For three episodes of These Things That People Make me and my friend (and comic expert) Cecilia have been talking about depictions of violent women, and other kinds of violence in Tank Girl, Stray Bullets, and now Hothead Paisan.
We spend some time talking about Hotheads style and outfit, things that tend to be important to any comic book character.
Cecilia says: "I think also a lot of her violent episodes, even though they are pretty obvious can in some ways bring attention to something that is often glossed over that its going to happen" ( I agree with her)
Hothead Paisan is a much needed project of rage, and fighting back. Hothead Paisan is the hot fucker we wish we could be more often .
In this episode of These Things That people make we talk about how Hothead Paisan blatantly names oppression, and fights back through being violent back to the world. It is often very flashy, and sketchy and almost always instant and fast. There is a little bit of blood. Lots of penises get cut off.
We spend some time comparing Hot head to Stray Bullets and Tank Girl.
This week in the Ontarion, a local student based paper at the University of Guelph, where CFRU is housed, there was an article written on behalf of the staff, shit-talking a flyer that depicts a person with a strap on fucking the pope in the eye (a recruitment flyer for Bash Back Guelph) which was distributed at a recent art and activism conference. The Ontarion article was suggesting that the readers of the article should be fearful of marginalized, or oppressed people using 'violent' imagery, as if imagination, or cartharsis doesn't exist as necessary. Hot head paisan in some ways is very much in the vein of that flyer, although they serve (slightly) different purposes.
Cecilia and I don't always agree with Hothead's politics. Hothead is a butch who is not always supportive of femmes, and at times trips them, and is mean is other ways. Do we always need to like characters in all their actions? Its hard to find things, when we spend a lot of time trying to find role models, or inspiring comics and then they do something we really don't agree with.
Listen to the radio show: www.cfru.ca, follow the archives to hear the discussion!
Check out this comic and other work by Diane Dimassa http://www.hotheadpaisan.com/
