In the graphic memoir, "Lucky," Bell uses seemingly trivial moments from her life to allude to concepts with greater meaning. Bell does this artfully by leading the reader from an external circumstance, in which she often appears dejected and skeptical, into a moment of interior realization.
On page 9, Bell depicts herself in conversation with an art professor whose eyes are cast away from her while he motions her towards an empty chair. The empty chair alludes to ideas of space and the occupation of space. This metaphor is extended further when Bell writes, "imagine sitting inside a box exactly the size and shape of your body," suggesting a consideration not only occupation of a physical manifestation of space but how the body functions as a space in which the mind is permanently occupant. Bell also seems to be thinking about specifically female space and occupation here. A male figure of authority is deciding the space she is meant to occupy and precisely how she is meant to occupy the space. The professor asks, "now can you turn your head in the opposite direction," to which Bell, resisting his direction, replies "well, I'd like to but I'm afraid if I keep it like that it will cut off the circulation in my neck. And I'm like to get brain damaged." Bell is illustrated with a slight smile and with her eyebrows turned up in amusement, suggesting that while this may be a literal concern of comfort for Bell, her response also functions as a form of resistance against a heteropatriarchal society that designates female spaces and how women function within them.
Throughout her graphic memoir, Bell struggles to find work, often leading her back into art modeling. Bell seems to be commenting on the double bind of insufficient finance with a lack of justly compensating and/or meaningful work. In the fifth frame, Bell shows herself crying, curled into herself in a corner of a room filled with objects, showing the emotional and mental consequences women face when objectified. Bell, playing upon a relatable feeling of impatience and annoyance, underscores her loathe of modeling (and perhaps, of our heteropatriarchal society) in the sixth frame when she writes, "This line isn't moving! Argh! I hate this! ... Wait a minute, I'm not modeling, hey, this is kind of fun!" Throughout history and certainly in the present, this double bind often forces women into work of and relating to the female (and generally feminine) body, and is systemically sustained by devaluing women, the gender gap in the dollar, and constant maintenance of a corrupt gender binary.
This feminist narration continues throughout the graphic memoir as Bell often depicts herself with men attempting to problem solve her or for her. On page 64, Bell is shown having lunch with Andy. While Bell prompts Andy into advice giving, his solution that "it's much better not to hang to it so much," is abstract and reiterates generally male notions of strength and independence, "it means you have to rely on your own inner resources." In an attempt to help Bell, Andy then takes her to a yoga class with a revered male instructor. The instructor pushes Bell to do a handstand and is shown physically supporting Bell, but despite his "support," but Bell falls none the less. The instructor then takes it upon himself to validate Bell but with (karmic) qualifications when he says, "for example, this lady here... she accomplished in forty seconds what took me forty years to learn! But maybe she was a yogi in her past life" (73). Bell is then shown with arms crossed and an angry face implying contempt of the male>female dynamic.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteNice work at tracking the gender implications to both the text and the visuals. Inside of this how does Tom play out. It's interesting that her male characters don't include family but more either judgmental or co dependent males (except for the confrontational boy at the table when she's selling her books. There's a lot to say on this-thanks for starting the exploration
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On page 35, the narrator Gabrielle has an anxiety dream about her lack of substantive work, in which she is working " on commission at a yard sale". She wakes up next to sleeping Tom, and despite what she "has" in the here and now, she wishes to go back to the dream. "At least then I would have a job". Who knows what anxiety dream she would have within THAT dream, but the relationship is secondary to the dreams in this book. This is made clear from the get go, as we see these two characters making earnest, deliberate and repeated plans to live apart from each other so that they can "work". The narrator has been told by a "real artist" that she must be alone to create ,and Tom is in the way. On the first page of the book, page 6, there is an illustration of the narrator blithely riding past Tom, as if he is a traffic cone on an obstacle course. That seems to be his function in this piece. He's not really getting in the way, but the narrator has to maneuver around him.
ReplyDeletethanks for the feminist read on this, anna. i was thinking a lot about the dynamics between women and men in this text and also a lot about the psychic trauma she experienced while art modeling-- that whole process of de-personalizing yourself and your body in order to become a "subject" for the artist's eye. it was interesting, too, to think of her on the other side of that experience when she was going to art classes to draw/paint. how did having had that experience as an art model change the way she approached artmaking when she was a spectator as opposed to a subject?
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