In the last item of a celebrity-news roundup Margaret of Jezebel quotes True Blood actor Stephen Moyer on the appeal of vampires.
“The thing about vampirism is that it taps into a female point of view – you have an old-fashioned gentleman with manners who is a fucking killer… it’s an interesting duality, because in our present society it would be an odd thing for a woman to say, ‘I want my man to be physical with me.’”
It’s funny, this weekend I had lunch with fellow-Seattleite-for-now Holly of The Pervocracy. Overall conclusion: she’s an awesome human being. Anyway, we were discussing various tropes in porn and pop culture and wound up dissecting the twin trends of men’s stereotypical fantasies about unrealistically young women partners as embodied in Literotica’s abundant stories about 18-year-old 8th-graders, and women’s equally stereotypical fantasies about unrealistically old men as embodied in the fantasy of 120-year-old Twilight characters with nothing better to do than sit and watch his girlfriend sleep undisturbed.
Moyer’s quote casts at least a little light on where the vampire appeal comes from. Although I’d add there’s the additional cultural reinforcement that except maybe for Sookie Stackhouse being “bad” with a vampire involves the pay-for-it slasher-movie risk getting your throat ripped out. Not a “fate worse than death,” but actual death being one way past Rule #1’s proscriptive clause.
As for the notion of men and sexually immature women I think that goes deep into Rule #2: a man with a woman who’s not yet sexually mature is sort of by-definition not going to be desirable, giving him both “permission” to apply leverage and a “what did you expect” if it doesn’t work out.
Submitted by 3147 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-24 17:49.
The world of fantasy romance novels/vampire 'porn' (not really talking about porn here) has a whole bunch of problems, but I'm not really sure True Blood is very representative here. Maybe it's because I read the books before watching the show, but I feel that the tv version doesn't show what's the most important reason Sookie gets involved with the vampires. I don't think she's attracted to them as killers/predators with natural sex appeal. She thinks they (and the wereanimals, witches, etc.) are her tribe that she finally found after being the city's freak her whole life.
That said, someone give me a romance novel - doesn't even need to be one with supernatural characters - where the main character isn't a virgin/semivirgin/only had one lover before meeting the hero and he sucked really bad/was raped and traumatized until she met her true love.
Did I ever tell you how much the random words you have to type to submit comments crack me up, fl? They always make some sort of sense. Today's are Heller and skunked, and I get some weird Catch 22 memories.
[Just a quick note to say I agree that Stackhouse's relationship with vampires in particular and supernatural beings in general really isn't typical of the genre. The rest of your points are excellent as well. And speaking of supernatural, yeah, reCaptcha's often kind of eerie that way. Thanks, Colorlessblue. --fl]
Submitted by 3147 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-24 21:17.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books usually has romance things going on. Their book, Beyond Heaving Bosoms, besides being funny, also has a lot of analysis of romance novel tropes (including the Wang of Might Lovin' and the Magic Hoo-Ha and when it became Not Okay for the hero to rape the heroine).
I wish I could find the essay, but I read a piece on Beauty and the Beast some years ago that talked about the predator, the beast, the killing machine... who the beauty controls, whose leash she holds, who obeys her. That's the appeal, I think. It's the ability to protect oneself slash destroy one's enemies without ever taking responsibility for it-- it was the rightfully-protective male!
Anne Bishop's Black Jewels books are my favorite example of this.
Submitted by 3147 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-08-25 03:27.
Of course, Twilight has even more Issues, since it's a pretty accurate depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship. Which for some reason is viewed as romantic.
... I weep for my gender, I really do.