Phoebe Gloeckner’s most recent attempt to explain why she’s reluctant to classify her work as autobiographical caused a good deal of consternation, both pro and con. In the comment thread after that entry, a lot of folks seem to argue that questions about this topic are ridiculous, which of course is itself ridiculous. On the other hand you had Gary Groth’s response, in which he astutely and correctly defends the critical validity of examining how an artist’s life influences that artist’s work, then proceeds to bugger it up with needlessly confrontational invective. I know what you’re thinking: “What? Gary Groth, using needlessly confrontational invective? Get outta here!” Try to contain your disbelief. (Question: What does the Bush administration have to do with whether or not Phoebe Gloeckner stars in her own comics? Gary Groth reports, you decide!) Then Lorna Miller starts taking potshots at Gary, and, well, it’s TCJ.com messboard time.
The good news, though, is that Phoebe took this opportunity to offer up the clearest, most cogent explanation yet of the relationship between her life, her comics, and the truth:
I won’t deny that Minnie does things I have done, and that things happen to her that have happened to me, but she, unlike me, having been created, is who she is and will remain so, unchanged now. I make no attempt to create “documentary.”
It comes down to semantics, in the end, or semantics and intent. The presentation of the objective reality of her own life is not in Phoebe’s game plan, so she cannot classify her work as autobiographical. At the same time, the events in the work, and the intent behind the creation of the work, do come from her own life.
As I’ve said before, it’s not inherently purient or myopic or sexist or monomaniacal to ask such questions of Phoebe. I asked them myself, and am usually interested to read her answers when others ask. They’re important questions, in fact. But the heated debate they’ve somehow engendered is an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction. And it’s worth noting that it’s the work of one of the very best cartoonists on Earth that we’re being distracted from.