Tuesday News: The Accusation, Marvel & diversity, Amina’s Voice, and the women of Big Little Lies
Publishing NewsBig Little Lies / book adaptation / Comic books / diversity / Islamophobia / kid lit / Marvel / North Korea / The Accusation7 Comments
A Dissident Book Smuggled From North Korea Finds a Global Audience – Fascinating chronicle of how Bandi’s The Accusation has managed to get published around the world, while the anonymous author remains in North Korea, as yet undiscovered by government authorities. The 743-page, handwritten manuscript was smuggled out of North Korea by a relative of Bandi’s a woman who was caught in China and brought to South Korea by human rights activists who were able to bribe the authorities for her release. One of the things that is so exceptional about the book – apart from the fact that the author continues to remain in North Korea – is that it portrays average North Korean life. Its champion, Do Hee-youn, has both verified the manuscript and spearheaded its publication, which now extends to 18 languages and 20 countries. Here is an interview with the translator, Deborah Smith, who rendered the book into English.
Bandi was the pen name the writer chose for himself, Mr. Do said. In one of 50 poems smuggled out with the manuscript of “The Accusation” and to be published separately, Bandi explained his alias. Bandi, he wrote in a poem, was “fated to shine only in a world of darkness.”
In the book, North Korea is a country where a woman is programmed to show grief over Kim Il-sung’s death with flowers, streaming tears and a heart-rending cry of “Great Leader, Father!” — even as her husband is languishing at a political prisoners’ camp.
In one story, “So Near, Yet So Far,” a son is unable to see his dying mother because he lacks the requisite travel permit. He compares himself to “a dragonfly stuck in a spider web.”
“Ultimately, this is a textbook on the human rights condition in North Korea,” Mr. Do said. “What it does is to show that in North Korea, ordinary life itself is slavery.” – New York Times
Marvel Exec Backpedals After Suggesting Diversity to Blame for Comic Book Sales Slump – So David Gabriel, Marvel’s senior vice president of print, sales, and marketing, gave a mixed message when asked about a recent slump in Marvel’s sales. What’s the first thing Gabriel targets? Diversity, of course! Then, asked to clarify his comments, he insisted that the new characters are not being abandoned, and, in fact, are popular. There is so much that is frustrating about these comments, and while it’s good that Gabriel ultimately stood behind diversification (aka reflecting the world as it actually is!), it’s precisely these anecdotally based assumptions about what consumers want that help sustain the status quo.
“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told iCv2 after being asked what contributed to changes in customer tastes that led to a drop in sales in October-November. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.” . . .
“We have also been hearing from stores that welcome and champion our new characters and titles and want more!” he continued. “They’ve invigorated their own customer base and helped them grow their stores because of it. So we’re getting both sides of the story and the only upcoming change we’re making is to ensure we don’t lose focus of our core heroes.” – Variety
A Pre-Teen Takes On Middle School and Islamophobia in New Book ‘Amina’s Voice’ – And speaking of breaking through the status quo, Hena Kahn’s new middle-grade novel, Amina’s Voice, featuring a strong, sixth-grade heroine. Kahn has written children’s books before, but this is her first middle-grade book, and the first for Simon and Schuster’s new line, Salaam Reads, which focuses on Muslim children’s literature.
While Khan has written Muslim-themed children’s books before — including the picture book “It’s Ramadan, Curious George” — “Amina’s Voice” is her first geared toward middle schoolers. A mother of two, Khan noted how hard it can be to find books with strong Muslim characters for children.
“I never saw myself portrayed in the the books I read growing up,” she said, adding that part of the reason she was inspired to create Amina’s story was because parents who had purchased her picture books were asking her for book recommendations that would be appropriate for older readers. – NBC News
Four Questions for…’Big Little Lies’ Author Liane Moriarty – Speaking of strong women, I don’t know how many of you watched HBO’s Big Little Lies, adapted from Liane Moriarty’s book, but if you watched the seven-episode series, co-produced by Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, you may be interested in this interview with Moriarty about the adaptation. For those of you who did not see the series, I think it was an outstanding program, independent of the original book, and the way Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard handled the domestic violence storyline was harrowing and horrifying and stunningly human, and I’m still thinking about the finale, days later. I’m not sure if it’s the number of women involved in the production, but the way the series let the complexities of these characters and relationships play out without in any way excusing or justifying abuse, or bullying, or just plain shitty behavior, was very powerful. Skarsgard has talked articulately about that, too, as has Lainey at Lainey Gossip.
One of the most unsettling aspects of the show, arguably, is its portrayal of domestic violence. Does the show’s depiction of domestic violence differ much from what’s in the novel?
When I first spoke to Nicole Kidman about the series and she said she wanted to play Celeste, I said it was very important to me that her character doesn’t just take the abuse, she hits back. That was my only stipulation. I didn’t want her to be a passive, pretty victim. I wanted to show how these relationships become tangled and confused, how if you defend yourself you start to feel complicit in the violence and how it’s possible to still be deeply in love with your abuser, even as part of you knows you need to leave. When I was writing the book, I worked hard on conveying the cycles of abuse—the violence followed by the abject apologies. I think David E. Kelley did an incredible job translating that to the screen, and I couldn’t be happier with the way Kidman played Celeste. All that complexity of emotion plays out on her face. It was amazing to watch. – Publishers Weekly
Re: Marvel – Really? Portraying every big hero as Nazi had nothing to do with it? They even wrote Magneto being Nazi in newest storyline and his origin story is basically watching his family being executed by Nazis and surviving concentration camp. Talk about pointing fingers in wrong direction…
As someone who grew up with a VERY abusive father, I was completely on board with Big Little Lies and their portrayal of abuse. Of course, a woman would leave an abusive husband who was completely evil but abusers are never completely evil. My Dear Wonderful Mom, like many women, had to weigh the good against the very real possibility that she’d be killed.
Eventually, as in Celeste’s situation, the kids (my siblings and I) tipped those scales and my Dear Wonderful Mom left.
I also appreciated how they tactfully covered the fact that children of abusers are likely to abuse or be abused (it is all we know). I broke the cycle (but the fear of being an abuser or being the abusee is always with me). Not all of my siblings did.
Someone pointed out in another group that they are alienating fans by taking fan favourites and then reinventing them to meet the diversity criteria, I’m inclined to agree. Add diversity with new powerful characters added in to existing worlds, stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Its what annoys me most about hollywood recently, too many redos, remakes and retakes without adding soething new or exciting to the mix.
@Variel: The times reinventing characters has worked for Marvel has been because the superhero persona was either fallow (Ms. Marvel) or they had a story that was an actual story with the elements laid in far in advance. Jason Aaron is playing a very long game with Thor, and the Odinson has his own storyline even as we have our new Thor wielding Mjolnir. But for each one of those, there are several other character reinventions that haven’t caught on or seem to have been done at the cost of a character who was loved by the hardcore fans who faithfully buy the books.
Then there’s event fatigue, because it doesn’t seem as if any individual comic can actually get momentum going before they’re all pulled into some huge event. And, after last summer’s debacle about Cap being revealed as Hydra, they’re doubling down and this summer’s big event is going to be all about, oh, Cap being a nazi.
@sara, seriously, Mags is now a Nazi, too? I’m reading most of my Marvel six months behind because I subscribe to Marvel Unlimited, so the bulk of my weekly comic dollars go to other companies. But if I read what you described in an issue, I’d be striking that title off the pull list. Especially since Marvel’s line is all at least $3.99. The comics budget is limited and after being primarily a Marvel reader for more years than I care to admit (I bought Giant-Sized X-Men #1 on the stands), I find that those dollars are going to other companies. Part of it is unlimited, but part of it is there are fewer titles at Marvel I feel compelled to have in my hands day of release. And with each event, that list seems to get smaller.
A lot of versions of the shoe-horning argument I’ve seen so far are focusing on Iceman becoming gay, which I’m not sure is the strongest argument, tbh. The idea was played with on and off for decades, and though I think early hints were mostly queerbaiting at best and homophobic jokes at worst, it makes sense that he was the character they picked for the storyline (though I’m annoyed at the healthy dose of bi-erasure that results). I haven’t seen new characters in legacy roles getting as much flack, partly because a lot of recent ones are either fan favorites like Kamala Khan or Miles Morales, or they’re perceived as a temporary change like RiRi as Iron Man or Jane Foster as Thor.
I really think Marvel’s problem is too many events and not enough long form storytelling – everything is packaged in six (increasingly short) issue stories to sell as TPBs, but the reader base is increasingly going digital. Now would be a good time to go back to the soap opera style narratives of the 70s that rewarded readers for sticking around.
G. Willow Wilson (creator of Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel) has a very good self-described rant about diversity in comics:
http://gwillowwilson.com/post/159094504658/so-about-that-whole-thing
And Comic Book Resources digs into the numbers:
http://www.cbr.com/no-diversity-didnt-kill-marvels-comic-sales/