I’m in NOLA at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Meeting (for posterity: April 2009)
I just attended am excellent standing room only 4 paper panel session on the Sookie Stackhouse series, their televised version, True Blood, and the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series.
There’s lots here but I wanted to note a couple of the points made that I found most interesting:
1. The TV series is an improvement on the novels because (a) the tone switches in the novels from humor to horror and this is better achieved with visual media, and (b) because the novels portray a white de-racialized, de-ethnicized rural South, which the show features complex African American characters
2. Sookie and Bella are viewed by a lot of academics as terrible literary protagonists, horrifying role models for women and girls, and passive nonresistors and even seekers of abusive relationships who serve to shore up capitalist patriarchy.
Here are summaries of the papers. I did my best, but readers should contact the folks listed below for copies of their papers, which are sure to be more accurate accounts of their views than my own hastily typed notes.
1. “The Vampire rises … Again: True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse Novels”, Nicole Burkholder-Mosco, Lock Haven University
EDITED TO ADD: Professor Burkholder-Mosco sent a very helpful email explaining a few of her points. I appreciate the time she took to do this. Added bits are in this color.
“I did work directly with Charlaine Harris for this paper. I found her to be delightful, helpful, and an all-around lovely person. As far as her professional work, I like her books very much. In fact, I also find her books “instruct” as well as “delight”–that age-old paradigm for what constitutes important work in literature.”
[I offered to go up to my hotel room to get my Mac adaptor for one of the speakers and missed the beginning of this one.]
Race, homosexuality, and gender roles are explored in the series.
She thinks TB succeeds in a different way when it comes to the portrayal of the immediacy of violence, because with the visual media, the viewer can grasp the switch of pace and tone – images, sound effects, visceral fear. The visual reenactment makes us feel like the real fear is in the everyday. The TV show works better to show this.
Tara is an asset to the series. She is more a stereotype in the books. She is complex in the show. She shows a clip for the show, of Tara taking her mother to rid her of a demon in a voodoo ritual. [My note: Wow, I guess the show really departs from the book.]
[My note: I wonder what the methodology is in studies like this. Is it “academic” and what does that mean? A smart careful fan can watch True Blood with no training and make these observations.]
Professor Burkholder-Mosco very diplomatically pointed out in her email that because I had missed the first few minutes of her presentation, I missed the Noel Carroll/Nina Auerbach set up. Theory was, in fact, grounding her observations, in particular the theory of cylcical violence. Sorry!!!
Twilight, Anita Blake, Sookie – the new vampire tale is “terribly democratic”. Werewolves, demons, myriad of mythical monsters.
Quotes Harris: “I’ve had a lot of bad things happen in my life. None of them were caused by vampires.”
The post 9-11 world finds fear in the every day like never before. It’s easier to pretend the bad guys are easy to spot, as in supes.
Fear isn’t just the other. “Home grown terrorist”. The other looks just like us.
[My note: But this has always been the mark of the vampire genre. This is why the original vampires cannot see selves in mirror. We are they. They are us.]
2. “Shades of Bromance Between Vampires and Weres: Homoerotics and the Trafficking of Women in Sookie Stackhouse and Twilight”, Jennifer Moskowitz. Morningside College
**I found this paper the most interesting and troubling.
Why don’t we see Team Bella t-shirts at Wal-Mart? Because she’s nobody to root for. Same for Sookie.
Sookie is no more heroine or protagonist than Bella. She’s a vehicle by which men establish a hierarchy. Female characters are employed as eroticized figures of exchange for male characters.
Getting the girl is important because possession signifies power. Power is represented and augmented by “getting the girl”.
Werewolves and shifters represent hyper-nature (nature but better, better even than itself). Vamps represent hyper-humans. And the battle is on.
Historically, the rightful end of women in novels is social –community and social connectedness (citing Du Plessis). Social death is as bad or worse for women characters than physical death.
This has not changed for Bella or Sookie.
Note dig at romance (there have been a lot of these this morning): “Each woman is little more than a romance novel character.”
Bella – clumsy, needs protection. Sookie too.
Sookie is in center of action, but not an independent actor. She is aided by many characters, all men except for her guardian Claudine, who is on order from a man.
She is a “hard sell” as a protagonist.
Telepathy tells us about the other characters, not about Sookie.
[My note: this makes Sookie a complement to the vampires in a way I had not considered.]
She inhabits novel as a participant. Although it’s first person, we get third person omniscience via Sookie.
Vegetarianism and synthetic blood represent self-discipline of “good” vampires. They are more self-disciplined than the humans.
Ex. Edward repeatedly reminds Bella he must maintain sexual control because she cannot. He actually has more human characteristic than Bella has. He is hyper-human (humanity better than itself).
In Sookie books: Wisdom of the ages and ability to adapt. Uniquely suited to 21st century existence.
