Marjane Satrapi Cries at West Point



I spoke to Marjane Satrapi a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned how excited she was about a forthcoming speaking engagement at West Point. Apparently, and this is as odd as anything I've ever heard about the mainstreaming of comics in America, Satrapi's memoir Persepolis is required reading at the school. The Los Angeles Times recently carried a report of the talk, which seems to have gone well. So well, in fact, that it had an overwhelming effect on Satrapi. I'm not one to excerpt big chunks of other people's hard work, but I really liked the article's conclusion and hope that putting it here will convince you to register to read the article in whole:

Satrapi had her eyes opened too. She cried onstage at the end of her talk, overcome with emotion. "I am reproaching to people [who say] the world is black and white," she said afterward. "And the world is much more complicated. But I realize that I did not apply it to myself.... It put all my beliefs in general under question."

Followed by:

She admitted having thought that all people in the military "were a little bit of mean people." "And here I see the sweetest people possible.... From now on, each soldier, anywhere in the world, that will die, that will remind me that he was only 19 1/2 and had pink cheeks."

 
posted 4:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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