Skip to main content

Reading Sita's Ramayana, Tindering, and Considering Feminism

By

I've been back on Tinder lately, and, in my swiping, I've noticed a solid portion of the women I come across are searching for a woman for their man. It's odd and often uncomfortable for me to see. It reminds me of how even today, we view women not as individuals. We, as women, are always connected to something, or should I say, someone else.

Of course, it doesn't help I've been reading Sita's Ramayana, so I'm all on a feminism kick. It's basically a graphic novel adaption of the epic poem The Ramayana but written in the perspective of Sita rather than Rama, as it is usually told.

The Ramayana is your traditional hero epic. There's lots of battles, death, and weddings. If you're interested in the traditional story, I'd recommend checking out Crash Course's mythology series, however, as Sita's Ramayana focuses on something a little different than the original epic. It's focuses, on the title implies, on Sita's expereinces. Everything is framed through what she experiences, which is relatively unsual.

As I was reading (and Tindering), I noticed there is a disconnect between the art and text in Sita Ramayana. The text looks like it ahs been slapped on to the art like a kindergartner going rogue with a glue stick and some magazine cut outs (see above panels from the book up). They don't match.

Moyna Chitrakar, who did all the art for the book modled their art style after traditional Indian art. The faces are stylized, leaning more on the side of language than reality in comic critic Scott McCloud's pyramid of pictorial vocabulary. This simply means, we know it's a face because it's got eyes and a nose and a mouth  but it doesn't look like something you'd see in real life. You can, though, for sure tell it's a face.

This lack of realism coupled with bright outrageous colors reminds me that the world in which this story takes place is not my reality. It's one of gods and goddesses, fantastical beasts and faraway lands. The almost type writer styled text, however, keeps me grounded and reminds me I'm reading it in this world, which is important cause even though Sita is a goddess, she's still a woman and at the base, her story is one of many women.

Two dudes fought over her, so she told them both to shove off and did her own thing. Her words are so different than the traditional Indian artwork to show that she is bucking tradition and taking this traditional story in her own hands. It is her story told through her voice. She refuses to allow anyone to take it from her.

I admire Sita for that in this book. Reading this graphic novel makes me want to message all the unicorn hunters I keep running into on Tinder and ask them their story, not the story of how they met their husbands and boyfriends, but their own story as women. It makes me want to tell my own story as well. Sita's Ramayan may not have begun as a feminist retelling of an a traditional story, but I think it's become one, at least for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of Aya: Life in Yop City

By
To begin this week's post, I'd like to first address a few things about the author's duty to his/her readers. When we think of reading material from other countries or cultures, what factors are important to us? What information do we need in order to recognize the significance of the author's work? For me, it's important for the author to find some way to connect to me as a reader. Do we share a common experience? Can I relate your story to mine? This is not to say that a writer's work is rendered unimpressive if they choose not to do this. But I do think it goes without saying that most impressionable works hit us emotionally. I also think that an author should be conscious of the world that they are painting for the reader. Is it true what you're writing? Does it provide some sort of insight into the world as you see it? Are you confirming outside opinions of your culture, or are you breaking the stereotypes that have been placed upon you? That being sai...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bringing Africa into the Fold

By
The comic Aya: Life in Yop City does a fantastic job of illustrating a culture different from the more popular Western variety. For those reading this, have you ever considered Africa in any way that was not influenced by main stream media? No? Well me either. It is sad to say, but my view of Africa was just - more or less - a vast land of chaos and poverty. Why? Because is that not what the media would have us believe? As a western country ourselves - presuming, of course, that you are reading this from the US or some European country - we do not consider other nations to have much value in comparison to our own. Because we have created a Eurocentric view of what society should be, we have disallowed other countries to feel that their own culture is worth portraying in novels or media. For example, most people are lead to believe that Africa is riddled with disease, famine, and "uneducated" people who are in dire need of help. This just isn't true! There are places ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Two Faces of Anarchy in V for Vendetta

By
As someone who has only seen the movie version of V for Vendetta once many years ago and have never read the graphic novel, I wasn’t exactly sure how similar or different the movie version would be to the graphic novel. I was in for a surprise when I discovered just how vastly different, they are from each other. With that being said, they do have some similarities when strictly looking at the motives of the characters. Let’s dive into those motives and how the author and illustrator of V for Vendetta achieved getting these motives across to their readers. In Scott McCloud’s chapter of Understanding Comics “ Blood in the Gutter ” we are presented with different panel – to – panel transitions, and an introduction to the term “gutter” as being the white space between the panels which is where the audience of reader “takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud, 66). After finishing reading V for Vendetta , several themes or ideas that were most prevalent...
Post a Comment
Read more