Skandalon is a big departure from Julie Maroh’s bestselling graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color. Unlike that novel (and accompanying film) which was situated in realist tropes of young romance Skandalon is a flashier and more mythic tale concerned with the ugly trappings of fame. It makes sense after the huge controversy and success of Blue the film which Maroh criticized not only for director Abdellatif Kechiche’s treatment of its two female stars but for largely departing from her source novel’s tale of complicated tragic love in favour of a fixation on graphic post-pubescent sex.
Skandalon details the epic rise and fall of Tazane a wildly popular singer-songwriter tearing up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s a narcissistic scumbag who enjoys openly deriding his legions of fans and when he isn’t busy with coke and blowjobs from starry-eyed young men revels in cruelly abusing anyone close to him. Of course like all self-destructive superstars much of the abuse is directed at himself doubting his talent as fleeting and deserving of contempt.
Tazane feels invincible in the godlike way reserved for the young and the famous and decides one evening after a show to ineffectually mete out punishment to one young fan a woman he takes backstage and rapes. As his fans riot proclaiming his innocence (he’s quickly acquitted) Tazane escapes to the countryside to stew in his bitter juices and wait for some sort of divine retribution or salvation whichever comes first.
It’s a little hard to believe that a French pop musician would find enormous success in both Europe and North America but no matter. Skandalon would be dismissively goofy and embarrassing in its portraiture of Eurotrash excess if it weren’t for Maroh’s gleefully poisonous attack on stars and starfuckers alike. Tazane with his silk shirts acoustic guitar and flowing locks is the embodiment of Nickelback-styled sleaze excess and self-centredness. He’s easy to hate. Too easy really — attacking celebrity vacuity while fun and well deserved is low-hanging fruit. Ignore it and it goes away.
Still a lot of Maroh’s satire sticks and much of Skandalon’s sharpness is owed to translator David Homel who transforms her French prose into sharp and concise barbs both hilariously ironic and painfully blunt. In a short essay at the end of the book Maroh defines a “skandalon” as a Janus-like entity that relies on imitation between both halves a relationship between “desire and sacrifice” that suggests perhaps we shouldn’t expect anything from the people we grant with godlike power.
Metaphysical speculating aside the real treat here is Maroh’s art. Unlike Blue is the Warmest Color Maroh replaces a more cartoon-like approach with big painted panels full of rich colours and curvy lines. For all its rage and ugliness Tazane’s story is kinetic and bursting with energy. Much of the latter half of the book is so lovely that any melodrama is quickly forgiven like a chapter where a dose of heroin leads Tazane to stare Narcissus-like into a river of his consciousness diving to the bottom through swirling waters of blinding white and cool green. It’s the sort of grandly gauche gesture that only someone like Tazane could get away with. Mostly.
SKANDALON by Julie Maroh translated by David Homel Arsenal Pulp Press 160 pp.