Weres and shifters have retreated to a more pastoral existence in both Twilight and Sookie. Compare difference between Sam’s bar and Eric’s.
Cites eve Sedgwick. Says both series shore up patriarchal capitalism.
Sookie often talks about improved physical status when drinks blood. Hyper human.
Contrast to weres’ imprinting (is this in Twilight) – bring characters closer to nature. Hyper natural.
Cites Rene Girard’s Theory of Erotic Triangle. Bond that links rivals is as intense as bond to beloved. Sexual awareness of the other. (Girard is discussed in Sedgwick)
Sookie: Highly charged erotic scenes serve to relationship forward between competing men. Ex. Sookie takes Eric’s blood in All Together Dead. Her were-panther boyfriend Quinn watches. The two men are much more interested in each other in that moment in each other. And the fact that Eric disappears means hyperhuman Eric is more suited to be Sookie’s mate. [My note: This would make the Sookie books NOT romance.]
Also note weres have not been able to mainstream, while vamps have. Hyper human trumps hyper natural.
Also in Twilight – eternality afforded to Bella and Edward. They will never age, perfectly suited to 21st century global world
3. “The Vampire Who Loved Me: The Modern Vampire Hero in Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight Series and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse Series”, Heide Crawford
EDITED: Professor Crawford has emailed me to ask that the summary of her paper be taken down. As a professional courtesy to her, I did so. Anyone who is interested in following up with her should contact her directly.
4. “Casting A Reflection: Vampire as Metaphor for the Changing American society in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse Series” Eden Leone, Bowling Greene University
She focuses on the first three books in the series. This is another paper that sounds like a series of observations, rather than a cohesive argument.
“Vampire Bill” – the “Bill” shows acceptance, the “Vampire” marks him as other.
Who is the “other”? Seem HIV/AIDs, but not. It’s post 9-11.
Nests are like sleeper cells.
[I am always puzzled by this sort of claim. The rise of the modern vamp novel with Rice predated 9-11. Buffy predated it. Etc.]
she contends the novels do two things:
1. Unique way to deal with repercussions of 9-11.
2. Provides an example of how to live with people “other” than ourselves.
[My note: Wow! Ethical criticism is alive and well!]
Q and A Session:
Q1. (Actually 3 separate questions. Cheater.) What makes B. and S. unique is their immunity to glamour, etc, of vampires. So they do have power. Also, you never discuss class. Isn’t that pivotal in vampire culture? And isn’t it significant that Edward doesn’t bite Bella but uses a syringe when she turns?
A1. (It’s moving too fast for me to identify which speaker addressed these questions)
Glen Thomas, TMT blogger and friend of Eric and Sarah, yells out: “That’s safe sex!!”
It also follows pattern of only turning her after she’s dying. So what was posed originally as a choice never really is.
Q2. (This woman is wearing a Fangtasia t-shirt, but says she wishes she had a Sookie T-shirt). She strongly objects to the idea that Sookie is a cipher. She says everyone refers to these books as “Sookie” books for a reason) “I am about to teach DUD for third time to gen lit students. I liked your comment that the jokes cover fear. Clive Barker has said horror is about everyday fears and Sookie has these: poverty, rape, aloneness. My students read her fear as very real.”
Q3. “I kept noticing that Harris’s books are in the top 20 bestsellers. Do we know who is reading them?”
A. Someone in the audience says the publisher markets them as 25-35 year olds.
Q4. Woman teaches vampires and literature. Confirms her students love Sookie and read all books in series even though she only assigned DUD.
Q5. My question: why are you referencing 9-11 when we had Anne Rice and Buffy pre-9-11?
A: Of course it’s all connected, but after 9-11 the vampires are OUT, the way terrorists are out, among us.
Panel: To me these fantasies objectify a woman. I cannot get on board with this. I have to ask, what is going on here? Form a Marxist perspective, this is all about who is taking on power. And it is not Bella or Sookie.
Audience: Recognizes prevalence of domestic violence, yet dream of perfect baby, perfect home, cult of domesticity. Perpetual limbo.
Panel: Bella and Sookie never had normal relationship, upbringing. So they launch into abusive relationships.
Audience: Ethnic other was the original issue for vampires. Now vamps are de-ethnicized. Eric is a Viking. The kinds of power dynamic all happens in a sphere if the white world, even when it’s in the South. I’m baffled by the Sookie books for this. This is how the TV show is better. Contrast to 30 Days of Night, the monstrous vampires are the ethnic vampires. [I add: this is really interesting. To become a romantic vampire, vamps had to be made white.]
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#1 by carolyn jean on April 9, 2009 - 1:11 pm
Thanks for this report!
I agree, that second paper IS super interesting, as is your comment that, considering her pov observations, telepathy makes Sookie a kind of complement to the vampires.
