PCA Romance Panel 7: Romancing Vampires: Toothsome Heroes and Happy Endings

Apr 03 2010 Published by under Pop Culture Association 2010, Vampires

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Romance VII: Romancing Vampires: Toothsome Heroes and Happy Endings
Session Chair: Sarah S. G. Frantz, Fayetteville State University

“Sexual Exchange and Submission in Dracula: A Precursor to Gay Erotica Romance”‖ Haley Stokes

Homoerotic sexual exchange in Dracula as precursor to paranormal romance

Hard to fulfill genre requirements with two men. Tendency to write chicks with dicks, due to need for binary opposition between partners.

Conservative ideals of the genre – one partner, one true love, lifetime satisfaction with one partner  – pose unique  challenges for m/m romance.

Heteronormative space is still what is being negotiated.

Close textual analysis of Dracula, emphasizing homoeroticism of Dracula.

Story of Harker as story of bondage, homoerotic desire (cites several studies)

Dynamic of Harker and Dracula’s relationship does not require penetration, even if he wants to be bitten.

It’s about submission. Everything that happens to him in Dracula’s castle depends on the fact of his submission and his willingness/desire to submit.

Harker and Dracula experience a parody of married life that Harker is resisting. Harker cooks. Shared clothing. Etc.

Texts demonstrate a series of power exchanges stand in for sexual acts. Today, romance writers don’t have to do this.

Read Dracula as early attempt at sexual negotiation, creating a couple where the familiar binary does not exist.

“Twilight and Romeo And Juliet: The Portrayal of Love and Narrative Perspective”‖ Brent Gibson, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor

Language of Twilight puts it in tradition of the religion of love, a phrase coined by CS Lewis. Language of Christianity transferred to courtly love.

Escape v. rivalry

Escapism is fine, but if values of Christianity are taken seriously within story, love and God are rivals. One has to be subordinated to the other.

Talks about how battle between Godly and courtly love is worked out in literature of the medieval period, such as Tristan and Isolde, Troilus and Cressida, Paolo and Francesca

Continues through Renaissance, this battle between the two religions, Christianity and love.

Romeo and Juliet. This one’s a little different. They get married before consummating their love which suggests a proper subordination of religion of love to religion of God. But in other ways increases tension between two sets of values. Audience would have seen suicide as sending the victim to hell, yet they are pictured as entering paradise of lovers.

Twilight. One of many romances influenced by Romeo and Juliet and exemplifies another alteration in this tradition. Both religions are taken seriously. Not kept separate nor kept in tension. Two lovers literally idolize on another, language is very clear on this. Ex. Edward saying his lie to Bella in New Moon was “blackest kind of blasphemy”.

Meyer brings in actual religion. Edward says he is going to hell, the literal hell of Christian theology. Later he states he believes in a creator. We are told Carlyle is a Christian, he believes in God.

In Twilight, romance is elevated above religion in inversion of Medieval tactic. Ex. In Eclipse Edward agrees to make love to Bella prior to marriage, despite his earlier claim that he wouldn’t because it was the one Commandment he didn’t break. See also his views on Bella’s soul and making her a vampire.

Basically his Godly love goes out the window when Bella wants something.

Interesting that within the world of the story religion is taken seriously, and Meyer herself takes it seriously, but it is still subordinated to romance.

[A good comment on this from Margaret Toscano, Angela’s mom, who knows what she is talking about, the issue of Mormonism, and how in the Mormon version of heaven you have a big loving family,inclusive of romantic love, such that for a Mormon writer like Meyer, these two kinds of love are not so much in tension.]

“Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: Christine Feehan’sCarpathian Heroes:”‖ Kat Schroeder, University of Washington

She wrote this paper for a class on gender studies in the media.

Who is reading the books? Younger and younger, girls as young as 10.

By age 14 reading adult series romance fiction.

Children consume media as a method to develop own views of intimate relationships in lieu of parental models.

