 Friday, March 14, 2008
Hi. Welcome to the moment I've been waiting about three months for. Back in December, the READ staff was planning the issue that comes out today, "Crossing Boundaries." I've looked forward to it because it is all about girls being awesome. In making the issue, I got the chance to interview an awesome girl, author and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi. Satrapi's graphic novel, Persepolis was made into an international hit movie, and even got nominated for an Academy Award (YOU SHOULD CHECK THIS MOVIE OUT. IT'S RIDICULOUSLY GOOD!). A chapter of Persepolis is excerpted in this month's READ, and even a bit of my interview made it in. But for those of you, like me, who can't get enough of this wacky, verbose, and seriously talented Iranian lady, here is my full interview with her.
Interview with Marjane Satrapi on Persepolis, book and movie. Dec. 19, 2007
READ: The first book covers a lot of topics: war, childhood, east/west clash. Was there an objective, or a particular topic, that remained at the front of your mind throughout the entire process?
SATRAPI: Well all of those things. But I believe there is no culture clash between east and west. If people are educated, they have culture, and if they are open minded, no matter where they come from, then there is no clash. The clash comes from ignorance. Many people say that I made it clear in this book that it is very anti-theology. And I say, 'no, it is not anti-theology, it’s anti-repression.' That was how [this book] started. That was what I was most focused on, remembering. Remembering how it feels to when you are 6 yrs old, 10 years old going through that.
READ: It's apparent how much you prize your education. You've been quoted calling education the "key to emancipation."
SATRAPI: Absolutely. Education is everything. I really believe that it is a weapon of mass construction. If you want to build something it has to go through education. Education opens your mind. Education makes you understand that the other one is exactly like you.
READ: Being able to travel across cultures, and a knowledge of many languages must expand your ability to relate to others.
SATRAPI: Yes! You realize how similar we are.
READ: You often talk about our similarities. In the book, Iran is presented as a strict totalitarian state, whose laws only intensify as the book progresses. Freedom of speech, though, the dress, obviously the veil, everything is prohibited. But something that struck me was that the characters are such strong thinkers and individuals despite the rules.
SATRAPI: No matter what the government is, it doesn't stop people from thinking. Being in a free place doesn't necessarily make you free in your mind, either. Plus the fact that we knew we were living in a dictatorship opened our eyes even more.
READ: The scenes with your family and friends make the fundamentalist regime seem completely benign and ineffective.
SATRAPI: It makes us a schizophrenic people because we have to have behavior outside, but inside we are the same. And you have to find ways to transcend your situation. That's why I believe in human beings, because no matter what they do to us, I think, in your mind, if you are free, if you have a brain and you use it, than you cannot take any kind of [nonsense]. I consider everybody who is against repression my friends. No matter where they come from. They are my people; they are my nation. My nation is full of people who think clearly with the brain and with emotion.
READ: Our readers are American students in middle school. They are adolescents,and they, too, can relate to the themes in Persepolis.
SATRAPI: Of course. It gives me hope that no matter where we show this movie, India, France, America, in the same places where I laugh, they laugh. Laughter is really understanding the spirit of somebody. To see that something that made me laugh travels internationally and works on everybody, but this gives me hope. Maybe its possible to do something.
READ: Persepolis is ultimately about people, rather than types of people. It is not about men or women, this country or that country, fundamentalist democratic.
SATRAPI: Right. The nation of brains.
READ: When writing scenes, do you have a memory or an image in your mind?
 SATRAPI:
Well, it's not really a documentary about my life. It is based on my experiences, but it is not all true. For example, there is a scene in the book and the movie where extremists come and kill our neighbor. This thing happened, but not when I was 12. It happened when I was 18, and when I came back from Austria. But for narrative reasons, I wanted to my coming back from Austria to be the end of the war because I didn’t want to restart the war. In storytelling, it’s very important to know where to put the events. But when you work this way, even my own character becomes fictional to myself. Its from my own experiences and to convey my own feelings. The reality itself doesn’t interest me so much. The impression it has on the reader, the feeling, this is much more important.
READ: In terms of making the cartoon itself, what comes first, the pictures or the text?
SATRAPI: I have been thinking about that. I never think about it when I work, but now that I look back. It is like a baby growing up in a baby. It doesn't have first one eye, then one arm and the one leg, the other leg. All of them grow up at the same time. Once in a while I can start writing, but always have the drawing in mind, or I draw, but still I have the text in mind, but always it happens at the same time.
READ: We're excerpting the Kim Wilde scene from the book. I feel that this is such a relatable scene.
SATRAPI: Oh my poor parents! Putting themselves in danger for two stupid posters. They could have just told me [no], but they did understand how important it was to have these posters. Like all the other adolescents in the world, we loved pop music, but also, since our country was cut off from the rest of the world, this was a way to have the feeling that we were connected to the rest.
READ: Your character is so unassailable and outspoken and your parents truly foster that. Ultimately, they end up sending you to another country.
SATRAPI: Oh yes, they did so. My parents say that your kid doesn't belong to you, so if you love your kid, you let them go. That's what they did. They were very brave, I think.
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