How the Little Details Matter in "Drama"

    Drama is a story about background features and their impact on a story. Callie’s entire character revolves around her love of story-telling and her using sets to do it, given that she is not much of a performer. Raina Telgemeier relates this to her own life in the novel’s “Author’s Note,” where she talks about her own experiences in theater growing up, and how “every person on or behind the stage had an important role to play.” This idea of little details adding to a story is evident in both the nature of the story as a graphic novel as well as the reasons for the controversy surrounding it. 

Every part of an artist’s drawing has meaning, just like how every word that an author writes is intentional. For example, Telgemeier shows readers just how crowded the costume closet is by drawing chairs seemingly coming out of the ceiling (109). If Drama were a traditional novel instead of a graphic one, she could easily write about the mess of the room and use a simile or metaphor to make it witty, but by drawing it she is able to literally “show and not tell” the audience in a more whimsical way.

Unfortunately, these small details that add to the story are also part of the reason that it has been banned by certain groups, namely the small details regarding members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many of those who want to ban this book claim that it is sexually explicit; I looked through comments on Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) and there were a number of commenters (mostly parents) who flagged this book as having “too much sex,” but that is simply not true. Telgemeier uses drawing to depict the emotions of her characters, especially love. Callie and the others blush, have a heart float above their head, or their eyes go wide when they see someone to whom they are attracted. There are a handful of kisses shared throughout the novel which are the only things remotely close to sexual content (and are still far from it).

The LGBTQ+ elements of Drama are crucial to the story and its messages, but those who are critical of it blow them way out of proportion. It is worth noting that of the reviews I saw on Common Sense Media, every single one that criticized it for having “too much sex” quoted the kiss between West and Jesse as an example of this. Only one mentioned Greg and Bonnie’s moment in the costume closet, and that was a single line in a paragraph talking about how much they were offended by the books LGBTQ+ representation. In a story about noticing the beauty of small background details, homophobic readers have done exactly that in a way that twists the story. Yes, two boys kiss in this graphic novel, but this is not explicit content, much less content that should be a cause for alarm.

Another idea that was repeated throughout negative comments on this book was a version of “be prepared to talk to your child about LGBTQ+ themes,” which made me think about how one should introduce such themes to their children. That is, until I realized that this is something that our society does on its own with heterosexual couples. Fairytale stories that parents tell their children at night almost exclusively revolve around love and a kiss, the same extent of “explicit themes,” that appear in Drama. Modern society has no problem with introducing the idea of heterosexual attraction to children through stories, which is why works like Drama are crucial to the discussion.  

Just like how the little background details of a play add to the production as a whole, the books we read growing up greatly impact our development. Stories like Drama are great ways to show LGBTQ+ representation in a very natural way, like how Justin comes out to Callie, and the story progresses with no further mention of this. Queer representation in media is crucial in the fight against bigotry because of how casually it is featured, but unfortunately, that is also the exact reason why the novel is criticized.