Maguire, Emma (2013) Potential: Ariel Schrag contests (hetero-)normative girlhood. Prose Studies, 35 (1). pp. 54-66.

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Abstract

Using the medium of graphic memoir, 17-year-old Ariel Schrag brings to life an alternative to heteronormative mainstream representations of girlhood, and in self-publishing at such a young age, she also takes charge of her own representation and the circulation of that representation as a teenage girl. With an emphasis on the enabling formal characteristics of comics medium, I consider how the young author addresses the representation of her girlhood sexuality in light of theories of girlhood and girls' media-making practices. Specifically, I position Potential as "risk-taking self-representation" that creates space for marginal girlhoods to be articulated and explored via the "inventive textual practice" of comics (Chute 26) by articulating a lesbian identity in the symbolic and protected spaces of adolescent rites of passage. Drawing on Judith Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure, I explore how representations of failure in Schrag's depictions of prom work to open up alternative possibilities for adolescent femininity and sexuality.

Item ID:	57257
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1743-9426
Keywords:	comics, graphic novel, autobiography, failure, girlhood, graphic memoir, life narrative, sexuality, identity
Date Deposited:	28 Mar 2019 01:47
FoR Codes:	20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2005 Literary Studies > 200599 Literary Studies not elsewhere classified @ 100%
SEO Codes:	95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9502 Communication > 950203 Languages and Literature @ 100%
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