The complicated legacy of Marjane Satrapi, creator of ‘Persepolis’

It was the twelvemonth 2008, I was hunched implicit the household machine with an outer hard thrust the size of a ceramic plugged in, carrying the latest haul of illegally downloaded movies my member ferried for maine from his precocious velocity Internet astatine Delhi University.

On the paper for that evening was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I hungrily took successful what felt similar the archetypal ever analyzable depiction of pistillate rage, rebellion, and audacity that my schoolgirl encephalon desperately needed. 

Persepolis was a revelation. To accidental it changed my beingness would beryllium an exaggeration. But it did marque a location successful my mind, swirling and mildly whispering successful my ear. 

After the quality of Satrapi’s passing past week, my timeline was filled with reactions, critiques and tearful tributes alike. To many, she was the look of absorption against spiritual patriarchy, to others, she was an influential fig co-opted (perhaps willingly) by Western imperialism.  

When I archetypal watched Persepolis, I lacked the media literacy and governmental cognition needed to place that the discourse is not ever achromatic and white. It moved maine successful ways that confirmed biases that astir majority-religion Indians are indoctrinated into from a young age. But adjacent then, I could place the mode successful which religion, each 1 of them, creates arbitrary boundaries that girls and women are expected to beryllium softly within. We transportation the load of honour. I could subordinate to the feeling of being violative by simply existing successful my body, of being morally policed, controlled, uncovering “freedom” lone wrong the 4 walls of my home.

Whether successful Iran, India oregon the West, women ever look to look the brunt of fascist nationalism. Everything is up for grabs — our bodies, our thoughts, our stories. Every religion seems agreed successful the request to power girls and women, and each nationalist task is afloat of men anxious to usage our symptom to beforehand their ain agenda. 

Visibility and responsibility

After Satrapi’s passing, I decided to revisit Persepolis. Predictably, it holds up. Persepolis is an iconic portion of work. Released betwixt 2000 and 2003, the autobiographical anthology has been translated into implicit 20 languages and holds a spot successful the comics conception of each large bookshop present astatine home. It is influential and persistent. Satrapi is simply a prolific storyteller. She has the quality to beryllium susceptible without shame, to constituent and laughter astatine authorization (and herself) without diminishing the gravity of grief, to humanise her world. Her striking artwork influenced the scenery of graphic novels, and demonstrated the sheer powerfulness of the format. 

In her work, Satrapi does much with less. As a cartoonist who works with black-and-white minimalist art, her usage of antagonistic abstraction and bold, elemental lines made maine privation to halt speechmaking and commencement drawing. Her ocular storytelling invites the scholar to consciousness alternatively than beryllium told what to feel. Persepolis besides uses shocking and graphic imagery to large effect. The artwork is blunt and haunting — capturing precisely however a kid mightiness acquisition and retrieve violence. It is simply a masterclass successful telling a acheronian communicative successful an engaging and sometimes humorous way, without ever diminishing its cruelty.

In the book, Satrapi tells her ain communicative of increasing up during the Islamic Revolution successful Iran. Criticising her due to the fact that her enactment has been utilized by Western imperialist projects to reenforce organization Islamophobia feels similar a antithetic signifier of misogyny. What should she person done — not archer her story? The work of situating a enactment wrong its humanities and governmental context, and engaging with the nuance the storyteller intended, does not remainder solely with the author. It is simply a load that indispensable besides beryllium shared by the audience.

Should women stay soundless due to the fact that determination is simply a anticipation that their accounts of resisting oppression could beryllium appropriated by their governmental enemies? Absolutely not. 

It is besides existent that the force of an force is not ever a friend. After the occurrence of Persepolis catapulted Satrapi to planetary fame, she became a governmental figure. And with that visibility came a grade of responsibility. Satrapi’s enactment was wielded by war-mongers and Western imperialists to validate orientalist narratives successful a post-9/11 satellite raring for immoderate excuse to spell to war. Her depiction of gendered oppression nether the Islamic Republic was often appropriated to further the communicative that Muslim women needed to beryllium “saved” from their veils done Western intervention.

Making country for complexity

Satrapi did not person the powerfulness to power however her autobiographical enactment was deployed by others, but she did person the power, and the platform, to reenforce the anti-imperialist stance she claimed to hold. And successful galore ways, she did precisely that. She spoke retired against Western intervention, criticised France’s prohibition connected the hijab, and defended Iran erstwhile her enactment was utilized to demonise Iranians alternatively than execute what she had primitively acceptable retired to do: represent them arsenic afloat quality beings and bring their stories person to the remainder of the world. 

However, it would beryllium patronising to Satrapi to suggest that she was simply a passive perceiver of however her enactment was interpreted, fixed each that has transpired since Persepolis was archetypal published successful 2000. Therein lies my disappointment. In caller years, Satrapi progressively echoed neoliberal talking points and, astatine times, rhetoric that veered uncomfortably adjacent to the governmental right. This was particularly evident pursuing the escalation of Israel’s unit against Palestinians aft October 7, 2023, erstwhile immoderate of her nationalist interventions seemed astatine likelihood with the anti-imperialist commitments she had antecedently articulated.

Satrapi was a analyzable idiosyncratic whose beingness was shaped by grief and trauma. In an epoch wherever judgments are formed and verdicts delivered wrong a azygous quality cycle, I privation to marque country for complexity. I defy the impulse to specify her solely by the positions I recovered astir troubling, oregon by her astir caller nationalist remarks.

She became an planetary fig due to the fact that of the powerfulness and quality of her storytelling successful Persepolis. Through that work, she touched my life, offering insights that deepened my curiosity and expanded my empathy. For that, I americium grateful. 

The writer is an award-winning governmental cartoonist and creator of the webcomic ‘Sanitary Panels’. Her debut book ‘Touching Grass’ is retired now.