Marjane Satrapi’s Woman, Life, Freedom: Tyranny and a Feminist Revolution

One of the contenders for this year’s Oscar for Best International Film is The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Secretly filmed in Tehran, the fictional screenplay takes place during the weeks of protest that followed the nonfictional death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in police custody after being beaten for wearing her hijab improperly on the streets of Tehran. This suspenseful thriller is one of several internationally acclaimed works of art created in the wake of Amini’s death. Last week, I showcased the Grammy-winning song and video Baraye. Today’s post features a sensational compilation of graphic nonfiction, Femme, Vie, Liberté, by Marjane Satrapi and a host of who’s-whos from the world of cartooning.

Born to be Badass

You may be familiar with Satrapi’s autobiographical masterpiece, Persepolis, a ground-breaking graphic memoir that illustrates Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. As a young girl, Satrapi was already outspoken and rebellious, a source of both pride and anguish for her free-thinking parents. The second part of Persepolis covers Satrapi’s solitary flight to Europe, where, from the age of 14, she struggled to integrate into Western society. The autobiographical comic book has sold millions of copies worldwide, making Satrapi one of the world’s most successful Iranian authors.

Satrapi has lived in France since the mid-1990s but like many Iranian emigrants, she’s kept a close watch on happenings in her native country. In 2004, she left the world of graphic novels to pursue filmmaking and painting. Amini’s brutal murder, however, and the subsequent execution of several young male Iranian activists compelled Satrapi to return to cartooning. Satrapi wanted to use her talents to support the revolutionary movement that has mobilized millions of Iranians around the world to oppose the current regime, known as Woman, Life, Freedom.

In addition to backing the people of Iran who courageously oppose the savage regime, Satrapi wanted to produce a book that educates non-Iranians about Iran’s history and the events surrounding the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. Using her comic book star power, Satrapi recruited an impressive hit squad of cartoonists as well as a handful of experts who have studied and written about Iran for years.

The result is Femme, Vie, Liberté, a graphic portrayal of Iran’s past and a visual megaphone for tens of thousands of Iranian voices who defy their repressive government daily. Available in at least 12 languages, including English and French, Satrapi insisted on putting the Persian version online for free. All proceeds from the other editions support the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran.

A Graphic Sledgehammer

It’s hard to overstate the amount of information that Satrapi and her co-authors have packed into Femme, Vie, Liberté. Describing any society is a massive undertaking because there are so many subgroups, and people’s experiences vary widely. But Satrapi wanted to give readers insight into daily life in Iran’s ruthless theocracy and to show that despite the punishing consequences of disobedience, both male and female Iranians are committed to overthrowing their oppressors.

On the rare occasions when Westerners think of Iranian people, they envision an apolitical population that is well-accustomed to the Ayatollah’s religious shackles. In Femme, Vie, Liberté, Satrapi seeks to turn that false impression on its head by humanizing Iranian citizens and showing that their hopes and aspirations—even much about their daily lives—are no different than ours.

The 24 stories that comprise Femme, Vie, Liberté cover topics ranging from strained familial relationships, to Iran’s history of revolt, to government corruption, to mechanisms of state violence, to intellectual brain drain, to censorship, to the influence of the Internet, to the subjugation of women, to the plight of political prisoners like Narges Mohammadi who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, and much more.

There’s a good argument to be made that if you want to educate people about such topics, graphic depictions are the most effective way of doing so. Few people take the time to read long texts, especially if they’re nonfiction. However, a talented illustrator can be massively impactful when armed with a succinctly crafted script. In this case, Satrapi’s editorial team of five experts informs the art of eighteen prize-winning cartoonists.

Below are some examples. Keep in mind that this is a small sampling and that Femme, Vie, Liberté offers much more for readers to reflect upon.

Fear and Hate, by Marjane Satrapi

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gasht-e Ershad, were put in place in 1979 to “safeguard the revolution” and assert the Islamic regime’s rigid moral code in public spaces. It was members of this pious police force who took Amini into custody and inflicted her lethal beating. Satrapi charged herself with depicting their violent tactics, some of which she experienced as a child. She says the process of drawing them was so disturbing that it brought on physical pain and caused her fingers to cramp.

Bloody Friday, by Winshluss

Three weeks after Amini’s death, Iranian security forces fired on a crowd of protestors in the Suni province of Sistan and Baluchistan. Most of the residents in the area belong to the oppressed Baluchi ethnic minority who were joining in the nationwide protests and also demanding accountability for the rape of a 15-year-old Baluchi girl by a local police commander. Stationed on rooftops above the crowd, security forces killed at least 66 people and injured hundreds of others.

A close friend of Satrapi, Winshluss is the author of several successful French comic strips. He co-directed two films with Satrapi, both adapted from Satrapi’s books: Persepolis and Poulet aux Prunes. Americans may best know Winshluss for his adaptation of Pinochio, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2006.

Golden Children of the Regime, by Patricia Bolaños

According to Investopedia, Iran is the world’s fifth most resource-rich country Home to some of the world’s largest reserves of natural gas and crude oil, Iran also harbors coal and many valuable minerals such as iron ore, copper, and manganese. Sadly, Iran’s economic system is tightly controlled by the corrupt Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) that Satrapi depicts above. It’s impossible to determine how much of Iran’s GDP is under their control, but estimates range from one- to two-thirds. Thus, while most Iranians struggle financially, members of the IRGC and their families live in luxury.

