Suzanne Noël “refused to judge her patients” says Leïla Slimani

Clément Oubrerie and Leïla Slimani.

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• A mains nues

  (Les Arènes BD) tells the story of Suzanne Noël, pioneer of cosmetic surgery and feminist doctor who created the Soroptimist movement.

• 20 Minutes

  interviewed the author and author of this comic, the writer Leïla Slimani and the designer Clément Oubrerie.

• "There is no sorority without fraternity" says Leïla Slimani, who also wanted to highlight the men who supported and accompanied this exceptional destiny.

Remember the name of Suzanne Noël.

It is to this pioneer of cosmetic surgery, feminist doctor and creator of the Soroptimist movement, repairer of “broken faces” of the First World War and resistance during the Second, that the writer Leïla Slimani and the designer Clément Oubrerie wanted to dedicate a book,

(Les Arènes BD).

One way to give back all the fame she deserves to this great woman.

A moving, rich story that takes us on a journey to Paris at the start of the 20th century.

Interview with the author and the designer, who highlight the “pragmatic feminism” of their heroine.

How did you get the idea to make this book?

Leïla Slimani 

: It started with reading a book in which the name of Suzanne Noël appeared.

I did some research and when I discovered this woman I was surprised and fascinated by her, by her professional success, by the fact that she went through two world wars, that she participated in the evolution of cosmetic surgery, that she was a great feminist, and I found it incredible that she was not known.

I spoke about it one evening at a dinner with my editor and Clément, and both were won over by his personality.

Clément Oubrerie, what touched you about this story?

Clément Oubrerie

 : Lots of things.

I love this time for having made

[four comic book volumes which retrace the youth of Pablo Picasso in Montmartre], which takes place at the beginning of the 20th century.

And it goes through the First World War that I had never represented, which is graphically very interesting.

We wanted to draw a parallel between the birth of modern art and cosmetic surgery to represent the wounded of the face using cubist painting rather than showing them realistically.

And the character is very original.

We did this book in full confinement and it was interesting to tell the story of a caregiver capable of forgetting herself and reaching out to others.

Extract from "A mains nues".

- The Comic Strip Arenas.

The journey of this woman resonates with that of caregivers during the health crisis ...

LS: 

We had the idea before the crisis, but from the start there was a desire to dive into the medical world.

I come from a family of doctors.

Many family reunions have revolved around the new colonoscopy technique!

Which actually cut my appetite.

But I have a lot of admiration for good doctors.

My mother, for example, at 72, can still recite the Hippocratic Oath by heart.

It is a deep and total commitment.

I've never heard her moan.

It was a way for us to pay tribute to people who dedicate their entire lives to the well-being of others, to listening to their pains.

How did you work to restore the era?

CO

 : I did a lot of research, and Leïla also brought a lot of iconography.

You have to go through it, try to digest it and choose the highlights.

I put advertisements on the walls of Paris for corsets, to contain the body.

As the story progresses there is going to be an emancipation.

On the second album we're going to explore the Roaring Twenties and it's going to be a liberation, almost an orgy.

LS

 : Clément brought the visual universe with the details, the night scenes, in the street, in Paris.

I started from an intellectual observation, I told myself that it was an important moment in the transformation of the relationship with the body for women, with beauty.

This is the birth of cosmetics, Estée Lauder.

And then he had to be brought to life in the city.

Paris is very important in this comic book, it is a Paris which is changing, which is modernized, which opens up to women, where we party.

ELSE: “Suzanne Noël is like me” tells Leïla Slimani, who is releasing “A mains nues” - Les Arènes BD.

The book recounts the many sarcasms and sexist remarks that Suzanne Noël had to face, one of the rare women at that time to pass her Bac and study medicine.

Did you also, Leïla Slimani, say to you: “Writing is not for women”?

LS: 

I have never been told and if I had been told I would not have heard it.

They don't interest me, they are invisible, I pass them over.

And I think Suzanne Noël is like me, she doesn't hear that.

It doesn't fit in her ear, it doesn't really touch her.

