge from her parents which makes her have a more mature point of view than her surrounding. The constant  fear of the becoming the victim of bombing of the war between Iraq and Iran and attacked from the Islamic regime afterwards made her parents sent her to Austria when she was in high school to live a better life. In Austria that she encountered cultured that is different than hers as she was raised in an Islamic society which prohibited some of the cultures she had encountered. There in Austria that she went through her phase that made her depress and decided to went back to Iran, hoping that everything would be normal again. Her journey back in Iran led her to a whole new relationship that by 1991 she married after 2 years relationship with the ex-Iranian soldier while she was still under study in the University for the graphic design. Her married life ended up in a disaster after a month and though they are still struggling with it, Marjane decided to ended it 3 years after and she moved to France to continue her studies

This autobiography graphic novel is really an interesting book to read. This is my first time hearing this graphic novel. After seeing how some of the classmates are really into this graphic novel it really piques my interest to give it a shot and I’m glad that I read it. I admit, it is quite some experience reading this. This certainly opens my knowledge on what is happening in Iraq and Iran. Well, I know some of the information but to be able to see from the perspective of the Iranian who had to gone through such a hardship really open my eyes to the whole war experience. Reading this graphic novel to be honest is quite a challenge because the context itself is really dark as it also talked about what is happening in Iran and Iraq and for me who doesn’t really have quite the knowledge of the background depicted in this story really makes me read the history before continuing the graphic novels which makes it interesting because now I gain more valuable knowledge about Iran and Iraq. The point of view of Marjane  herself is really interesting as she really live a rich life although she has gone through such an experience but I feel all her adventure Is really interesting and I actually glad that she made it into a graphic novel so that her knowledge and her influence can be reached to everyone.

Not only her point of view on certain things makes this graphic novel interesting, the art style that are shown in this graphic novels is really different than any comic I read so far. in a way it is similar with Art Spiegelman’s Maus, with his simplified and stylized drawing but in a way her art style is quite different than Maus as well. it is simple but the way each panel are portrayed is  like a modern art where everything is made flat and simplified. It is interesting in its way because it is simple and it is easy to read. Although the context is pretty heavy, the art style makes it easy to read which is really enjoyable for me, although reading the 2 books in one go really quite a challenge but enjoyable as the same time.

Overall. I really enjoys reading this graphic novel. The heavy topic and the complicated situation of her really gave me a challenge reading this as I am not really used to read this but overall, this is still quite an experience. I cant really wait to read her other works. 

Stereotype in Media

Looking back at all those stereotypes that are depicted in animation and gaming,  It really does feel very offensive. When I was a child, I was not fully aware of this matter as I was not really exposed to the culture yet, like African American is depicted as either a tribal man or a people with southern accent, or Chinese people are depicted with a protruding teeth, slanted eyes and a triangular hat. At first, I did not realize it at all because I thought they are just mimicking a person. However, as I grew older, I do realize that all these stereotypes are really weird and even disturbing  and it is a good thing that actually our society realize that and now, we can see the changes being made for a better like how the African American are depicted more realistic like in the series the boondocks, or how Asian are depicted better without all the stereotypical that I mentioned above with the more realistic in marvel all new Hulk, with the main character originated from an Korean American family.

It’s really nice to see how media evolves as people getting more aware over this stuff. How about the gaming? In the surface we didn’t really see a racial difference or stereotypical, but one thing really shown is how over exaggerated the proportion of the game character itself. One of the examples is the evolution character Lara croft in Tomb Raider. If we saw the first rendition of the character, we can see how exaggerated the body proportion is and that raise concern within female gamers community as it grew overtime. That cause the changes in the proportion of Lara Croft over time and for the upcoming Tomb Raider game, we can see how the character design evolved to a more tamed version but still shows how athletic Lara Croft.

It all good until I stumble upon this pictured that are taken from bulimia.com. it is a series of pictures of a game character that are photoshopped that makes each character to have a plus size. To me this action is getting really ridiculous and I don’t think this is a healthy action at all. Basically what they are trying to do is trying ensuring that being a plus size is okay and the game creator should be ashamed by creating a very unattainable figure size to make woman feel bad. First I don’t think that this size is unattainable at all. If we saw all these figures we can see that they are all supposedly an athletic type I feel that by if we are to change the size of the figure, it would make it even more unrealistic for the sake of the game. They are athletic type because the game that are portrayed in this picture are supposedly for an action and adventure genre, if we were to make the woman figure in this game a plus size, would it be ridiculous because it will not fit into the genre at all. 

