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Chris Ware: Someone I'm Not | Art21 "Extended Play"'

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    [Art21 "Extended Play"]
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    I'm obviously a nervous guy
    and I was writing a female character,
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    through her memory
    and through her stories.
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    It was sort of an experiment
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    to write from the standpoint of
    somebody who I'm not,
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    which is certainly fraught with peril.
    [LAUGHS]
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    ["Chris Ware: Someone I'm Not"]
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    When I was in art school,
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    I was told that I couldn't draw women.
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    That kind of cuts out
    a whole half of humanity right there.
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    I distinctly remember being told
    by one of my teachers,
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    "If you draw women,
    you're colonizing them with your eyes."
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    Do you not draw women and then
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    maintain an allegiance to some sort of
    experience that only you have had?
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    Or do you try to expand your understanding
    and your empathy for other human beings?
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    As a white writer, how dare I begin to think
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    that I could write from the standpoint
    of even another person.
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    What I'm trying to do here is draw
    a gesture of a woman
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    slightly brushing hair away from her eye,
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    but now it just looks more like
    she's got a headache.
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    Joanne Cole acts strangely
    towards the younger woman,
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    and that's because she thinks it's possible
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    that she might be related to the younger woman
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    because she's lost in her own
    memories and thoughts--
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    but that's not clear to the reader yet.
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    So I'm trying to balance
    a couple of emotions here.
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    I'm trying to make it feel that it's authentic
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    and not just a bunch of nonsense--
    or poorly acted.
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    This particular character is an
    African-American elementary school teacher
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    who is teaching in a private school
    in the 1960s and 70s.
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    Hopefully I'm attending to some of the complexities
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    that a kind of slightly unusual situation
    might have brought up.
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    I feel very self-conscious about
    writing a story like this.
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    Am I doing the right thing?
    Am I doing the wrong thing?
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    Is it about empathy?
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    Am I introducing things I don't understand?
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    Et cetera.
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    It's a complicated question as a writer.
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    [WARE]
    --Thank you for serving dinner.
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    [MARNIE WARE]
    --You're welcome.
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    [LAUGHS]
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    [CLARA WARE]
    --Plop!
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    [CHRIS WARE]
    --Plop!
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    Many of my teachers were trying to get
    myself and my fellow students
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    to find the one thing
    that we were interested in
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    and then write about that.
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    I never wanted to do that.
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    I wanted to be able write about everything--
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    and anything--
    because that's what life is.
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    [LAUGHING]
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    --I have no idea what I look like chewing
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    --but I bet I don't want to know.
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    It's up to me as an artist to try to decide
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    how much can I try to feel
    through another person
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    and still have it not be
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    a sentimentalization or a falseness.
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    I have to try to somehow push my limits
    and my understanding of
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    how I feel through other people
    in what I'm doing.
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    And you risk falling on your face doing so,
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    but that's a risk you have to take.
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    What art is all about is
    trying to figure out
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    if the feelings that you're having
    are the same as the feelings that I'm having.
Title:
Chris Ware: Someone I'm Not | Art21 "Extended Play"'
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
03:51

English subtitles

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