True Blood

What could be more timely than the Rolling Stone Sept. 2 issue to be released tomorrow (and subsequently available through the library e-resource) on True Blood? This link takes you to an excerpt and the cover image of the magazine, featuring the main characters naked and covered in blood. There are more pictures available, and a video interview about sex-scenes on the show here.

We'll be watching a bit about sex on the show and talking sex in the book. Here is a quote from the Rolling Stone article that I find relevant to our class:

The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous, True Blood creator Alan Ball says. "To me, vampires are sex," he says. "I don't get a vampire story about abstinence. I'm 53. I don't care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed."

and:

Says Stephen Moyer — who plays Bill Compton, the undead Southern Civil War Veteran — "If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn't one before. It's a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there's something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that's pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive."

What do you all think? We began discussing virginity in vampire fiction/film...why does it matter?

More broadly why does virginity matter in our culture (and many many others)? Why is it prized in women sexually but not in men?

Also consider the opening credits. Here they are and a video on making them:

Anita Blake

Some quotes from your blogs (some themes were repeated, and some people had not posted yet, so do not feel bad if you are not represented here):

Anita also does not take any sexual harassment. When called a fine piece of tail she replies by saying "Lets get something straight I am not a piece of anything, nor am I a bedwarmer."

Another example of the male gaze in this book is shower scene in volume two. During this scene the whole page is just Anita Blake taking a shower. This seems unnecessary and doesn’t pertain to the story at all and most likely is there to increase the stories male gaze.

I fully intended to hate it, but who doesn't love viewing a hyper-sexualized woman kicking ass and taking names?

How odd, that the person drawing felt that she should appear so fragile. Do they have a prejudice against women being powerful, or do they secretly yearn for the "bad guys" to win?

I also found that, with all of the male gaze, there were a surprising amount of homoerotic scenes throughout the work. The more we read into different vampire texts, the more I notice and become interested the idea of using a genre typically used for fear inducing as a vehicle for social commentary or metaphor or allegory, etc.

I was really annoyed with how most of the characters looked like models--the men with their chiseled abs (the female and male gaze)--and the women with the almost porn-star-like bodies--big boobs, hips, lips, long flowy hair (male gaze).

Nikolaos is a very stark contrast to the stereotypical male head vampire, such as Dracula. Where Dracula had many wives, Nikolaos had many male followers that would do her bidding at her command.

The second [definition of femme fatale] reads, "...remains an example of female independence and a threat to traditional female gender roles." And I think Anita Blake does this, or at least tries heavily to attempt to do this.

At times I felt almost nostalgic reading in this comic book style. That is until I came across a shower scene or a half naked man. I can’t say that any of the homoerotic nature of some of the scenes made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t see how it bettered the story at all.

One major difference I have found in this novel in comparison to the others we have read is the lack of romance present.

In Asian areas, people like to draw much more positive stories about vampire. There are always a group of good vampire or there are all good vampire. There are also less violent and terrific pictures in the books. Of course, there will never be a shower picture in comic books that can be published.

Another interesting point is that Nikolaos is similar to the character Claudia in Interview with a Vampire. They both us their childlike charms to trick people and use their looks to their advantages. Nothing is scarier than a cute, very young child that you find out its an all powerful Master (referring to Nikolaos) that is willing to kill anyone who gets in her way.

I'd like everyone to consider in what ways Anita Blake and Buffy are similar or dissimilar, since we've watched a bit of Buffy now. I plan to show a bit more Buffy in relation to True Blood as well (some episodes featuring her relationship with Angel).

I think that there is a lot to criticize in the visual representation of Anita Blake, and admit that I was initially turned off of the graphic series because of this, but I agree with some of you that she is still a kick-ass character (compared with other women we've encountered) and that despite the sometimes objectifying male gaze, the artwork is well done, and I appreciate the homoeroticism as not so much a counter to the male gaze, but a broadening of it: let us over-sexualize everyone! It would have been interesting to see this in a more minimalist art style, or a style that created a variety of physical types. The fact that it is oversexualized, though, emphasizes the sexual nature of most vampire lit. That's part of why its so popular: it's about seduction. It is also part of why Anita seems so Kick-Ass: she does not succomb to seduction, despite the fact that everyone around her is obsessed with it.

Rebecca Walker

Here is Rebecca Walker's website. Check it out if you finish reading "Lusting for Freedom" and writing about it.

On Twilight

I'd like to post a few links hereto blog-conversations and articles about Twilight.

Here is a Feminist response to Twilight, published in Ms. Magazine, dealing especially with female sexuality. On that note, check out this seminal (pun intended) article by Anne Koedt. She suggests that the vaginal orgasm is a myth and gives a list of reasons why men would be interested in maintaining this myth (check out that part at least). What do you think about female sexuality?

Here is a great blog post on the F-Word, "Feminism and the Vampire Novel". In this blog, Caitlin Brown asserts that "At the crux of sexism within the vampire novel is the paradigm of male vamp/female human, a framework which an overwhelming majority of vampire novels are based around." What is the problem with this construct?

We should continue to think about this blog post in relation to other novels we read as well (especially Fledgling).

Here is an interesting article dealing with privilege in the saga. What place does race play in the novel? Does it? What privileges go unnoticed? Here is the article referenced in the above short article: Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." Take a look at the list, at least. Think through what might be in your invisible knapsack? In a vampire's?

Another feminist consideration for us in this novel is the role of the "gaze." Some people in class mentioned that Bella is hard to visualize and cite this as a defect in the novel, or a trap so that any women can insert themselves. Additionally, people mentioned that there was not quite enough physical information about Edward, or the same visuals were used over and over (and smells, of course). Laura Mulvey, in film theory, coined the term "male gaze" (this link gives a quick overview of concept and some examples)for when films assume a male point of view, usually "gazing" at women in objectifying ways. Fiction can so this too, of course. Does Stephanie Meyer reverse the gaze?

Here is a good youtube video on the Male Gaze in advertising:



Here is an interesting film about how the male gaze affects women:


What kind of gaze are we encountering in Twilight? How well done is it?

To get us started talking: Here are a couple interpretations of Dracula:









What are your impressions of vampires before beginning this class? How do we relate them to desire?