Feehan claims all her heroines are “strong women”

CS defines strong in comparison to their male counterparts.

She focuses on full length novels where heroine started as human or believed themselves ot be human.

She describes Carpathians. Race of “not vampires”—turn into vampires unless they find their “light”, their mates.

Research Question 1 – do they reflect a relative parity of romance partners?

–age, maturity level, finances, career, sexual experience, general maturity

Research Question 11—DO novels give actual equivalent voice and agency to both the hero and heroines. Does one partner have power over the other?

Results:

Age – men much older (very funny chart here). Men b/t ages of 600-2000, women b/t age 23-27

Wealth – All but one of the women are either destitute or unemployed or the narrative doesn’t tell us; all of the men are vastly wealthy

Childhoods – all heroines had profoundly troubled childhoods while men, except one, were treasured

Sexual experience – only 3 not virgins, 2 excused by rape, 1 was widow but had marriage to a man with whom she didn’t enjoy sex

Her voice leads to his agency. Ex. She is upset, he seduces her, sometimes with force. She is angrym, he laughs.

Also TSTL heroines. Describes one heroine as being brilliant (surgeon at 18) but they aren’t (the surgeon has all the signd of being a vampire and has no idea what is happenign to her, for example. Also she jumps out a window instead of seeking help.)

Control dynamics:

–homicidal jealousy as a measure for love

–possessive controlling behaviors

                Naming convention (enfant, bebe, little one, diminutizing to a profound degree, unlike “dear”)

                In one book, Darius renames heroine, was called Rusty, he renames her Tempest. From that point forward, Feehan writes heroine from point of view of hero’s idealized version of her “Tempest”.

[Audience member notes in discussion that all of this is true in JR Ward’s BDB as well, and asks “what do we get from this?”.]

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I Finally Read a Stephanie Meyer. Thoughts on New Moon.

Aug 30 2009 Published by under Reviews

new-moon

Stay away from this post if you like this series, if you dislike snark, or if you don’t want to be spoiled about this book. You’ve been warned.

Somehow, despite my love of both vampires and romance, I was immune to the pull of the Twilight saga. But when I gave a paper on the Sookie Stackhouse series at my university in April, I noticed many of the attendees were women whose teenaged daughters had read the Twilight books. I got into a long conversation with an English professor whose 13 year old daughter devoured them, and she told me I just had to give them a try, not because she liked them, but because she wanted to know what I thought. Then I gave the Sookie paper at the Pop Culture Association conference in New Orleans, and I was shocked at the number of Twilight papers. Like my English professor colleague, many of the presenters distanced their own aesthetic taste from the text, some to the point of mocking it — they wanted to make it really clear that they had a merely academic interest; they were not fans. In my neighborhood, the books have been making the rounds of moms. They are usually in their 30s or 40s, white, heterosexual, middle class, and can’t blame it on their kids, who are too young for these books. They say, sheepishly, mystified, laughing at themselves, “I don’t know what it is. I just could not put them down.” This group’s taste generally runs to “book club fiction”, certainly not YA , romance, or paranormal. That was it. I decided I had to experience some of this phenomenon for myself.

I watched the movie Twilight this summer with my 15 year old niece and her 44 year old mother, when I got to see the mom/teen girl bonding over Twilight in action. They had read all the books, as well as some internet-leaked version of events from Edward’s POV, and their delight was catching. I enjoyed the movie, which harked back to the earnestness of movies of my teenage years, like The Lost Boys, Reckless (Aidan Quinn’s first movie), Footloose, Sixteen Candles. What Twilight has in common with those movies is that it takes the drama and pathos of the teen experience seriously. It’s not distanced or ironic. I also liked the Forks setting.