Of course it is a woman who had obstacles in her path, linked to a form of sexism.

But I also find it interesting to say that in the journey of many exceptional women, we always come across men who help us.

It is wrong to say that men are still obstacles, and I find it dangerous today to press absolutely on all those who wanted to prevent.

I found it interesting to also tell stories of friendship, of solidarity between the two sexes.

We must not let the marvelous and saving feminism that moves society blind us.

There is no sorority without fraternity.

We're strong as long as we're together.

Suzanne represents that to me too.

The strength of friendships between men and women.

And besides, it is a man and a woman who made this comic!

You too, Clement, is there something in this story that allows you to identify with it?

CO 

: I clearly identify with Suzanne.

The principle of writing, even graphic, is to identify with all the characters, and I have no problem identifying with Suzanne.

To bring the characters to life, you have to be inside, draw from the inside, otherwise it doesn't work.

It's a bit like cinema, like being an actor… but at home, drawing.

What you say is reminiscent of what Suzanne says, her fascination with the interior of bodies.

CO 

: Yes exactly, Jean Giraud [alias Mœbius] says that drawing and surgery are very close: it is meticulous and precise work that is done by hand.

And the slightest mistake is fatal.

There is all this parallel in the book with cubism, Arcimboldo, Soutine's flayed rabbit… The idea was to stage Suzanne's specific gaze, which is a clinical gaze.

She tries to view the open body as a rebus or a problem to be solved, and not as a traumatic event.

There is precisely this scene at the beginning where Suzanne witnesses a car accident, with a bloodied horse.

This scene is magnificent, and it seems to me, Clément, that you are using a different technique…

CO

 : It's a scene we imagined to show what his gaze will be.

In such moments she will not let herself be overwhelmed by emotion, she has a very particular representation of the world.

For these visions I used paint and watercolor.

LS

 : We wanted to have a founding moment, not really rational, directly linked to our destiny.

We know that from the start in this little girl there will be a relationship to the world that will be a little different.

We then see her as a young bride disemboweling hares, looking at them in another way.

We often hear people say “I couldn't have been a doctor, I hate blood”.

We wanted to work on this look, which can be a fascinated look for what is full of blood.

Extract from "A mains nues".

- The Comic Strip Arenas.

It is the fate of an independent and free woman who wanted to repair faces but also to make women younger, women sometimes under pressure from their husbands and from a patriarchal society, where old age is better tolerated for men. than for women.

How do you see it?

LS:

It was only interesting because there was this contradiction.

She is a very feminist woman, she has very strong feminist and political commitments.

And at the same time, she does not question the injunction of beauty that weighs on women.

This forced me to ask myself a number of questions, including that of the right of women to dispose of their bodies.

Do we have the freedom to sell our body?

This is the issue of prostitution.

And do we have the right to change our body?

Suzanne Noël very quickly understands that behind cosmetic surgery there is something other than frivolity.

You don't necessarily do cosmetic surgery to look good.

The Gueules cassées do it to integrate into society.

Beauty can never be just a perception from the outside.

It's like painting: the first people who saw Picasso's paintings, or cubist paintings, might have said it was ugly.

Who decides what is beautiful?

Suzanne Noël answers this question by saying that what matters is the social aspect.

She wrote an essay on the social effects of cosmetic surgery: she understands that a woman who has suffered precariousness, who has suffered war, who is marked by age, is a woman who will have more difficulty in exercising his job.

She has a very pragmatic approach.

I was just going to talk to you about this “pragmatic feminism”.

There is this sentence at the end of the book: “Beauty is a kind of capital for women.

To miss it is to be at a disadvantage in a society that puts beauty at the center ”.

She does with the company she has.

LS

 : Exactly.

She refused to judge her patients.

And I think that when you're an artist, you always try to have that relationship with your characters.

It is trying to understand them, to put oneself in their place and to look at the world as they see it.

I do not entirely agree with Suzanne Noël's vision of cosmetic surgery.

But having lived with her, I fully understand that at the time she was, and at the stage of reflection where she was, there was an intelligence and an empathy in the way she looked at her patients.

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