DECODING PATRIARCHAL BIASES AT WORK IN COMICS: A STUDY OF THE CODIFICATION OF FEMININITY THROUGH THE IMAGE-TEXT COMBINE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO POPULAR VERNACULAR COMICS NONTE FONTE AND HANDA BHONDA

Author: Dr. Archita Gupta

ABSTRACT

Any image accompanies with it two concepts viz. communication and representation. Both these concepts are potent tools to be analysed from the perspective of study of signs or semiotics. But the monolithic study of signs or codes embedded in representation or communication curbs the scholarly or multidimensional spaces in which a representation/image representation can be analysed, examined or investigated. If we consider a pictorial representation only as an image choosen/preferred randomly, we will miss the ideological bias in which it is produced. Therefore image representation of women/ female in any text provides the ground for analyzing the term ‘politics of representation’ since no production is devoid of power structure that always invariably empowers a dominant one dictating /controlling the production, reception and dissemination of ‘texts’ (the term text to be comprehended in post-modern sense) thus creating possibilities of stereotyping, distortion, hegemonisation, homogenization, etal of women characters. Even under the tactful gloss of figuring ideal female characters of mythology or sculptures in temples,etc in different ancient Indian art forms, the patriarchal ideology of depicting women with perfect female body according to Indian aesthetics operates. The paper focuses on the production, reception, non-reception as a result of dominant market forces of comics on women or female representation in comic’s genre. It adopts research methodology of content (image –text representataion of women) analysis as case study; paradigmatic analysis with panels from Nonte Fonte and Handa Bhonda, two popular vernacular Bengali comics to investigate how does a change in an image can affect the reception; as well as excerpts from interview with target reader/viewer of comics/audio-visual projection of comics to examine decodification of female presence by a child as receiver of such texts; and inputs from the interview with the writer –illustrator of Nonte Fonte and Handa Bhonda , have been included to examine the codification and decodification process of image-text combination of comics.

Keywords: image, femininity, comics, patriarchal ideology, hegemony.

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