PCA Romance Panel 10: The Construction of Gender: (Killer) Heroes and Heroines

Apr 04 2010 Published by under Pop Culture Association 2010

Following are some of my fallible, incomplete, impressionistic notes from a Romance Area panel session at the PCA conference in St. Louis. These are notes on works in progress, and do not purport to be complete records of the papers presented.  Please follow up with individual presenters for full copies of their papers or to have specific questions about their work addressed.

Romance X: The Construction of Gender: (Killer) Heroes and Heroines
Session Chair: Darcy Martin, East Tennessee State University

“From Virgins to Rogues: Iris Johansen’s Ten-year Love Affair with Loveswept‖ Darcy Martin, East Tennessee State University

Iris Johansen: 24 novels for Loveswept (3rd most)

“Stories of true romance and touching emotion”

Significant number of Loveswept authors made it big. Tami Hoag, Janet Evanovich, etc.

How did Loveswept compete in a crowded market? Strategy was to have authors publish under their real names. Personalize the authors, highlight the authors with bios etc.. Have authors write notes to readers. Pictures of authors in the books.

Johansen’s first book in 1983. Published 7 books in 1984 alone.

Reissues of her early work (common now of 1980s) have puzzled some fans, because she writes differently now — suspense.

Lots of very young very virginal heroines.

Question: Why is virginity so beloved by romanced readers?

Cites Jayne Ann Krentz and others here:

Virginity can only be given once, to one’s great love. Virginity adds drama and power to narrative. Changes heroine. But changes hero too.

Krentz: Heroic quality to women’s virginity throughout history of narrative

Cites author of Full Frontal Feminism on virginity.

Rogue hero [got a call and tuned out here. Sorry!] –she describes what he is like

Close textual analysis of a few IJ texts.

IJ says plot doesn’t come first, although IJ says she wish it did. For her, characters come first.

She said she was given a lot of creative license in Loveswept.

“Readers’ Perceptions of Realism, Race, and Gender in Brockmann’s Contemporary Romance Novels‖ Jim Haefner, University of St. Francis; Margaret Haefner, North Park University

Surveyed 60 undergraduate  students via online survey at surveymonkey.com, as well as focus groups

Asked about whether the respondents, who had read the books, found challenges to -isms in the heroines, heroes, their careers, and their romantic relationships

Over the Edge (sexism), Gone Too Far (racism), and Force of Nature (heterosexism and sexism)

The researchers looked for difference among students in different racial groups, between those who had women’s studies experience and those who did not, and differences between lesbian or bisexual versus heterosexual readers, but  conclude that thee were not that significant.

Readers also confirmed that Brockmann challenges sexism, racism, and heterosexism in many ways in the text.

Responses to Sam and Alyssa’s interracial relationship were all over the map, with some feeling it was totally unrealistic and others totally unremarkable. differences here as in other cases did not map onto racial identities of the readers.

“Wicked Symmetry: The Dangerous Compulsion of Attraction in Twilight and Ziska”‖ Jacob Lusk, University of North Florida; Marnie Jones, University of North Florida

[Here is a blog review of Marie Corelli's Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul, published in 1897. The Kindle edition is FREE.]

Both texts – teleological worlds.

Love and sex as identity destroyers

Bella destroys her identity for her lover, shapes herself in Edward’s likeness

Each woman exerts authority that obliterates identity, in Bella’s case her own.

Bella destroys herself, Ziska destroys Gervase

Both use sex to destroy

Bella becomes perfect when she becomes a vampire. Everything is perfect. Even the sex is better.

Neither presents a world where women and men in real human world can achieve equality

In the human realm, power was a zero sum game.

Corelli was more progressive, calling into question the idea that passion qualifies as love

Both books are sex stories, not love stories

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

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

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I have disabled comments on this post deliberately.

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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Academics Sucking the Blood From Twilight

Apr 10 2009 Published by under Academia, Vampires

Once again, here are my totally fallible notes from sessions at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Meeting
April 2009, New Orleans.

There were a number of Twilight papers, and I attended several, despite not having read any of Meyer’s books, because often these papers discussed Sookie Stackhouse as well.

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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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