April 12, 2012

"My Mustache Bleach!"

I was reading an involving graphic novel by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, the latter being a young illustrator I’d heard about in art school, when I came upon this tiny scene:


Skim is about a private-school student who feels separate from the other girls at her school.  What teenager hasn’t felt that, right?  But Skim has more reasons to feel alienated than most--besides being unskinny, and a cultural minority, and identifying herself as goth in the early 90’s, she is in love with her English teacher, a woman.  And she’s coping with all this during a time when her school is turned upside down by a suicide.  It is an unfailingly honest look into a teenager’s thoughts and feelings, and how they cope with them. 

But, of course, this one scene as she gets ready for a school dance resonated with me more than anything else.  The character doesn’t write actually about it in her diary or refer to it in any way, but there she is, making an extra effort to look and feel her best, using her mom’s “mustache bleach.”  (You’ll have to buy the book to see what else she impulsively does with it!)  When I looked closely at the boxes of bleach drawn in one panel, I am sure they are even the exact same brand I used.  It's the same teeny tiny spatula that was my companion up until my beard became too dark and coarse to bleach any longer.  I can still smell it, remember the slight tingle as the bleach it worked its magic.

And so it touched me.  Even though this character is not hirsute, she has plenty of other ways to feel like an outsider.  And we get a peek into a small, personal cosmetic ritual, shown oh-so-casually (and no panel is ever accidental, everything is carefully planned to reveal this girl’s world to us) but it is all the more intimate because of its familiarity.  Sort of a reassuring "everybody does it, behind closed doors" thing.  Except, thanks to this being a graphic novel, the door is open to us as readers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just am so happy that you introduced me to the word of graphic novels - something I would have never pay attention to before I'd met you.
I have no idea where to even look for them though and I am extremely interested in Skim. So - how does one find a graphic novel? :) s.

Allerleirah said...

Good! Yes, graphic novels aren't all about superheroes. There is some great stuff out there that could interest such a wide variety of people...

Often bookstores carry this kind of thing. I find buying them online is less expensive, though. I use Amazon quite a bit, and sometimes Things from Another World ( http://www.tfaw.com ) if they have a sale.

Kitty said...

I have very vivid adolescent memories associated with this product. I used to cover my face from my sideburns to the collar of my shirt with that "mustache bleach" and then put a layer of saran wrap over top, and then read a book for as long as I could stand the burn before wiping it off. Then I would hit the strategic areas that hadn't taken the bleach with more bleach. The smell of it was so strong that I would have to wait until my three siblings and my parents were going to be out of the house for an hour and a half so they didn't find out and tease me.
I am much more lax these days, and will often go a day with five-o-clock shadow rather than torture myself. I feel free.

Allerleirah said...

Kitty, I went through a couple of bleach phases too. The experience never does fade in one's memory...

So are you more relaxed about hiding your hair nowadays because of acceptance? It's nice to let comfort win out sometimes, isn't it? :D