This ain't no review.
This ain't no rating.
This is just musin' around.
Alright, I went to see the film The Lives of Others not long ago--in original German, Das Leben der Anderen, of interest for "anderen," or "others," and I couldn't help thinking of Cruise's Anderton character in Minority Report, Anderton translating on German screens as "Otherton," and referring to his future "other" committing a crime that isn't allowed to happen; hey, Spielberg's got German blood, but I don't know about Phil Dick--and the film does an excellent job of recreating the look and feel of Communist bloc East Germany; the country is given an empty warehouse aesthetic. Bland exteriors and bland interiors prevail, floor-to-ceiling absence of decor, wall-to-wall lack of design. Difficult, I thought, to imagine a happy place like the former GDR looking any other way.
And what does this to do with anything gender-related, you ask?
Screen-bleed. I could see the film's warehouse aesthetic bleeding into the darkened auditorium where I sat. Cinemas aren't the once-heralded movie-palaces of yore--that stopped long ago. Cinemas these days aren't far from the warehouse aesthetic of yesterday's East Germany. Yeah, plush carpeting and stadium seating up the luxury ante a little, but, as a whole, a current movie theatre is a warehouse with lights playing tricks against one wall.
And the gender thing?
Such modern cinemas are genderless. I've seen black-and-white photos of movie-palaces long gone, back when MGM and Paramount had strings of theatres and could dump hefty industry revenues into the look, into the architectural and interior design of the venues flickering their circulated spectacles--Roman columns and heavy tasselled drapes, elaborate balconies and flying buttresses, hell, maybe even a stone gargoyle or two. And such interiors were gendered.
Amped imaginations, minds geared for impending spectacle and the hyperstimulus the moving image can foment, tend to see charged images in things. Interiors can be eroticized.
Imagine a vintage poster ad campaign for eroticized cinema interiors:
SEE THE TOWERING PHALLUS OF DORIC COLUMNS LOOMING HIGH!
SEE THE SHAPELY LEGS OF THE BALUSTRADE ENCIRCLING THE BALCONY!!
SEE THE SHIFTING SCARLET DRAPES LIKE THE FOLDS OF A WOMAN"S DRESS!!!
And these days, warehouses.
A de-eroticizing of interior cinema-space design. A "de-genderizing." Maybe it's got something to do--accch! a LOT to do--with what Laura Mulvey writes about the cinema's scopophilic tendencies, the "pleasure in looking" the cinema engenders with its "playing on [our] voyeuristic fantasy" (170). Can't have super-charged, super-eroticized patrons filing out of the darkness, can we? Products of voyeurism coupled with erotic interiors? Far-fetched, I know. Probably just the laziness in building standards. Ya never know, though.
I don't know. Every film I've ever seen I saw in a warehouse. In fact, the warehouse I saw The Lives of Others in is the same warehouse chain I saw Fight Club in years ago.
And so a word about Fight Club.
In the film, we hear Tyler's "As I See the World" speech. This is better elaborated in the book, wherein Tyler wants to "blast the world free of history," a world where "You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next to the skeleton of the Space Needle [and] paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis" (124) and "you'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower" (125).
Ah, Project Mayhem. To my mind, it seems like Project Mayhem has a specifically gendered agenda--to return the world to a state of fertility. Fertility, traditionally a female aspect, here commandeered by a man who, in the film, says "we're a generation of men raised by women" and "perhaps another woman isn't the answer."
Mass gender re-orientation?
Fertile not in the body, so fertile in the mind.
And a fertile mind it is--so fertile it whipped up another personality.
Just a thought.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Gayze
Another week, another book or film, another story involving homosexuality. Throughout the semester, the theme has obviously been centered around homosexuality. Once again, this theme is present in Fight Club. In some of the novels/films we've covered, there is no question that it it present. Such as Fight Club and Maurice. Other times, the film or novel only hints us to thinking there might be some kind of other action going on. Such examples would be Interview With the Vampire, Louis and Lestat, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, between Brick and Skipper. Nevertheless, the idea is there.
