Sex and the Aesthetics of the Vulgar:

Reading the Creative Paradox in the Works of Robert Crumb

Authors

  • Purba Chakraborty

Keywords:

#MeToo, Misogyny, Underground Comix Movement, Pornography, Creative Paradox

Abstract

Informed by the #MeToo movement, the following paper is an attempt to revisit the allegations of misogyny in the works of Robert Crumb, the founder of the Underground Comix Movement. Now more than ever it becomes relevant to talk about Crumb not only because of his unconventional modes of expression which often verged on the levels of obscenity and seemingly outright misogynistic but also because of the curious reason—why he chose the very particular mode of sexual objectivity in his works that has been read as pornography. The paper perceives a chasm between general perception of art and the artist’s conception of it and attempts to read it as a ‘creative paradox’. The allegations and criticisms received by the works of Crumb, the paper will argue, are generated from this paradox. Finally, the paper would attempt to look beyond extreme ideologies to bring home the idea of artistic expression and freedom



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Author Biography

Purba Chakraborty

 

Purba Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor and H.O.D. English at PKM Mahavidyalaya, under the University of North Bengal. She is also a part-time doctoral research scholar at the Department of HSS, IIT Roorkee. Her areas of interest comprise of American Counterculture, Underground Comix, Comics Journalism, and Non-fictional Graphic Narratives. Pursuant to her research interests, Purba published “Hermeneutic Flashback: Building the Narrative Space in Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde in Journal of Graphic Novel and Comics, Taylor and Francis.



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Published

2021-09-18

How to Cite

Chakraborty, P. (2021). Sex and the Aesthetics of the Vulgar: : Reading the Creative Paradox in the Works of Robert Crumb. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 7(2), 120–148. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/8