It is also usually the characters in the game are purposely design to be exaggerated for the sake of the appeal. The exaggerated figure are usually more appealing than a realistic figure. That is why we can see for the male character, sometimes it gets really ridiculously bigger and more masculine because the game creator wants to make it stylize and more appealing. if we look the picture below, we can definetely see how muscular these characters are. i believe that it is intentional to make it really muscular because the game creator wants to make the character more appealing and powerful, and what better ways than to make it more muscular.

same goes for woman,  the proportion of a small waist and big hips are sometimes used for the sake of appeal and changing it just because it is rude is actually a rude things to do. if that was the case, why there is no complaint from the man side about the unattainable size of the male character that are depicted in the game? If we sees the statistic of the average of the male in the US, it is not that different than woman but how come there is no protest against the size of the male character in the game? Is it because it is a normal things for man to workout? if that was the case, would it go the same with woman? Woman can workout as well to attain the size that are similar than one we always find in the game character. That is why in Comic con, we can see some of the people dressed up as the game character really well because they have attain the physiques that is similar than the game character they are trying to portray by working out or do a strict diet. There is no such things as unattainable body size, it is a matter of our will to make it like that and it is with workout. It is not a healthy attitude to blame everything on the society where the problem actually lies within one self.

I admit that I am overweight myself and seeing all those characters from the game really makes me worry about my figure, but that didn’t make me want to blame it on the game creator. As a matter of fact, it inspire me to workout to achieve the figure that I see on the game. trying to be healthy actually help me improve my work efficiency which makes me really happy. it really encourage me to workout even more.

In conclusion, though these awareness  throughout the media has been changed for a better over the time, there are some things that in my opinion that are getting out of hand. The racial awareness made a good progress by depicting character based on their traits and not by history instead of their history. However, The fat shamming that are depicted in this picture to force the game maker to make all female character to look like a plus size is not a  good way to promote healthy lifestyle.  Although the message might be good to be happy with what you have right now, to force one trait for everything else is not a good message.

Habibi Review

So for the extra reading, I decided to go and read Habibi by Craig Thompson. After reading Blankets, I was hooked by his story and his drawing style and I got really curious after the book was introduced in the class because I didn’t get a chance to read the whole book. So after some time, I finally able to read this graphic novel and I can say that Craig Thompson really did not disappoints me. Habibi is really a gorgeous book, talking about the relationship between Dodolah and Zam in a harsh fictional Islamic fairy tale landscape.

As any of his work, I always find his artwork to be very interesting. The clarity of the movement of the character is really strong that you can clearly see the action and the story right away. What really mesmerized me is background layout. I know, the first time I read Blanket I fell in love with his style and with his later book, Habibi, he really took it to another level. The detail of the Arabic art that was used all over this book is really beautifully done. The fine detail of each line really depicts the Arabic art perfectly. I can’t really imagine how long will it take him to draw one page of the title because as you can see, here in this image, you can see how much fine lines and details that he has to draw to achieve such perfection.

Not only his pattern art that stood out. His ability to mix the Arabic art to enhance the emotion of the story is really interesting. It is shown in this image below how we can see the Arabic words transform into an image of trees. The way he use the ink to blend those 2 elements is what really intrigues me.it must have taken him a long time to study the art of Arabic art and alphabet to be able to incorporate perfectly into his graphic novels.

Another thing that I really like about this graphic novel is the story itself. I really like how he really studied the teaching of Islam to make this graphic novel even more believable, just like how he incorporated the teaching of Christianity in his graphic novels, Blanket. Here you can see how Craig, incorporated the Qur’an and another Arabic alphabet teaching into his story with his explanation of Dodolah emotion and thoughts through the teaching of Qur’an. He also used the Arabic alphabet in the section, where Dodolah first learned Arabic and how she taught it to Zam. It is really interesting as I read because, not only I get entertained by the stories, I also get to learned the history of Islam, Qur’an and Arabic letters. As I was raised in the Christian family, learning other religion for the sake of knowing it is really an interesting journey. I guess, it is the same with Craig, as we can see in the book how He also not only mention Qur'an verse, but he also took some of it from the bible as Both Qur'an and Bible are telling about the same stories with some difference. so for me who are more accustomed to the bible teaching, it is really interesting to find out how similar it is the Qur'an to the Bible

Overall I really like this book. For me, this is his greatest work yet. We can see how his art has become more matured and more sophisticated compared to his previous book, Blanket. It is still a beautiful graphic novel but the art in Habibi really exceed the one in blankets in my opinion. Overall, I really like this book and I can’t wait for his next breakthrough.