All of this is really fun to read, even though I didn’t read the Twilight series. I also love #2′s comparison of weres to vamps, the natural/pastoral vs more human-influenced. Sam’s bar, Fangtasia. Wonderful!
“Little more than a character in a romance novel” I’m shocked by this. I know I shouldn’t be.
I guess I have nothing to add to the discussion. Except that I like the bite-sized way you presented these observations.
#2 by Robin on April 9, 2009 - 1:16 pm
I couldn’t even finish reading the post, Jessica, because I was getting so wound up! OMG that thesis about True Blood is *dead backwards* IMO. DEAD BACKWARDS! And the thing about Sookie as stereotypical Romance heroine as facilitator of the patriarchy almost pushed me over the edge.
Deep breath, deep breath.
Here’s my question: are these folks fans of/or have they read widely in the genres they’re analyzing? I think that makes a difference — i.e. do they understand the paradigm and can they read the codes properly – that is, as a genre reader is being directed.
Harris is writing a de-racialized South??????????????????? Holy smokes, that’s one f’ed up assertion.
#3 by Marianne McA on April 9, 2009 - 2:02 pm
I’m puzzled by the assertion that the lack of Team Bella t-shirts means she’s nobody to root for – either I’ve misunderstood those T-shirts, or they have.
Also – and I haven’t read the Sookie books, but I have read the Twilight series, thanks to my daughter – I think it’s reaching to say that Bella didn’t have a normal upbringing. Her parents are divorced, but that was all.
I don’t remember feeling the relationship was abusive anyway – I could understand calling it obsessive, or unhealthy, but not really abusive.
#4 by Victoria Janssen on April 9, 2009 - 2:23 pm
Thanks so much for the reports!
I haven’t been to PCA in years and years, but I loved the experience and it’s great to hear what’s going on these days.
#5 by "Dallas" on April 9, 2009 - 3:37 pm
Thanks Jessica
Just wonderful !!
“Dallas”
http://lovingtruebloodindallas.blogspot.com/
#6 by Jill D. on April 9, 2009 - 7:33 pm
I haven’t finished reading the whole post. I read up to talk #2. I find it absolutely facinating that these people had the desire and inclination to completely pick apart something that brings me pleasure and escape. On some level, to devote that much time to studying those books, they must have enjoyed them. They might not want to admit it and hide that fact with their “scientific revelations”.
#7 by Nicola O. on April 9, 2009 - 11:32 pm
Best bit:
Werewolves and shifters represent hyper-nature (nature but better, better even than itself). Vamps represent hyper-humans. And the battle is on.
Love that observation.
#8 by Nikky on April 13, 2009 - 7:29 pm
I was at this panel and enjoyed this one most likely the most. The 2nd panelist brought up a lot of points about Sookie that I personally hadn’t thought about. “Sookie: Highly charged erotic scenes serve to relationship forward between competing men.” It would be nice if there was some way for Sookie to figure out how to defend herself w/o becoming a vampire herself (which thankfully, Harris has said she won’t do). ^_^
#9 by Nikky on April 13, 2009 - 8:00 pm
@ Robin: Yes, the panelists have EXTENSIVELY studied the books, both Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse series.
#10 by Jessica on April 13, 2009 - 8:25 pm
Nikky wrote:
I agree — I loved all the papers on this panel. It’s a tribute to the richness and subtlety of the books and tv show that they generate such wonderful work.
Nikky wrote:
I thik Robin was asking whether they gave read extensively in the GENRE, either romance or vampire, because that may contextualize Sookie in a new way.
Jill D. wrote:
Speaking as someone who tends to do this very thing, I find it is usually a sign that I am emotionally affected, either in a positive or negative way, by the texts. I look at it as a different way of reading, not better or worse than reading for enjoyment. Just a different way to interact with the material.
Robin wrote:
My own presentation focused on Sookie as a survivor and resistor, an active agent refashioning a naive Christian worldview into a more nuanced moral perspective that allows her to be true to herself in very difficult situations.
However, it must be admitted that Sookie is beaten, raped or nearly, and used, over and over in the series. And it is absolutely true that in the scene discussed between Eric and Quinn, they were more interested in each other than in Sookie.
On the other hand, I feel that this scene is more of an aberration than the revelation of a pattern.
But this is the way of literary criticism isn’t it?
Robin wrote:
This was a comment from an audience member. I want to believe it is wrong, but think about it: there are no regular/significant characters of color in a series set in rural Lousiana.
Yes, the vampires themselves represent the racialized other, but in a way that is even worse: having pale mostly caucasian undead stand in for real black characters?
How would you rebut that argument? I’d love a way to do it.
