What is it like to be a middle-aged woman?

September 5, 2020 8:53 PM

South Korean cartoonist Yeong-Shin Ma lived with his mother until he was 30. When he moved out, he discovered that living on your own isn't easy. To try to understand his mother better, he gave her a blank notebook, and asked her to fill it with her truths.

The notebook, once filled, became the inspiration for his graphic novel Moms. All are mothers and all are dealing with feckless adult children, “shithead” boyfriends who wheedle money out of them in exchange for bad sex and company, and invisibility and sexual harassment in their workplaces.

posted by toastyk (8 comments total)

This looks awesome and I definitely will read it.

My answer to the original question is "Mostly you're invisible but also everyone expects you to know everything and do everything, for reasons no one ever explains to you."
posted by emjaybee at 9:11 PM on September 5, 2020 [28 favorites]

When Moms came out in South Korea in 2015, readers were shocked – including Ma’s mother. “She read it in one sitting, shaking the entire time. She read it again and again,” Ma says. “But she couldn’t show it to any of her friends. She’s embarrassed by the book, because it goes into such explicit detail.”

He has since used the notebook method again, paying individuals to write out their stories: “They usually jump at the chance, and I find there are many more lively expressions and words I can glean from their notes than I’d originally thought.”

“People often want to publish their autobiographies, out of a desire for their stories to be heard and understood,” Ma writes, in a touching endnote to the comic. “In that regard, I wonder if this is my first act of devotion to my mom, if, perhaps for the very first time in my life, I’m being a good son.” Would he work with his mother again, though? “Even now, my mother sometimes texts me things about her boyfriend or what happened at work,” he says. “One day, I plan to write a story about her later years.”

It’s unclear from the story whether or not he had his mother’s consent to use her stories in his published work. And it’s certainly unclear whether or not he paid her, as he paid his later subjects. While he’s patting himself on the back for being a “good son,” all I can think is, maybe this is just one more instance of her doing the hard work for him. I dunno, maybe it’s just because I’m a disillusioned middle-aged woman myself.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:18 PM on September 5, 2020 [48 favorites]

Yeah that was my first thought -- was his mother actually into this or did he exploit her here too?

I mean, it sounds like a great book but this point is not elucidated enough for me to feel very good about buying it.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:29 PM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

Later on he mentions that his mom is still giving him stories. I think that there's probably a difference between someone saying "sure, use me in your little comic or whatever" and then seeing the final, finished, published product.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:05 PM on September 5, 2020 [3 favorites]

I love this post, thanks toastyk! Now someone do that for the many other flavors of middle aged women, please.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:24 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thanks, everyone!

As for whether he got permission or not - from the article, it looks like he didn't originally get permission, but now that it's out his mom is pleased with the results, and is giving him stories. The article mentions other people giving him stories, too, so maybe it's a matter of people not realizing how much they want to be seen until they actually are?

I don't know much about this artist, but I thought it was a pretty fascinating topic for him to explore.
posted by toastyk at 7:02 AM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

> It’s unclear from the story whether or not he had his mother’s consent to use her stories in his published work. And it’s certainly unclear whether or not he paid her

I think viewing this from a non-Korean perspective is a bit complicated.

From a lengthier Korean-language interview with Ma, it seems his mother had the choice to refuse his request to fill out the notebook, knowing the material could be used in his work, but chose to do so to help out her son. As for whether he paid her, part of being a "good son" in Korean culture is to help out one's parents financially, and in the interview Ma seems very mindful of his financial responsibility towards his mother. So he might not have paid her directly for her contribution to Moms, but both he and his mother likely understood he would be 'paying" her henceforth as he was able to. He says about 50% of the material in Moms came from his mother and the other half from his own imagination and life experiences.

In addition, Ma does not appear to have been hugely financially successful as a full-time graphic novel artist / author - his subject matter tends to be the lives of the working class or those struggling in Korean society, which doesn't lend itself to huge popularity or adaptation to other media such as K-drama, which can lead to financial windfalls for the author(s). He admits originally he intended Moms to be about the working conditions and struggles of older Korean cleaning ladies, but figured nobody would want to read that so he shifted focus to the moms themselves, mixing in social commentary on labor conditions and their struggles for fair pay and treatment.
posted by needled at 8:54 AM on September 6, 2020 [31 favorites]

Wonderful!
posted by infini at 11:28 AM on September 6, 2020