Tracing (Argentine) feminism across time, or how Maitena plays with "La histori(et)a"
2016; CIESPAL; Volume: 45; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-4247
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American Literature Studies
ResumoSi bien soy feminista, no soy hembrista (Maitena, Para ti Online, May 2007) More than twenty years after her first comic strip appeared in the fashionable, albeit rather conservative, women's magazine Para ti (December 7, 1992), Maitena Burundarena (1962) remains wildly popular both within Argentina and internationally. (1) humorous weekly illustrations and satirical social commentaries--together with her wide-spread acclaim--have frequently been compared to those produced by Quino, creator of Mafalda. Critics undertaking serious examination of Maitena's work praise her overt feminism and the audacious cartoonist has been dubbed an advocate of Latin American (Rohter). Maitena's deceptively simple yet consistently clever comics--Mujeres alteradas. Superadas and Curvas peligrosas--draw on the ordinary dramas and quotidian traumas of contemporary urban middle-class women. (2) daily or weekly comics typically poke fun at a particular theme, teasing meaning from a variety of perspectives. The disparate topics that undergo Maitena's ironic scrutiny range from relationships between the sexes to the (aging) female body, from motherhood to diet plans, from the trials of maintaining domestic order to the tribulations of juggling a professional career. (3) Arguably, however, it is the tongue-in-cheek assessment of women's advancement in society throughout the decades (1920s-1990s), a recurring format featured throughout the serialization of Mujeres alteradas, that remains Maitena's signature comic. Indeed, Hector D. Fernandez L'Hoeste, a scholar of Latin American cultural studies, asserts that Her success, firmly entrenched on feminine politics, is best exemplified by strips that propose a chronologically comparative view (348), however, he does not then offer a critical analysis of these particular works. Cynthia Tompkins, in her insightful study of the feminist aspects of Mujeres alteradas and Superadas surveys the recurrent themes and narrative content of these strips, observing that a bittersweet tone denotes the challenges accompanying women's successes. I would add that a central component of Maitena's highly gendered visual humor, particularly in the chronology sequences, involves effective employment of stereotyped and iconic imagery, not only with respect to typecast characters but also fashion, beauty trends, interior decor and advances in domestic appliances and technology. Reading Maitena's construction of the evolutionary history of feminism (la historia) through the specific lens of comic (la historieta) criticism--that is, paying close attention to the form of these particular comic strips--reveals specific ways in which static images come to represent snapshots of distinct eras as well as how humor functions both thematically and visually. This essay examines the feminist content of Maitena's signature timelines with respect to cartoon format, paying particular attention to narrative voicing, typecasting and layout. Maitena's tight framing and distinct manipulation of gutters allows strict control of temporal progression, creating a unique space for satirical questioning of women's advancements in contemporary society. (De)Constructing la Histori(et)a Feminista Todas las mujeres alteradas, a comprehensive edition compiling the previously serialized comics into one volume, features eighteen such chronologies. Two explicit tropes provide an organizing principle and a structural base for the repeated format. In nine of these comics the decades advance from panel to panel, beginning in either the 1920s or the 1940s and ending in the 1990s when the comic was being drawn; in these, the age and role of the women depicted within the advancing frames tend to stay the same. A complementary approach can be seen in the remaining nine cartoons, allowing for a distinct, yet parallel progression: the female characters age by five or ten-year increments in each successive frame although no specific reference is made to the temporal periods in question. …
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