Julie Doucet

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"If I was a man-I would have a girlfriend with big tits." In her work "My most secret desire" (Drawn & Quarterly), Julie Doucet transports the readers into a universe of imagination and fantasy. Her comic is based on the erotic and sexual dreams she is having. As a feminist artist, she wants to highlights some sensitive contemporary issues such as gender roles or sexual harassments. In another hand, she also shows the everyday dilemma of being a woman such as pregnancy or menstruation. Julie Doucet, if you never heard about her yet, is a French-Canadian cartoonist. She published small press and comics books mostly. She is well known for her autobiographical works including the brilliants Dirty Plotte and My New York Diary. Her primary goal …show more content…

Here is the message that Julie Doucet wants to share and we can all agree that she does her work really well. Not only the nature does not give women an easy job but men does not seem to help according to Doucet. She starts her comic straightforward as she is dreaming of waking up covered in blood and loosing some parts of her body. She uses exaggeration to show the insupportable menstruation week that women have to face every month. As well, she highlights the foolishness that brings the nine months of pregnancy. She dreams multiple times of giving birth to a cat but she seems to be satisfactory with her new born. By using sarcasm over again, she also wants to show that men do not help women to have a better place in our society. Indeed, she dreams once of being a man and harvesting a woman on the street; "I gotta a great pennies-the great mysteries of nature" while penetrating her.
Sexuality is omnipresent in the comic, highlighting the fact that women are often used as sexual objects. According to Doucet, the only thing that seem to interest man anyway, it themselves. In one of her story, while she is dreaming of being a man, she shows an abundant interesting in shaving. The protagonist is enjoying shaving and looking at himself in the mirror. He uses really funny mimics and finished by saying: …show more content…

The author uses the colors black and white reinforcing the dark side of the thematic. Interestingly, in the middle of the comic, she published a story in colors. Readers can get confused. In this story, Julie herself is having another dream. She is dreaming of being in a classroom in El Pasos, Texas. After thinking out loud, she suddenly leaves the school hungry and says "Why I am a working person! I'm making living I'm...I'm a professional cartoonist goddammit! I'm out of here! Surpringlsy, this story made out of colors is also the most realist and the most touching story of the book.
However, to contrast the melancholy of the black and white colors, Doucet uses a lot of details in each of her panels. A lot of human faces as well as a lot of object are exemplified all over the comic. She uses a lot of asymmetric shapes. It seems that she is referring to Picasso arts. In one of her story, Julie is dreaming of transforming into a man. During this stage of sexual transformation, some body parts and faces are all over. Some people are screaming looking at the sky. This panel definitely has a link with the famous Guernica (see picture

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