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Charles Burns Black Hole (2005) - Coggle Diagram
Charles Burns
Black Hole
(2005)
What are the uses of monstrosity in this text?
what are the politics of gazing on disabled bodies? How does the in-text/visualization ask us to share flesh? (Lennard J. Davis' idea of touch in
Enforcing Normalcy
)
Monstrosity in this text is fetishized, but also grotesque in some ways, and seems like it is isolating from a normal life but gives opportunity for community among those impacted by the disease (Brittany in chat)--
Eliza "Lizard Queen"--how do we feel predatory? What are the ethics of reading this?
what are the ethics of this with youth culture, high school students, and "under age" characters?
rendering the young adult sexual experiences/growth as HORRIFYING and monstrous
OR the repetition of it all makes it normalizing--"the bug" is so nonchalant, and it's the casual othering of folks infected; it's also built in to the form of sequential repetition art
How does Burns use the "spatio-topical" politics of the page to further his exploration of sex, disability, deformity?
the use of the frame and the shapes/waves of the frame to demarcate time, memory, and sequence/thought
the solid, straight frame then moves to wavy up top (in Bag Action)
the rectangle box grounds us in the internal monologue
hi, hello, yes, the characters all look the same????
the heavy dark blocking
the yearbook pics: punish lapses of judgement? thinks about the mistakes of youth culture?
other types of horror/films: This story was giving It Follows but instead of getting a killer sex demon you /become/ the sex demon;
Dazed and Confused
;
Jennifer's Body
we tend to keep sex and monstrosity out of the public eye;
the horror films of the 70s and 80s: sex, drugs, and violence; creating punishment for sexual activity
monster genres (film?) giving access to naked flesh for visual pleasure--gratuitous nudity
the sexual politics and consent
I think for me it starts with rob and Chris because there wasn’t full communication before their first sexual encounter, they both didn’t understand one another but I think rob should’ve known better and clarified before going through with it (especially it being unprotected sex) (Brittany)
the lurking heteropatriarchal violence of infantalzing women for erotic use; spectres of pedophilia ("like a child")
chastising young adult sexual cultures? sex negativity and punishment?
contributes to the long history of stigmatizing STI positive people (illness as metaphor by Susan Sontag--it silences and makes vulnerable)
visual patterns / blazon tradition: slicing bodies into parts for visual/erotic pleasure
the role of the reader: Burns makes us feel like a voyeur
built on explicit and gratuitous nudity/sex/violence
the comics mediums: stereotypes about who reads comics (kids, geeks); but it opens up fantasy/sci fi wordl building; also if we think about it as kids stuff, that's scary for connections of sex; it's not "serious" lit