image via Filipe Frazao/Shutterstock
Welcome to Feminism Around the World, a new weekly feature here at TMS where we’ll focus on women’s lives and feminist concerns…around the world. TMS is a US-based website, but we think it’s important to connect with women all over the globe to applaud successes, report injustices, and amplify the conversation around solutions to gender-based inequality. We’ve written about women in other countries before, but we’d now like to make it a more consistent priority. Because “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” – Teresa
Brazil: Comics Writer Petra Leão Endures Sexist Online Harassment for Comics Panel Taken Out of Context
The Mary Sue received a tip from a comics fan in Brazil alerting us to a disturbing (if all-too-familiar) situation being faced by a female comics writer there. Our source has asked to remain anonymous.
Petra Leão is a comics writer out of Brazil, currently working on a title called Turma da Mônica Jovem (Young Mônica’s Gang), which is a spin-off of the classic Turma da Mônica (Mônica’s Gang) comic, which has been published in Brazil for over 50 uninterrupted years, and is the equivalent of the US’s Little Lulu or Peanuts as far as its cultural impact. In fact, according to our source, the franchise has the largest sales in Brazil at 100.000 copies a month — more than Marvel and DC do in the country.
Leão’s book tells the stories of the child characters aged up a little bit, and it has a similar vibe to Archie comics. In last month’s issue, she wrote a storyline in which the titular Mônica, who’s considering braces, stands up for herself as some people make fun of her buck teeth, and says that she won’t change her appearance for anyone. It’s a great moment of teen empowerment. However, it’s one phrase she utters in particular that got conservative folks in an uproar, particularly when the phrase was singled out:
images via the Turma da Mônica Jovem Facebook page
“Meu corpo, minhas regras!” Or,”My body, My rules.” It was a commentary on appearance and beauty standards, but conservatives in Brazil couldn’t help but start passing the above panel around out of context. One conservative author and pundit, Olavo de Carvalho, whose Twitter bio reads, “philosopher, author of 12 books, and journalist, I am also a lecturer with a wide audience in Brazil and a growing one in the USA, where I live,” and who our source describes as a “conservative right-wing nut [and] former astrologist who one day [started] to talk politics” and has become the equivalent of “if Trump worked for Fox News,” began posting tirades about how this comic was encouraging young girls to have abortions, and other stuff about loss of morality, Communism, etc.
5) A transformação da inocente Revistinha da Mônica num odiento discurso abortista é outro. pic.twitter.com/zNzkaJsBUK
— Olavo de Carvalho (@OdeCarvalho) June 28, 2016
Our anonymous source explains what happened next:
What came after that was simply awful. His online followers, who, in it’s majority, are people who like to support a very sad example of politician from around here, (think Trump again, but with a side of pro-torture, pro-ditactorship [sic], anti-culture, anti-LGBT tv preacher. Ellen Page did an interview with him just a while ago, an awful human being), they started to attack her, specifically. A level of harassment I never saw before. Personal attacks, photo montages to tarnish her reputation and do very absurd type of slut-shaming, on Twitter, they even tagged he boss, the owner of figurehead of the Comic she works (Mauricio de Sousa), calling her names, and telling that she should be fired. The level of vitriol was unbelievable,
She was, and still is, very distressed with all of this.
Various comics media outlets here expressed their support for her, and wrote posts explaining what happened (I can send the links, but they are in portuguese), and the own company, wrote a public statement about how the comic was taken out of context, but their vocality about all that’s happening to the person who is being viciously attacked, is somewhat lacking.
She has been writing for their comics for more than eight years now, she made the spin-off comic actually be something. She is an award winner comics writer, who was the only person outside of Japan to be allowed to write for Osamu Tezuka’s characters in a crossover they did, The comics sells more than a hundred thousand a month. Its a BIG title here, even bigger than the classic version of it, and that’s been going for fifty years.
And now she was driven by, all of this, to lock all of her social media accounts, in fear of what can be taken out of context again, or that people take her pictures and misuse them.
The company haven’t manifested to say if will take legal actions against all of this harassment, or if they will let her to do this on her own. All indicates that they simply want to let the the whole thing fade and die out with no fuss.She’s being persecuted for writing a feminist related phrase in a comic about a teenage girl. A comic that always tackled those subjects, I may add, mainly because she was the one writing about them, as she was the first writer of the company to bring up those issues.
I also have to add that a male writer of the company, that was, by mistake, credited in the same issue, wasn’t attacked one single time, by anyone, no hate messages whatsoever.
It’s sad to see that this type of inexcusable harassment knows no borders, and that comics companies in Brazil are just as slow-to-move as they are here with regard to standing up for their female creators and ensuring their safety and well-being. The comics publisher did release a statement on Facebook that basically just apologized for the “confusion” surrounding the issue in question, and said nothing about the harassment the writer faced:
FACEBOOK TRANSLATION OF STATEMENT ON THE PHOTO: What really happened? In Monica’s magazine Young # 94, the best friends of Monica are opining whether or not she should use a dental appliance, by an aesthetic issue. However … this is a decision that rests solely to Monica. And your class understands, accepts and respects it. Because like her the way she is. For over 50 years, the stories of Sousa Productions Mauricio comics are made to amuse and entertain, but also to raise healthy discussions, always with great respect for all.
Well, gee thanks. Because the important thing is to make sure that no one misunderstood the comic, not to stand up for one of your most popular and lucrative writers. *sigh*
Most of the coverage surrounding this particular story is in Portuguese, as the story has been covered primarily in Brazil, but if you wanna get your translating groove on, here are some links:
Huffington Post Brazil:
http://www.brasilpost.com.br/2016/07/01/monica-empoderamento_n_10772564.html
Vice:
http://www.vice.com/pt_br/read/turma-da-monica-jovem-petra-leao-ataque-feminismo
Folha de S. Paulo (the biggest newspaper in Brazil)
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrada/2016/07/1789748-frase-gerou-interpretacao-maldosa-diz-roteirista-da-monica-atacada-na-web.shtml
TMS stands with Ms. Leão, and we hope that her publisher begins to take this problem a bit more seriously. The worldwide comics community could do with a lot less trolling and abuse.
NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE
HONG KONG: “Plug pulled on IT beauty contest in Hong Kong amid sexism storm” (South China Morning Post)
UKRAINE (and Worldwide): “Women Are Using The Hashtag #IamNotAfraidtoSayIt To Share Stories Of Sexual Abuse” (Buzzfeed)
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