Real Queer Bodies: Visual Weight and Imagined Gravity in Sport Manga

Abstract

The method introduced in this chapter combines queer theory and Rudolf Arnheim’s theory of visual composition introduced in his book Power of the Center – A Study of Composition in the Visual Arts (1982), and more specifically his concept “visual weight”. The main purpose of using a queer method in Art History or Visual Studies is to add visual records of queer bodies and queer life into the catalogue of a queer Art History or used in an interdisciplinary context—the queer archive (Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press, 2005). I will study visual weight as imagined gravity in the sport manga Real by Takehiko Inoue with the purpose to discuss the queer body. Real is a story that evolves around three young men who experience different tragic life-changing events. They all have a common passion for basketball, and sport performances are at the centre of this story. Damage to their bodies caused by illness and accident has led two of them to be dependent on a wheelchair to be able to practise basketball. The third character suffers from bad conscience having caused a traffic accident resulting in a girl damaging her legs.