Body of Work: Graphic Novels and Female Shame

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As a girl myself, I understand the shame felt when we walk outside, the somewhat predator-like looks of men, and the flame of anger at them, wanting to snap back at them, but not doing so for the fear of what might happen. That shame is felt worldwide – female illustrators and authors of graphic novels wanted to change the outlook on the “perfect” female body, no fat, no cellulite, no pubic hair etc. They started drawing honest, and sometimes slightly exaggerated illustrations of their naked bodies.

“Through the use of caricature and sometimes grotesquely-exaggerated forms, visual arguments about women’s bodies can operate quite differently than they do in live-action television, film or even prose novels. TV is constrained, at least to some extent, by the limitations of real bodies, particularly those that are visually appealing. In prose, it may be arduous and distracting to describe the way an arm jiggles and dimples form across the stomach each time our protagonist leans forward or bends over, but in comics, we’re reminded of the body every time it’s drawn – which is often every panel or page.” In Gina Wynbrandt’s Will Someone Please Have Sex With Me, for example, “her (drawing of her naked body) and facial expressions [were] consistently exaggerated — her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her body splayed out in bulbous exaggeration”, a far cry from the stereotypical expectations of women’s bodies and behaviour.

“Through the act of drawing comics, an artist is translating an internal feeling into an external, physical representation, which Oksman says mirrors the way shame is experienced. ‘You feel shame before you have a language for it … [Comics can communicate] the excess of the body and its discomfort without putting it into language.'”

An image from Kristen Radtke’s Terrible Men. Photograph: Pantheon