Speaking of ideas... Can we also say that Laura Mulvey's idea of the "gaze" is also present in some of the works we've covered? I think so.. In the films Maurice and Interview With the Vampire, we were shown nude scenes in order to capture our "gaze" and attention. In the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we are forced to "gaze" thanks to the director's use of close-ups. The audience is shown several scenes where Maggie is obviously displayed for visual pleasure. The use of close-ups is also present in the novel Fight Club. "Tyler spliced a penis into everything after that. Usually, close-ups, or a Grand Canyon vagina with an echo, four stories tall and..." I'm looking forward to see in what direction is Fight club is going to lead us!
Speaking of ideas... Can we also say that Laura Mulvey's idea of the "gaze" is also present in some of the works we've covered? I think so.. In the films Maurice and Interview With the Vampire, we were shown nude scenes in order to capture our "gaze" and attention. In the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we are forced to "gaze" thanks to the director's use of close-ups. The audience is shown several scenes where Maggie is obviously displayed for visual pleasure. The use of close-ups is also present in the novel Fight Club. "Tyler spliced a penis into everything after that. Usually, close-ups, or a Grand Canyon vagina with an echo, four stories tall and..." I'm looking forward to see in what direction is Fight club is going to lead us!
Durden's Slamposium
I think it's a little too easy to do a homoerotic reading of Fight Club. A little too easy, and a rather misleading.
Yeah, I know, early on in the book, page 14, the nameless protagonist (and we'll come back to this nameless thing) says, "We have sort of a triangle thing going here. I want Tyler. Tyler wants Marla. Marla wants me." "I want Tyler"--you could base an entire homoerotic argument around those three words, if you wanted. Oh, and you could base another argument around the "triangle thing" idea, too--relate it to what Anne Carson says about triangulated jealous relationships in Eros the Bittersweet. In "The Ruse," Carson writes "Desire moves. Eros is a verb." "Want" moves in the Fight Club triangle, yes, yes. I won't delve into this, though. Not here. Not now.
No, in Fight Club, eros is self-eros. Narcissism--love for one's self, one's image. I hope I don't spoil anything for anyone who's unfamiliar with the book or the film, but Tyler Durden and the nameless protagonist are two minds inhabiting the same body. A split mind. Ah, but this makes things a bit more difficult. Is it really narcissism?
Can there be narcissism between ego and ego ideal? An ego ideal is what Durden represents. Durden is "funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I [Mr. Nameless Protagonist] am not" (174). An ego ideal. Methinks the case so.
(And, going into Mulvey territory, casting Brad Pitt as Durden in the film adaptation reinforces ego ideal status for male spectators to establish "recognition/misrecognition" with, specifically when contrasted against the casting of the rather rodentlike Edward Norton in the nameless insurance claims role)
Durden has the knowledge, too--the knowledge to make napalm and soap and exploding computer monitors. Durden has the knowledge and the ideas. Durden is the teacher, too. Durden leaps from the pages of Plato's Symposium, embodying (as much as a one half of a split mind can embody) one half of the student/teacher relationship the ancient philosophers pondered.
(And, if you wanted to see a genuine homoerotic undercurrent in Fight Club, don't Durden and the nameless protagonist reflect a split mind variant of Halperin's "superordinate/subordinate" relationship?)
Narcissism for a self-image projection brought around through a split mind? Alright, this is trickier to sum up than I'd thought. I've got an idea linking this self-image projection idea to Debord's 'The Commodity as Spectacle," but it's in the early phases right now. Maybe in the following blog.
Before I go, there's the nameless thing I said I'd come back to
It involves everybody's friend, Lacan.
"I asked Tyler what he'd been fighting."
"Tyler said, his father."
"Maybe we didn't need a father to complete ourselves." (53-4)
Ah, here we go, the name-of-the-father. It runs all through Fight Club.
