I was most struck by two elements in Special Exits: Repetition and representations of Race/Racism.
Repitition
While we hardly get any sense of the protaganist caregiver, Laura's internal process or emotions, Farmer uses repetition to make readers feel Laura's struggle as a caregiver, a laborer. Repetition is also a way to represent the passage of time.
Everything is in black and white, almost the whole book is eight panels to a page, there's not much variation in tone.
Repetition of phrases:
"What color dress do you want?"
"Is there anything to eat or drink?"
"I don't want to go to the hospital"
Repetition of images:
Laura bathing Rachel's naked body (becoming weaker and weaker)
Rachel's dolls
Laura driving to and from her parent's house Lars and Rachel lying on the couch
Laura brushing Rachel's hair
Ching scratching Laura
Lars picking up the morning paper
Laura grocery shopping
Laura cleaning
Laura telling Art "Thanks for being there" (even though we don't see him doing anything)
Laura getting Rachel Dr. Pepper
Laura grimacing
Rachel's frazzled hair
I imagine these images and phrases were what Farmer saw and heard when she went to bed at night after a long day of caregiving. I was exhausted midway through this book and I think that was Farmer's intention; for us to feel a bit of the exhaustion that she felt.
Race/Racism
Through Margeaux's teachings I've learned a lot about the concept of constructing unlikeable characters and how that's different than being an unlikeable narrator or author. And this is memoir, so Farmer is telling her truth. Farmer makes the characters who are in positions of power and appear white: Doctors, the funeral home director, out to be shady crooks and I thought it was amusing at first and then began to expect it. A doctor on the phone looking at the racetrack scores? Sure why, not?
I never got used to the representations of people of color in the book though. Lars and Rachel live in South LA in what appears to be the epicenter of the riots after the Rodney King beating. It starts with a neighbor mother, Sheralee, and her twins on page 26. Sheralee tells Rachel she needs an abortion and follows it up with, "But my brother says no. I think he wants the extra welfare payment." Rachel tells the mom about Planned Parenthood and tells her not to tell anyone she "helped" her. (A woman's right to choose comes back later when Laura and Rachel share a moment) The chapter ends with Rachel giving Sheralee PP's number, making Rachel out to be the savior. So let's say Farmer's stepmom told her this story. And let's say it was true. Farmer still chose to keep in material that would perpetuate stereotypes about a group of people that she doesn't come from.
The TV tells the family how to be scared regarding the rioters and Laura and Art decide they need to get Charles (presumably a person of color they know) to drive them in a van through South LA while they hide in the back. Despite all the fear, Lars and Rachel actually aren't harmed.
Then there is the incompetent nurses aide (page 138) who lets Rachel fall out of bed, "No Ma'am. They was down. I just left her for a minute!" and the other illiterate aide on page 146: Laura: "She's blind" The nameless aide: "I didn't know that". (There's a sign above Rachel's bed taking up half the panel.)
Then on 154, a KKK statue arrives in the picture. Long enough for me and Rachel to say, "What?" And then disappears.
On 159, Lars starts getting Meals on Wheels and enjoys the ribs and cornbread muffin, telling Laura she can have the greens. She says, "A balanced meal, South LA style!"
On 168, Laura points out Lars' ignorance about Greek cuisine to her friend: "Don't worry, he thinks "Greek Food" means greasy burgers and fries, further locating them in an urban-immigrant community.
I find myself saying to myself that Farmer was born in the 30's. That she's was less overtly racist and more creative than my granny was. And I want to hold her work accountable to what it represents. Her parents are presented as two white people "from a bygone era" who were there before the neighborhood got "scary". Their house is an island. This is the same issue that we come up against time and time again, I don't want Farmer to rewrite her family's history, I just want equal representation for the other people in South LA so that they aren't just minor, unnamed characters in Farmer's graphic novel.
While I agree with the some of the usage of repetition in the text, I felt like it was also simply true to the experience of caring for ailing parents whose memory is likely diminishing. I have heard many stories, many jokes and phrases from my father being repeated daily! It's sometimes funny but sad at times. Perhaps this is also what Farmer was trying to convey. I do also agree that there were racist aspects of the memoir but felt less like they were trying to antagonize characters or a group of characters and more like Farmer was simply trying to stay authentic to the experience. I can say from experience also that regardless of your color or creed, in resting homes mistakes like that are seriously made all the time! Again, it's sad but true. Can't speak on much else but I also think that as, you have done, when it comes to our parents, our grandparents and their ideas about racism, races, etc. we have to also consider the times they grew up in and the what they perceive as "common knowledge" and socially acceptable mindsets of that time. I am by no means condoning that kind of behavior or creating excuses for that. I just think it helps us to understand perhaps why someone might think a certain way. We can always work to change that of course!
ReplyDeleteFarmer could have chosen any details from those years, and she chose details that evoke race/racism. Those passages that you mentioned are frustrating, and I wonder what the text is trying to say. My impression was that Farmer intentionally maintained the family histories of the characters as only partially known, emphasizing the Danish ancestry as knowable/memorized/documented through stories while not verbally signifying ancestry in other stories. The text seeks out constructs of "Whiteness" through conflict (particularly through paranoia about the aftermath of Rodney King's beating/attack/public torture) and then leaves insecure gaps in its reification. I think that the text raises a lot of questions about the stability/shifting of identity, and that the seemingly unquestioned lens of an Anglo/White racist imaginary/imagination may be intentional for character development that never becomes explicit. There's something going on in the relationship between Lars and Cordelia v. Lars and Rachel, something significant (and potentially very messed up) about Laura's tense relationship with Rachel, something happening in diverging and loud/quiet family histories. Or maybe I just read this memoir really weirdly.
ReplyDeleteit's an interesting urban/social history, in that the neighborhoods change and the original residents become outsiders. The newcomers are never neighbors (they didn't know the mother died). The antagonism of race here is intentional, I believe and we can talk about it. But rather the book, the lives had a friction with race. What? those nice old people?
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Thanks for bringing my head out of the cat --that all of this very ordinary story happens within a specific time of greater human conflict adds dimension and tension. Racism in this book informs a readers' understanding of the Rodney King beating and aftermath by layering a personal perspective that reveals stereotypes as part of "the problem".
ReplyDelete"Old people" may suffer most universally from stereotypes, as I guess we'll all find out.
I'm compelled by your discussion of repetition, particularly your assertion that "repetition is a way to represent the passage of time." I think that this is absolutely true though I'm having difficulty figuring out exactly how Farmer (and other authors) actually do this. The repetitive scenes, as you dually noted, also convey tone and emotion. There seems to be a universal tone for all the characters, something I allude to with the term "band-aid-humor" in my response. I question whether this universal tone is attributable to the context (dying parents) or more so to the adult child (Farmer/Laura) narrator?
ReplyDeleteSailor, I really appreciated that you pointed out the racial undertones in Joyce Farmer's graphic memoir. It's a difficult subject, a nuanced subject. I don't know how else Farmer should have presented Laura's neighbors, nurses, or doctors. It's an interesting discussion I'd really like to have in class, so I look forward to tomorrow! ~m
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