Noe’s Comics Nook: Lesson Plan & Review – Tales of the City

Review

Mary Ann Singleton is a young woman finding her way in San Francisco after deciding her short visit would become permanent. Used to the slower, more conservative – and frankly, more boring – life of small town Ohio, she finds herself struggling and learning as she adapts to the new environment that is late 1970’s San Francisco. The key to her success in this new life? Her new family of friends at 28 Barbary Lane.

The boarding house that is 28 Barbary Lane is run by the enigmatic Anna Madrigal, a woman with many pasts and twice as many secrets, but with more care for her tenants than any real life landlady I can imagine. Among them are Michael, an outgoing young gay man, Mona, a bisexual woman more at home in the late 60’s with the hippies than anywhere, and Brian, who wants what he wants and isn’t afraid to tell you about it. The cast also includes several love interests – for each character! – and they come with their own baggage to boot.

Truly the best way to imagine this story is as if you are reading a queer soap opera set in a time before HIV and AIDS, when acceptance was hard to find outside of your community, but inside that community, you had a home. The artwork is in soft, colored pencil tones and qualities and the serenity it offers is a great contrast to the drama of the lives it depicts. Some readers – including myself – may be shocked and frustrated by a character who is effectively in medically induced blackface. There are consequences for the decision but I was unprepared to run into such a thing in this story, so I would be remiss if I didn’t warn readers here.

All in all, this is a comic that will appeal to the older high school and early college age students in your life and offers a peek into a world that feels far further away than it is.

Elements of Story

Plot: Mary Ann Singleton, recently escaped from her Ohio upbringing, finds herself struggling to adapt to life in San Francisco. Along the way she meets a colorful cast of characters, all centered around 28 Barbary Lane, and learns how to be a far more accepting person in a world soon to be rocked by AIDS.

Characters: Mary Ann Singleton, Anna Madrigal, Michael “Mouse,” Brian Hawkins, Mona Ramsey, additional other minor characters

Major Settings: San Francisco, the late 1970’s (the time truly is a setting here), 28 Barbary Lane

Themes: Home, identity, sexuality, family, (late) coming of age

Lesson Plan Idea Using Common Core Standards (CCS)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7 – Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text.

Directions: Tales of the City is a comics adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s novels in the same universe that is also tied to the Netflix series adaptation of the same. Adaptations have a long tradition and as always, they come with their own controversies and hard feelings – everyone has a beloved book that finally gets adapted into a film only for it to be… well, awful.

For this assignment, students are tasked with choosing one of two options for evaluating the comics adaptation of Tales of the City:

1. Watch at least five episodes of the Netflix series adaptation of the novels. Then, compare and contrast the treatment of the themes and of specific characters in the Netflix adaptation and the comic version. Where there any clear changes made? Which version did you find more appealing and why?
   
   
2. Read one of the original novels by Armistead Maupin. Then, compare and contrast the treatment of the themes and of specific characters in the original and the comic version. How well do you think the comic captures the feeling of the original? Where there any clear changes made? Which version did you find more appealing and why?

Regardless of medium chosen, students should prepare a 5 page paper exploring the themes and the comparisons between adaptations. Attention to specific characterization and the larger cultural happenings of the times should be offered.