A nameless protagonist? Is his namelessness a result of his father's indifference toward him? Does his father's indifference negate the idea of a name? Is namelessness another form of lack?
Durden springs from the nameless protagonist's mind. A radical father? Durden teaches anarchy, instructs pranks.
And Durden wants to "blast the world free of history" (124), and usher in "the complete and right-away destruction of civilization" (125). Durden wants to break down everything given a name by the father. Radical fatherhood--you don't need a father to complete yourself.
And perhaps this breaking down and destroying everything given a name by the father is the central theme of Fight Club. After a fight, smashed noses and cracked jawbones and ruptured lips render the name-of-the-father moot. Misshapen and rearranged, you are far from the thing given a name by the father, far from something recognizable by the father. Rebirth.
Yeah, I know, early on in the book, page 14, the nameless protagonist (and we'll come back to this nameless thing) says, "We have sort of a triangle thing going here. I want Tyler. Tyler wants Marla. Marla wants me." "I want Tyler"--you could base an entire homoerotic argument around those three words, if you wanted. Oh, and you could base another argument around the "triangle thing" idea, too--relate it to what Anne Carson says about triangulated jealous relationships in Eros the Bittersweet. In "The Ruse," Carson writes "Desire moves. Eros is a verb." "Want" moves in the Fight Club triangle, yes, yes. I won't delve into this, though. Not here. Not now.
No, in Fight Club, eros is self-eros. Narcissism--love for one's self, one's image. I hope I don't spoil anything for anyone who's unfamiliar with the book or the film, but Tyler Durden and the nameless protagonist are two minds inhabiting the same body. A split mind. Ah, but this makes things a bit more difficult. Is it really narcissism?
Can there be narcissism between ego and ego ideal? An ego ideal is what Durden represents. Durden is "funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I [Mr. Nameless Protagonist] am not" (174). An ego ideal. Methinks the case so.
(And, going into Mulvey territory, casting Brad Pitt as Durden in the film adaptation reinforces ego ideal status for male spectators to establish "recognition/misrecognition" with, specifically when contrasted against the casting of the rather rodentlike Edward Norton in the nameless insurance claims role)
Durden has the knowledge, too--the knowledge to make napalm and soap and exploding computer monitors. Durden has the knowledge and the ideas. Durden is the teacher, too. Durden leaps from the pages of Plato's Symposium, embodying (as much as a one half of a split mind can embody) one half of the student/teacher relationship the ancient philosophers pondered.
(And, if you wanted to see a genuine homoerotic undercurrent in Fight Club, don't Durden and the nameless protagonist reflect a split mind variant of Halperin's "superordinate/subordinate" relationship?)
Narcissism for a self-image projection brought around through a split mind? Alright, this is trickier to sum up than I'd thought. I've got an idea linking this self-image projection idea to Debord's 'The Commodity as Spectacle," but it's in the early phases right now. Maybe in the following blog.
Before I go, there's the nameless thing I said I'd come back to
It involves everybody's friend, Lacan.
"I asked Tyler what he'd been fighting."
"Tyler said, his father."
"Maybe we didn't need a father to complete ourselves." (53-4)
Ah, here we go, the name-of-the-father. It runs all through Fight Club.
A nameless protagonist? Is his namelessness a result of his father's indifference toward him? Does his father's indifference negate the idea of a name? Is namelessness another form of lack?
Durden springs from the nameless protagonist's mind. A radical father? Durden teaches anarchy, instructs pranks.
And Durden wants to "blast the world free of history" (124), and usher in "the complete and right-away destruction of civilization" (125). Durden wants to break down everything given a name by the father. Radical fatherhood--you don't need a father to complete yourself.
