The Paris attacks have left me, like everyone else, sad, angry, and bewildered. There’s a whole conversation about politics and ideology now taking place in the aftermath, which is very hard to sort out, as Jedediah Purdy has eloquently described. (See his “I Understand Nothing” on the Huffington Post.) But I suspect for many of the millions of people who massed in the streets of Paris today, there were also just a lot of memories – specifically, memories of comic books. I have a few of those memories myself, and the events of the last few days have drawn me back to them. I spent a chunk of many of my summers as a child and teenager with a French family living in the suburbs just south of Paris. The eldest of the three brothers was my constant friend and pen pal while growing up; we met in first grade when his father was on assignment to the US. My French friends were obsessed with comic books - and in a way that none of my American friends were. I remember taking the Metro into central Paris to find comic books with them, wandering through the Quartier Latin to a few favored stores – multi-story bookstores devoted entirely to comics. These bandes desinees - “drawn strips” – depicted everything: fantasies and adventure stories; dramas that came in installments with casts of characters; erotic escapades; political satires and cultural criticism. And jokes – whole books of jokes – slapstick comic routines, stupid jokes, sophisticated jokes, word puns, you name it. The books were passed between the brothers; shared out among friends; traded at school. The irreverence of many of the comics seemed an integral part of French culture – at least, the French youth culture of that time, which is the only French culture I’ve ever known up close. They did wonders for my reading skills – though the argot (slang) was constantly baffling – and my incomprehension a source of great amusement to my friends. I’m not sure that the emotional significance of Charlie Hebdo has really been comprehended in the Anglophone press I’ve been reading on the Paris attacks. The cartoonists were provocateurs, working in a tradition of satire and critique that goes deep in French culture. I won’t speculate on how deep, or where it comes from – I just know that, as a sheltered suburban American exposed to it in the comics around my French family’s house, it was at once exciting and shocking. It gave me a modest education in French politics of that time – I had, after all, to learn who these people were who were being lampooned in its pages. Charlie Hebdo had, in my hazy memory, a pretty consistently anti-racist and open-minded vibe, without sparing anyone (including, of course, any religious figures, Islamic or otherwise). And it was embraced by my friends as speaking to them in a way that little else in establishment French politics or culture did. I am not sure if I’m Charlie – I’m not sure what that would mean – but I do have memories of Charlie. And I’m grateful to Charlie. What a great thought, and not just for an academic - that you can confront the powerful with just a pen and some wit. I hope it’s true. I’ve no idea if it is or ever was, but it’s a nice thought to build a life on. Mine seems partly built on it. Rest in peace, dear cartoonists.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:37:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015