In the age of transmedia storytelling, it is no more a wonder to encounter one narrative multiply mediated in mainstream big productions. Yet, there is also a more individualistic face to this re-telling of the same story which gets usually ignored. In this paper, conceptualizing the notion of “(migratory) self-adaptation”, I intend to discuss the biopolitics of adaptation, as a media strategy, in Marjane Satrapi’s multi-faceted authorship, as a female, migrant, multimodal (co)author of autobiographical graphic novels and films.
Self-adaptation, just as its sister-concept self-translation is described, is more of an artistic strategy highly charged with the presence of the author, no matter generated from authorial anxiety or self-fascination. The salience of “self” gets further complicated when infused with the borderline experience of the migrant, where it gets alternatively fragmented and refurbished in a different scale. Migratory self-adaptation moves therefore in a double direction: adapting oneself and adapting one’s self. Accordingly, adaptation meets its biological and sociological counterparts at its best, as it is postulated not only as a survival strategy for the book, but for the displaced author/person.
Focused mostly on adaptation pairs of Persepolis and Poulet aux Prunes, this paper begins with a comparative textual analysis of the formation of female self through the interaction of different medium and cultural specificities to conclude with insights on bipolitics of adaptation in reception of a migrant author in local and global spheres. Although Satrapi’s works have become an emblem of female autobiographies, the significance of self-adaptation in their internationalization has not yet been thoroughly studied. However, if it was not for this media strategy, the autobiographical Persepolis would hardly reach the under-represented social class who mostly identified with its narrative.
European Network for Cinema and Media Studies , 2018.
The NECS 2018 Conference: Media tactics and engagement, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 27-29, 2018