Ezra Claytan Daniels
and Ben Passmore’s graphic novel BTTM FDRS blends discussions around race
relations, cultural appropriation, and urban injustice with body horror and an
eerie plot.
Dan Schindel
Writer Ezra Claytan
Daniels and artist Ben Passmore’s new graphic novel BTTM FDRS is a coy,
gruesome satire of gentrification. Taking place in the fictional Chicago
neighborhood Bottomyards (riffing on Back of the Yards), it blends discussions
around race relations, cultural appropriation, and urban injustice with a
creepy plot centered around a mysterious force which metaphorically feeds on
those very phenomena.
Bottomyards is a
rundown area now getting its first taste of “renewal,” as landlords are beginning
to lure in well-off outsiders with cheap rents. One new move-in is Darla, an
aspiring fashion designer with a complicated relationship to the place. She’s
originally from there, but her upwardly mobile family then moved out, and she’s
since grown up in wealthier (and much whiter) environs. She’s contrasted with
her white BFF Cynthia, who’s almost stereotypical in her enthusiasm for the
“authenticity” of the neighborhood. Darla’s mixture of ambition, guilt, and
reticence over the frictions between her Blackness, status, career, and
relationships with her friends and family forms the backbone of the story’s
arc. While there are plenty of broad (and funny) jabs at artwashing, hipsters,
and both NIMBYs and YIMBYs, the book doesn’t settle for an easy examination of
the issues at hand.
Darla soon suspects
there’s something off about her new apartment building (in which she is
currently one of the very few residents). The odd noises aren’t merely leaky
pipes or rusty fixtures, and some of the blight is suspiciously organic … and
mobile. There’s something else in the building, and soon its presence goes from
disturbing to actively malevolent. The plot recalls the films of both Jordan
Peele and David Cronenberg, with flavor from manga creator Junji Ito, Katsuhiro
Otomo’s Akira, and J.G. Ballard as well. But the nature of the satire and
setting puts Daniels’ script not just in the horror-comedy genre, but the more
specific category of apartment horror.
This is an
under-examined but distinct realm of fiction, drawing on the unique elements of
apartment living. Other examples include Cronenberg’s Shivers, Ballard’s
High-Rise and its film adaptation, Otomo’s graphic novel Domu: A Child’s Dream
and his film World Apartment Horror. The contradictions of experiencing simultaneous
isolation and inextricably united community have been fodder for writers ever
since the rapid increase in urbanization after World War II. An apartment is
your home, but also just a few rooms. You are cut off from those around you,
even as hundreds or even thousands of people are stacked together in one
building. Such a setting can easily shift from familiar to sinister, as urban
density becomes a trap.
Beyond the
creepiness, there’s unease underlying BTTM FDRS which stems not from the
monsters but from Darla’s questioning of her place in her community. This sense of alienation, and the suggestion that gentrification will
outlive any scientific abomination, are what ultimately linger. Unresolved questions
are more haunting than any lurking creature.
https://hyperallergic.com/505900/bttm-fdrs/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20062719%20-%20An%20Exhibition&utm_content=Daily%20062719%20-%20An%20Exhibition+CID_2c6688778c2247f79f234cbb5d16274c&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter
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