#11 by Nikky on April 13, 2009 - 8:39 pm
@ Jessica:
Ahh, that would make much more sense. I can’t really see someone writing a paper and presenting it at panel if they’ve never read the books before. ^_^
I wish the panelists had put their papers at the paper table; I would’ve loved to buy them but sadly I didn’t see them there.
#12 by Robin on April 14, 2009 - 1:48 am
Jessica, I think the deracination argument is one of the easiest to rebut, actually. I’d start this way: by setting the series in the South, especially rural Louisiana, an area steeped in racial tensions and a history of discrimination. Bill fought and died in the Civil War, even, offering just one echo, IMO, of the racial issues that are always there, even if they are not prominent in the series, per se, because Harris is using the supes to explore the issues of belonging and exclusion and social hierarchy that in RL divide along class, race, gender, and sexuality lines.
And IMO it was smart that Harris didn’t, for example, arm her supes with overtly racialized identities (or, like a series which shall not be named, with ridiculous faux-AA dialects), because then the supes play out these various dynamics within a geographical and temporal backdrop where race is unforgettable because it’s so much a part of the region (I would add class, gender, and sexuality, too, since IMO it’s all there), but it’s not hammered into us like a lesson.
So I don’t think Harris’s world is de-racinated at all (and there is diversity within the series, as well); on the contrary, I think Harris actually brings racial politics closer to the surface by not directly embodying them. For me, the Ball series, as much as I love it, is so much less subtle, so much less nuanced around these issues, that its strength is more in celebrating the sensationalistic and reveling in the gore, flattening out some of Harris’s series.
re. Sookie’s physical condition and the question of patriarchy in the series, this is where IMO you have to read a) Harris’s personal history and the trauma of her own rape, b) some of her other books like A Secret Rage (both discussed here: http://www.crescentblues.com/4_4issue/int_charlaine_harris.shtml), c) the idea of Sookie’s vulnerability as a critique of patriarchy rather than an endorsement.
While I want to steer clear of any biographical criticism vis a vis Harris, I do think that the theme of rape plays throughout her books, and that her own personal history has made this an overt element in her writing. And isn’t it interesting that in books where a human woman is vulnerable, where the fictional world is dangerous for her, she’s perhaps seen as weaker, rather than as someone who is strong in refusing to be categorized as a victim.
For me, Harris’s insistence that the world IS dangerous for women, even within the confines of fiction, is different from victimizing women within those pages. And while the fantasy of heroine invincibility is often way more appealing to me, I find the realism in Harris’s books instructive and sobering in a good way. And as a critique of male violence directed at women. Now, will there be a point at which the scale tips and Harris starts to beat Sookie up beyond the point where her refusal to be a victim becomes futile and self-defeating? Maybe, but IMO we’re not anywhere near that point yet (ask me again in two weeks!).
I also see as a critique of patriarchy the way in which the male supes often posture for each other with Sookie as the token prize. None of these guys is an ideal match for Sookie, and I think she took a big step forward as a character when she told Quinn that she needed a male who would put her first in his life. This whole question of where once gets their sense of personal security — the notion of what it means to belong to someone and to be part of a community — so much of that resides in Sookie’s character, IMO, and especially in her relationships with the males around her, from Jason, who is constantly illustrating the limits of blood relationships, to Bill, who embodies the failure of idealized romantic love, etc.
For me, one of the things that really keeps this series alive for me is the way in which Sookie is attempting to negotiate her own personal boundaries, which are constantly changing, and simultaneously trying to find a place she “belongs.” This tension — on the one hand her desire to simply love and be loved, while on the other her stubbornness and innate independence — animates Sookie as a compelling character for me, such that I wonder how the hell Harris is going to resolve this in a way that works for the reader and for Sookie.
#13 by Jessica on April 16, 2009 - 2:05 pm
@ Robin:
I think Bette Midler said it best:
“Did you ever know, that you’re my heeeeerrrroooooooo? you’re everything I’d like to beeeeeeeee.”
Thank you!
#14 by Robin on April 17, 2009 - 1:04 am
@ Jessica: LOL, Jessica — good one!!
So I was thinking a bit more about this issue, remembering the scene from True Blood in which Sookie shows up at Bills when his predatory vamp “friends” are there (his nest mates). In Ball’s Sookieverse, one of the most horrid vamps in that scene is a black woman, and I was struck by how easily that could create a link between her race and her sociopathic behavior in a way that is not/would not be ironized, either by Ball or a savvy viewer.
Again, I think Harris understands how loaded race is, especially in the South. So she creates a Viking vampire who, in the words of a friend of mine, does not have ideas about race informed by post-Enlightenment notions of social identity, and who has an incredible sense of entitlement and a sense of power/dominance that is not organized along racial lines. That IMO makes him more interesting as a character and provides an opportunity for readers to re-examine our understanding of social hierarchies and constructions of difference as they relate to those categories of circumstantial identity we most often identify in American culture.