And perhaps this breaking down and destroying everything given a name by the father is the central theme of Fight Club. After a fight, smashed noses and cracked jawbones and ruptured lips render the name-of-the-father moot. Misshapen and rearranged, you are far from the thing given a name by the father, far from something recognizable by the father. Rebirth.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Division of Power Within Gender
This book, Fight Club, has given me a new look at the novels and films that have been assigned. The thing that has been stressed is gender and it's correlation to all the characters. One thing I have now noticed is that within each gender, male or female, there is active/ passive within each sex. With Fight Club, Tyler is the active male while No Name Protagonist is the passive. Same goes with Interview With TheVampire; Lastat is the active and Louis is the passive. With The Girl Who Was Plugged In, P. Burk again the active and Delphi here the passive. What it all boils down to is PROPERTY/OWNERSHIP. It seems that whomever has more knowledge (or convinces the other this is so), is the one who controls the other. This control gives them a feeling of ownership over the other, who they treat as property. The passive feels the lack of knowledge makes them inferior, and they accept their role as property. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, gives the impression that Brick is passive, yet he welds control over Big Daddy, Gooper, (and Maggie as well). Showing no desire for the plantation or it's destiny, he has the control to do what he wants regardless of anyone else. Woo Hoo, strong Big Daddy succumbs in the end to show the love Brick claims Big Daddy doesn't or never did have for anyone. Gooper continuously is trying to show his great concern he has for the welfare of the entire situation (Big Daddy and the future of the homestead) but he just looks like a fool in comparison to Brick. So it's this . . . Brick comes across as the passive one but it isn't so; he holds the knowledge that is the most important! This also gives him the property and ownership of all the males around him, he has them in his hot gorgeous hands.
One last thing, power/control/ownership/property can change hands rather quickly. Think about it . . .
One last thing, power/control/ownership/property can change hands rather quickly. Think about it . . .
Saturday, March 24, 2007
seperation or lack of finding the edge
it occurs to me that perhaps there is some validity to the mythology of Zues chopping selfs in half. If one looks at the main characters in Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire. Lestat needs his other self. Louis other limbs may be more in the line of knowledge; answers none can produce. Claudia a mother, an arm to enfold her, and a body that will not betray her and wrap itself about her as taut as woven shroud. She was rather fond of the finer things in life and a shroud of linen and cotton certainly would not behoove her. And this space this lack of, the distance between need and want. These characters need and believe it to be want. Sex is food.
Futhermore, those as food is there a distance where euphoria enters as desire and the distance between living and a high so great simply decides it is the other half lacking. The euphoria an opiate so powerful that a young girl terrified hears no pain as the entry point as how many fear a painful death. Moreover, how many fear more a painful life as Armond when Louis finds the distance between them to be greater than the desire to cross it.
Of all the characters , Claudia is surely the one to be pitied, the outcast among outcasts. Yet, they had their versin of untouchables in their caste system the mumbling, noncognizant distant relatives. How easy it is to forget, to create a victim, when one has been victimized themself and
how luxurious to have others to generate stored, simmering for centuries.
Finally, it imortality appears to have its drawbacks, just survivng, rather like a junkie itcing for a fix eliminates qualities such as compassion, love and trust. If there is a fountain of youth I believe I would settle for a local watering hole.
Futhermore, those as food is there a distance where euphoria enters as desire and the distance between living and a high so great simply decides it is the other half lacking. The euphoria an opiate so powerful that a young girl terrified hears no pain as the entry point as how many fear a painful death. Moreover, how many fear more a painful life as Armond when Louis finds the distance between them to be greater than the desire to cross it.
Of all the characters , Claudia is surely the one to be pitied, the outcast among outcasts. Yet, they had their versin of untouchables in their caste system the mumbling, noncognizant distant relatives. How easy it is to forget, to create a victim, when one has been victimized themself and
how luxurious to have others to generate stored, simmering for centuries.
