Kindred, the Graphic Novel: The Gender Portrayal of Dana
In their graphic novel, Dana is portrayed with masculine traits. She has sharp features, short hair, and dressed in what is considered masculine clothing. While Dana in the novel dresses up in trousers, which was considered dressing like a man in the 1800s, her feminine features somewhat give her gender away. In the novel, Dana has slightly longer hair: “I collected the food and 'borrowed' one of Nigel’s old hats, to pull down over my hair—which wasn’t very long, luckily” (Butler 170). This detail suggests that in the novel, Dana has features that could distinguish her as a female. As such, the graphic novel erases feminine features, changing the way Dana looks. Popular culture has played on the notion of hypermasculinity and portraying strong women with masculine features, hinting that feminine features are unappealing and weak. While that may not be the intention of the illustrators, it is important to discuss the significance of this phenomenon.
This occurrence is not unique to the graphic novel; in many movies and texts, the female heroine is portrayed in a more muscular way to indicate that she is “not like other girls,” deeming strength an exclusively masculine feature. Throughout the novel, Dana's looks are different due to her being from a different time period; however, the graphic novel places an extra emphasis on how different she looked as compared to the other women in the story. In essence, the “strong female character” is only strong when she looks like a man. A tomboy demeanor makes it more believable that a woman can be strong. This is not to state that gender is a dichotomy, and one must have specific traits to be a woman and vice versa. Still, deliberately making the strong female character different could be problematic.
However, that is not to say that Butler would not have approved of the way in which Dana was portrayed. As shown in this video, the illustrators explain that they drew their inspiration of portraying the character from Butler’s statements on gender conformity and ambiguity. For instance, in one encounter with a free black child, the child mentions that Dana looks like Alice’s mother, one of Dana’s female ancestors. When Dana denies the relationship, the child states that Dana could pass for Alice’s mother, however, she continues, “Not with you dressed like that! She [her mother] thought you were a man at first, just like I did—and like Daddy did” (Butler 29). This shows that Dana herself did not wish to conform to gender norms. This especially was useful to Dana when she tried to look like a man to plan her escape.
Fortunately, the dynamic of what makes a female character strong has been changing over the past few years. This can be seen in modern day films such as Frozen, where the protagonist’s femininity is not erased. The shift is highly significant as generations of children are impacted by what they see and read. While nonconformity to gender roles is pivotal in detaching from social norms, it is still important to show female audiences that being strong does not necessarily mean that one has to be stripped of any feminine characteristic.
References
Butler, Octavia E. Kindred. Beacon, 2003
