Bringing Footnotes to the Forefront: Joe Sacco and graphic journalism

"History can do without its footnotes. Footnotes are inessential at best; at worst they trip up the greater narrative. From time to time, as bolder, more streamlined editions appear, history shakes off some footnotes altogether." Joe Sacco, Footnotes in Gaza

Although the conflict between Israel and Palestine has been one of decades, the English-speaking media in particular has not done the work of presenting the atrocities committed against Palestinians over the years accurately or at length. Sacco uses the phrase "footnotes" with this very notion in mind. He went on an investigative trip to Gaza to gather memories of those who had lived through the horrors that has not been properly communicated to Western audiences, and he purposefully interviews mostly Palestinian people -- as opposed to both Palestinians and Israelis. One could view this approach as biased, but the intention is to seek out voices that have otherwise not been heard. Through the interactions that Sacco writes of, it is clear that emotions and tensions run high amongst people living in the Gaza strip: many of them live beneath the line of poverty, many suffer exploitative working conditions, etc. The narrative of actual Palestinian experience can lend the Westerner insight on why these people have "hatred planted in their hearts" towards Isreal.

Although Journalism is, in theory, supposed to be an objective source of information, this is of course rarely the case. Sacco challenges this by amplifying the emotion in his storytelling, and exposing perspectives not usually explored by Western journalism; therefore being intentionally 'unreliable.' What further makes Footnotes in Gaza unreliable is it's style. The form is, of course, illustrations, and that offers the possibility of the artist adding or omitting drama where they see fit. Like journalists have the power to do, the artist could also omit entire segments of a story if they so desire.

Being an outsider to Palestine, Sacco comes into Gaza with an idea for a story, and may conduct his interviews and investigation in a way that serves his story the best. It is interesting to flip through the pages and note that the narrator is always drawn wearing opaque glasses: this could be a symbol for his position as an observer.  A lot of the illustrations of individual Palestinian people are full of emotion, which is read by facial expression. Eyes often play a huge role in that expression, and Sacco does not draw himself with such readability. See images below to notice the difference: