IO Script

Choice 1: Persepolis and Liza Donnelly

Recently, the Taliban’s have taken over Afghanistan and ever since then, the women in Afghanistan
are restricted to the basic right of education and they are forced into marrying any stranger as and
when the rule requires. And I felt terrible about this incident that I wanted to finally talk about it by
taking up the broader global issue under culture, identity and community, more specifically, how
socially-constructed roles disrupt the idea of equal opportunities and power for women. The
oppression of woman can be seen everywhere, in every country and there are certain roles that a
woman is expected to play, and this clearly juxtaposes the idea of equality in terms of power and
opportunities. The works I have chosen, Persepolis and Liza Donnelly’s cartoon, both explore this
issue in a very unique way. Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi shows Marjane growing up in a
liberal family during the time of Iranian Revolution, where there was war and violence which all
contrasted her modern perception of the world. My body of work is Liza Donnelly’s series of cartoon.
She is an American cartoonist who has grown up during the civil war and the feminist movements
and these have incredibly influenced her perceptions. I chose these two works because they clearly
depict the global issue and more importantly, I was fascinated by how authors of completely
different backgrounds and dimension of time can portray a global issue through a similar way
through cartoons yet keeping it unique and distinct to their own experiences. Both of these authors
use colour and diction to explicitly and implicitly explore the global issue.

Starting with Persepolis, this novel brings out the vulnerability and inevitability of women and also
the toxicity of men in power that take religion as a tool to oppress women and their own individual
choices. We can see this in many instances, and one of them is shown in the extract. The extract is
from the chapter 18 Kim Wilde where Marjane’s parents get her pop posters and Marjane goes out
all alone to buy some western music tapes. As she comes back, the guardians of the revolution, also
the protectors of religious culture stop her for her outfit and we see them exploiting Marjane for her
outfit, as it is not abiding to the dress-code in Iran, specifically made for women. In the first panel,
we see Marjane who is all happy, who is listening to music and enjoying her time, and
simultaneously in the background we see the women guardians or the protectors of religious culture
in the car. And this background shows how even women are driven by patriarchy and the car that
they are driving acts as a symbol. The car symbolises the mindset of the women as driven by
patriarchy and they are driving or forcing it onto others in society to perform their roles. However, in
further panels, we can see that these guardians are still aware of punk style and basketball and
Michael Jackson, which shows the reader that they can be liberated but they were forced into
patriarchy by the regime.

And this difference between being liberated and fundamentalist is shown through the use of colour
by Marjane Satrapi. Throughout the novel, Marjane uses the deep contrasting black and white
colours, the black is used to represent religious fundamentalism whereas the white is used to
represent modernity. Even in this extract, Marjane is seen wearing a veil and the veil is in black
whereas the jacket and the punk shoes are seen in white. Moreover, the colour is also used to
express the guardian’s authority over Marjane. In panel 3, one of the guardian’s faces is half covered
in black, and black is a colour which shows evilness and Marjane is in all white which shows
innocence and purity. This gives a message to the reader that Marjane is being threatened and
exploited by the guardians for her outfit. The minimal use of colours in Persepolis gives the reader
Marjane’s view about Iran and the western world, while also makes the reader feel sympathetic for
women in Iran.
Furthermore, Marjane Satrapi uses diction to convey the extent of extremism that was faced by the
people in Iran during the revolution. The guardians of revolution in this panel are using very
inappropriate language towards Marji, who was just a teen. This is also seen when Marji’s mother
was abused and vulgarity of language was used on her in the chapter 11 - The Trip. All these
language techniques are used to provoke the reader and to show that the women in Iran are being
marginalized, no matter the age. Moreover, Marjane Satrapi uses juxtaposition in the first two
panels of the extract. In the first panel, we see Marjane nice and confident, she is listening to a song
whose lyrics read “We’re the kids in America” and this first panel juxtaposes the other panels in the
extract as compared to the situation she is in as she gets caught up in trouble. This juxtaposition
makes the scene more dramatic to the reader, which helps in conveying the message of forcing
patriarchy into the society of Iran. Overall, the extracts and Persepolis in general connects to the
global issue of socially-constructed roles disrupting the idea of equal opportunities and power. This
is because, we see in Persepolis, the women in Iran are being marginalized and are considered as the
carriers of religion which is forcing them to dress and behave in a fundamentalist way whereas men
are sent to fight for the country.