Patricia Bolaños is a Spanish-born illustrator and storyteller living in New York. In addition to creating works for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and Glamour, Bolaños is the author of the graphic novel New York is the Thing.

The Birth of a Slogan, by Catel

The slogan Femme Vie Liberté or Woman Life Freedom originated over twenty years ago in Turkey as Jin Jîyan Azad. It resurfaced ten years later in the northern part of Syria, where Kurdish women took up arms alongside their male counterparts to oppose Islamic extremists who were trying to take over the region. Today, the slogan is a worldwide battle cry in support of the powerful uprising that is bearing down on Iran’s reprehensible theocracy.

Catel is a prolific French author and illustrator who started her career publishing comic albums for children. In addition to working in film, Catel has published a series of graphic autobiographies, including Kiki de Montparnasse, for which she won le prix du public at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2008.

The Folly of Censorship, by Lewis Trondheim

Since the overthrow of the Shah, censorship in Iran has been extraordinarily reactionary. News sources, books, and films are tightly controlled. The goal is to prevent unapproved reformists or counter-revolutionaries from organizing and spreading their ideas. The Internet has proven somewhat harder to rein in, but in 2023 Iranian authorities instructed ISPs to increase their prices between 30 and 40 percent. This price hike, coupled with the need for VPN services to reach international sites, has rendered the World Wide Web inaccessible for many of Iran’s citizens.

One of the most ridiculous censorship episodes in Iranian history came to an end in 1994. Prior to that, the chief censor was actually blind. When reviewing films, he had assistants watching for him and describing the scenes. I can only imagine the conversations. “Tell me. Just how much of her breast is showing? And the nip…”

The award-winning Lewis Trondheim has contributed to over 150 books as artist and/or writer, spanning a wide spectrum of genres. Many of his works feature characters in surreal or darkly humorous situations. His minimalistic style is often colored by his wife, Iraqi-born Brigitte Findakly. Such is the case for the pages Trondheim produced for Femme, Vie, Liberté.

Guarded Turf, by Coco

Women are not allowed to attend soccer matches in Iran. One of the most tragic stories from Femme, Vie, Liberté involves a young female soccer fan named Sahar Khodayari. The team color of Esteghlal F.C., the oldest soccer club in Iran and Khodayari’s favorite, is blue. Khodayari convinced herself that if she dressed in this color and painted her face blue, her passionate fidelity to the popular club would gain her entry into the stadium. Once inside, however, she was spotted by authorities, arrested, and thrown in prison.

Khodayari was released on bail, but while awaiting trial, she was led to believe that she would serve at least 6 months in prison. The strain of living under such repression was unbearable. She lit herself on fire in protest and died from the resulting burns that covered 90% of her body. Now referred to as “the blue girl”, Khodayari joins a growing list of young people who have sacrificed their lives in the fight for freedom.

Coco is a talented and courageous cartoonist who survived the terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January, 2015. She continues to produce regular content for Charlie Hebdo as well as for Libération, one of France’s most popular daily newspapers. Throughout her career, Coco has been a biting critic of Iran’s theocracy, producing numerous political cartoons that denounce the regime and support Iran’s detractors.

The Art of the Revolt, by Deloupy

Despite the brutal crack-down imposed by Iranian rulers, countless women and girls throughout Iran continue to defy government restrictions. Unlike feminist movements of the past, Iranian men have joined their ranks. Supporters now come from every segment of society—young, old, rural, urban, wealthy, poor, religious, non-religious. Daily battles continue on this long road toward freedom, but many people remain confident that the current round of defiance will succeed in overthrowing the corrupt and hypocritical Iranian government.

Zac Deloupy is a French illustrator, author, and publisher of graphic nonfiction. Sometime prior to 2015, Deloupy traveled to Iran with journalist Jane Deuxard, who interviewed Iranians about their hopes, questions, fears, and frustrations. In 2016, the couple published Iranian Love Stories, describing both trip and testimonies. Working with Swann Meralli, Deloupy also co-authored and illustrated Algériennes, which documents the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of its female participants.

A Rising Tidal Wave

Femme, Vie, Liberté closes with a revelatory discussion between Marjane Satrapi, Middle East experts Jean-Pierre Perrin and Farid Vahid, and Iranian-American historian Abbas Milani. The conversation is joined and illustrated by French comic artist Joann Sfar. The participants are well-versed in the subject matter and there’s a lot to unpack from the paraphrased speech bubbles. At one point, Vahid makes an unsettling assertion, “The only thing that could reinforce the current regime would be a foreign-led attack on Iran.” That makes perfect sense. Dictatorial power is often buoyed by fear of external threats. Were Israel or the United States to attack Iran, dissent would weaken overnight.

A closing statement by Milani is both hopeful and chilling, “Authoritarian regimes first fall slowly, then brutally”. Sadly, the rich and powerful aren’t likely to release their stranglehold until they feel their lives are in jeopardy. Eventually, however, the Iranian people are bound to break free of their iron grasp.

I hope this post piqued your curiosity about Iran’s past and tumultuous present. Please consider purchasing Femme, Vie, Liberté, which contains a wealth of further information in an easily digested format. All proceeds go to support the resistance movement in Iran. You’ll find the English version, Woman, Life, Liberty, at all major booksellers, including Thriftbooks, Abebooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kindle. I recommend Lireka for the French version, where prices usually beat those in the United States, and shipping is always free.