After I watch Evan's blog of the animated Joan series, I wanted to see how others were depicting her as a cartoon so i googled "animated Joan of arc" and this image came up. Interestingly enough, i am not surprised.
lets starts with the three details that are accurate based off of this cartoon:
1. A young teenage Joan appears to be in her early teens started to hear voices. We know this because of the image has her kneeling and looking up into the "light".
2. She was in battle based off of her armor.
3. She was executed and burnt at the stake.
Now the three details that are NOT accurate:
1. As a child, her hair probably was not that short and cut like a boy.
2. She certainly was not wearing a dress with a high slit on the side while being executed.
3. Her hair was not that long whenever she went into battle.
Are there any other parts of the image that you find inaccurate or accurate?
Why do we have such a fascinating of portraying Joan as a sexual and feminine character?
Source:
Google Images
Really liked your question, great image. What does portraying Joan as sexy do to her historical memory? By this I mean, not the way she was, as we can ascertain from the sources, but the history that is developed through re-imagining her in popular culture. This is complicated: history is not only what exists as a fact--but what we choose to remember.
ReplyDeleteThis makes the interplay between film/popular culture and history more complicated. So--if Joan is depicted with a slit up her dress on her stake--does this suggest larger something about women in power, whether intended or not?
Perhaps her being portrayed as "sexy" is an attempt to make history itself "sexier" or to draw younger people into history. Perhaps that is why Besson chose to portray a "sexy" Joan.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Evan. It is too attract a younger audience. As for other inaccuracies, I do not thinks Joan's dress had that low cut of a neckline.
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