Throughout Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi glorifies the American culture and so for my body of work, I
have chosen Liza Donnelly, an American cartoonist, who presents her views about the contemporary
world and proves that the inequality of opportunity and the roles are still pushed onto women in a
western culture as well. This cartoon, titled how to testify as a woman was published in 2018, which
is 2 decades after the publication of Persepolis, shows the extent to which people have taken action
about the role of a woman in society. We see that in 18 years, the same theme is presented by two
different cultured people and this shows that there has not been a slight change in regards to the
opportunities and power and position for women and it shows that women are still expected to be
dependent and have to frame themselves in a way in order to gain respect. This cartoon shows the
way that a woman has to present herself in order to get a job, and the text overload in this particular
cartoon of Liza Donnelly shows how there are plenty of rules that a woman needs to follow to be
present and identifies to live up to the expectations of the society. This is further reiterated by Liza
Donnelly herself as she says in an interview that this cartoon was dedicated to what woman have to
do in order to survive in our biased culture.

As per the colour, Liza Donnelly does not use many elements of colour in her cartoons. This is to
allude with the views of the society which is so extra and expects women to be dressed up and
colourful. However, in her other cartoons, such as Make Belief or student body or who trump is, she
uses colours like pink, purple and other shades to show the dress and make up. However, in this
particular cartoon, we see the woman that is wearing grey, which juxtaposes the overburden of
expectations which makes her life grey, losing the colour of her identity. In fact, the cartoon itself
contrasts the society’s views. We see an office setting where a woman is trying to be financially
independent and try to take on responsibility which contrasts the society’s constructed role of
woman being in households and not being financially responsible. Therefore, the colour and the
setting that Liza Donnelly uses challenges the society’s expectations and questions the goal of
reaching equal opportunities for women.
 Moreover, there is a text overload in this cartoon compared to the amount of text that Liza
Donnelly normally includes in her cartoons. And this enormous amount of text reiterates that there
are plenty of rules that a woman is expected to follow in order to gain basic rights in the society.
These amounts of text make the reader face the realities of what a woman should be like. The
cartoon highlights the traits of a normal woman who is trying to be professional and not girly or
slutty and this is clearly seen with the word “sexualised” being repeatedly used in the context of
colour and hair. Moreover, the words used such as “non aggressive”, “quiet voice”, “No anger and
no yelling”, “pleasant” shows how a woman is meant to be soft and passive and not take any
aggressive behaviour and how it is the norm of the society that a woman has to abide to. All the
diction that Liza Donnelly uses in this cartoon oppose the setting and the colour. The setting and the
colour challenge the societal norms whereas the diction used states the societal norms. This also
shows to the reader how woman have unknowingly agreed to the rules of the society over the
decades which again intervenes with the idea of equality. And this juxtaposition that Liza Donnelly
portrays in the cartoon in the colour and the setting is what brings an element of humour in her
cartoons. The element of humour in Liza Donnelly’s cartoons are itself ironic and her funny depicts
sly and smart comments that tend to be accepted in the society, even though they come with bigger
issues. In fact, her cartoon collection book is itself named Funny Ladies and it is very ironic as she
expressed the inequalities faced by women in society in her book.

In conclusion, both Persepolis and Liza Donnelly portray the global issue of how socially-constructed
roles disrupt the idea of equal power and opportunities for women. And both the authors use
colour, diction and juxtaposition in unique ways to show the extent of discrimination, be it in a
religious, extremist or contemporary society. Both the works also justify the global issue as being
global and also show that even though the times change and decades pass, the issue still remains to
be resolved.