The author of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, is dead, which seems like a good time to get out some thoughts about the series and its broader cultural impact. That basically goes:
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As a memoir of someone describing how their youth was disrupted by political turmoil it’s fine
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As a perspective on the Iranian Revolution it’s unhelpful except as an insight into how it looked to cosmopolitan upper-middle class Iranians who adopted the “stolen revolution” narrative. Bearded men with guns just kinda inexplicably show up halfway through the first book, and there isn’t much consideration of what motivated them beyond slavish obedience to clerics. By the point Satrapi drops that her Grandfather was a Qajar prince you should be able to deduce that it might not be the most representative perspective.
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As far as I know Satrapi and Persepolis weren’t themselves products of propaganda efforts by the Iranian diaspora and the foreign policy blob, though they obviously did aggressively promote them. I could be wrong on this
Idk, I wonder if people here have a different opinion.
Yes, yes, and yes.
That said, it is considered to be a ‘classic’ comic book because of its relationship to the Iranian revolution. We likely wouldn’t talk about it if it wasn’t about that movement specifically from the perspective of the spurned elite upper-class leftist.
It is the perfect vehicle to propagandize liberal freshman college students, and confuse them from the primary contradiction of our age. It is catnip to liberal “we have to hear from every demographic and perspective, except for actually poor illiterate people because they are stupid” professors.
It’s an interesting point people don’t mention amidst all the discourse over her work (which is more about how its cynically appropriated by the aformentioned Western ForPol blob rather than actual authorial intent).
Marjane Satrapi’s perspective weirdly reflects a common one among Iranian leftists and libs, both home country or diaspora, whose voices are drowned out by the amplified shahist worms (who, while simultaneously using her works, have coincidentally been pushing the propaganda that the revolution was the first incident of the “red-green alliance” to ingratiate themselves with the Western right).
For as much (justified) venom one can produce towards the Islamists and how the revolution turned out, they’d only be kidding themselves to deny that the Islamic Revolution was any less legitimate than any other of the big names. Akin to Anarchists and SRs claiming that the Bolsheviks were usurpers of the Russian revolution.
For the discourse itself, I’ve once heard someone compare Satrapi to Orwell which (aside from her NOT being a snitch) is fairly apt.
I had to read part of this in high school, around the time of wave 3 Islamophobia where there were a lot of mass shootings going on, I think the movie argo came out around them too. It ironically opened my eyes up about the middle east and the heavy involvement of amerika in it’s destruction.
Good thing my reading comprehension was bad then