When I had a long car ride the other day, I decided to get the audio book of New Moon, to really experience Meyer’s writing for myself. After about three hours of Bella, I wanted to … well, have you ever seen that bit in Annie Hall, when Christopher Walken tells Woody Allen about his urges while driving? Specifically, the urge to turn the wheel into the oncoming headlights of another car? Then you have some idea of how I felt listening to Bella think about Edward ad nauseum. At first I thought, well, she’s young, her boyfriend is her whole world, weren’t we all like this once? Eventually, I had to pull over and breathe into a paper bag. That was enough of New Moon on audio for me.

Still, the story had sucked me in. I wanted to know what would happen. So I Kindled the book when I got home and finished it this weekend. Here are some random thoughts:

There is an appeal, I get it, kind of. The story is interesting, although the pace careened wildly, and the return of the Cullens felt tacked on rather than resolutionary (I made up that word). The writing I found adequate to piss poor. Here’s an example, the last line in the book, of the latter: “I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.” Anyone with even a working knowledge of the English language should know that line makes no sense. I felt about 1/3 of this incredibly repetitive book could have been excised, with much better results. Rarely have I had the urge to throw my Kindle across the room, but at the 1000th mention of “the huge hole that had been punched through Bella’s chest” at losing Edward, suddenly $350 didn’t seem like too high a price to pay to make it stop. Wasn’t there any other non torso-related way Meyer could think of to communicate Bella’s distress?

Bella. Sigh. I totally understand why so many women have been a tad concerned at the way their daughters have embraced this character, although maybe they don’t. There are no “Team Bella” t-shirts, perhaps because it would be like embracing carbon monoxide, colorless, odorless, tasteless and highly toxic. To call her a “heroine” is an insult to the word. There is nothing to Bella besides her love for her boyfriend. I was prepared for teenage obsession — it exists, I get it (John Cusack with the boom box, anyone?). But Bella never thinks about anyone or anything else, ever. She’s either thinking about Edward or thinking about trying not to think about Edward. We don’t even get relief when she falls asleep, because she dreams about Edward every night (too bad she didn’t have access to propofol like Michael Jackson did. General anesthesia would have helped provide relief to both her and her poor readers.). It’s a kind of obsession I couldn’t believe until I read it. But unlike other literary protagonists with similar obsessions, Bella’s love for Edward is superficial and one note, and thus a very hard thing to hang such a long book on. It’s the hearts and puppies kind of love. “Love you forever. Ditto.” is all the complexity and nuance you get here.

She’s melodramatic, narcissistic, not very bright, and wholly dull. After chapter after chapter of Bella as a nearly catatonic empty shell, I kept fervently wishing her quasi-suicidal outings would actually succeed. But no, Bella is too witless to even get herself killed.

And what makes Edward such a catch? It’s never clear, because we see him through Bella’s unimaginative eyes (New Moon is written in the first person). We know he is “beautiful” and “perfect”, with a hard cold body, and that he’s in love with Bella. What does he do in his spare time, or does he even have any, considering what a time suck serving as the glue of Bella’s fragile identity must be? It’s like a perfect circle of narcissism.

I also thought this teen world was unbelievably, jarringly, clean. Bella actually chastises Jake for using profanity, and Edward actually chastises Bella for ordering a Coke. There’s no sex, no alcohol, no drugs — not even the occasional joint. Forks is definitely not like any American town I know of. Does this have something to do with Meyer’s religious beliefs? I am out of the loop, but recall hearing that at PCA.

I probably enjoyed Jacob the most — this character actually has an arc, unlike Bella and Edward who are mindnumbingly unchanged from page one to page last  –  but I wouldn’t root for Bella and Jacob, because I liked him too much. I was interested in the whole wolf storyline in general. I would love to read a romance based around Sam and Emily’s relationship, actually. In paranormal, we so often have the fear of the supernatural hero accidentally hurting the human heroine, but he never actually does. How would it go if he disfigured her face (or reverse the roles, and she did it to him?). Now that’s a story I’d love to read.

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Academics Take a Bite Out of Sookie Stackhouse

Apr 09 2009 Published by under Academia, Sookie Stackhouse, Vampires

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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