Finally, it imortality appears to have its drawbacks, just survivng, rather like a junkie itcing for a fix eliminates qualities such as compassion, love and trust. If there is a fountain of youth I believe I would settle for a local watering hole.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Bittersweet Eternity
Well I have a lot to say about Anne Rice's, Interview with the Vampire...I can't believe I just now saw the movie and read the book, the story is so amazing! I could not get my head out of the book first of all and the movie was addicitve too, I've now watched it 3 times since I rented it. It might just have been young Brad Pitt to whom I was addicted, he's so beautiful even when he looks dead. I's probably lend him my neck if he were ever thirsty, haha. Anyway though so I've been thinking the last week about the whole concept of Bittersweet and so much in life is just that, bittersweet. I especially focused in on the bittersweet while watching and reading IWTV because so much in the story is bitter and sweet all in one. The fact that Louis and Lestat are "companions" yet Louis hates Lestat and Lestat simply uses Louis is bittersweet. Their relationship is on a bases of needing one another, not loving one another. Although Louis does not like Lestat he feels as though he needs him therefore he stays with him, it's a bittersweet realtionship. It is also truly bittersweet that Luois and Lestat are immortal as vampires because you would think that would be like the ultimate thing, to be able to live forever! But why would you want to live forever, miserable and alone? Everyone you love eventually dies and every 50 years you don't even know your own world anymore.
The book vs movie and homosexuality
I enjoyed the movie over the book a great deal. While I was reading the book, I always found myself becoming bored with the style of it and the way it was written. Sure, I liked the parts when Louis was telling his story of how he became a vampire and the things he did, but I didn't enjoy the parts when the book got away from the story and more towards the interview. I guess thats the way to put it. Sometimes Louis would be telling his story and then something would trigger the boy to interupt him. Asking him questions and such, which then Louis expanded on, creating another story that I felt wasn't required. I guess I found myself wanting to get back to the origianl story of it all instead of hearing about all the chit chat between Louis and the boy. So i liked the overall story, just not all the stuff inbetween the story. Just my opinion.
The book/film brought up what I think is a problem in homosexual relationships today. The question comes up: Is it ok for a couple in a homsexual relationship to adopt? This becomes a a problem for Lestat and Louis when they have Claudia. Claudia sees a woman in the distance who she looks up to and desires and eventually wants her for her own. She brings her half dead to Louis requesting him to turn her into a vampire because she needs her. In these relationships, the child is left missing out on either a father or motherly figure in their lives. Is this fair to the child?
The book/film brought up what I think is a problem in homosexual relationships today. The question comes up: Is it ok for a couple in a homsexual relationship to adopt? This becomes a a problem for Lestat and Louis when they have Claudia. Claudia sees a woman in the distance who she looks up to and desires and eventually wants her for her own. She brings her half dead to Louis requesting him to turn her into a vampire because she needs her. In these relationships, the child is left missing out on either a father or motherly figure in their lives. Is this fair to the child?
Why are Vampires so Damn Sexy?
Wow, there sure is a lot of eye-candy, for both male and females, in the film version of Interview with a Vampire! I must say I enjoyed looking as Brad pre his Bradjolina days. Don’t get me wrong Angie is a nice girl, but Brad was just so much more appealing in the role of single vulnerable Louis! The camera does really love him. I mean I don’t know any other actor that could pull off being sexy while having almost translucent veiny skin….put he did it! Okay, Banderas managed to pull this look off too! Also, there was something very intriguing about Brad’s fierce eyes. I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into him! Looks like I have fallen victim to “the gaze” Mulvey talks about in her essay. I must say, I was a little turned off when Louis decided to dine on two poodles…PETA would not have been pleased. But, another thing that was alluring about him was his androgynous looks. While we all know Mr. Pitt is somewhat of a pretty boy, he took on a very different feminine look in the film. There were actually some shots where I thought, “He would make a really beautiful woman”! It was nice to see that the director played up Pitt’s fresh face and managed to make him masculine yet elegantly ethereal. However, this doesn’t make up for the fact that the film never fully touched on the homosexual undertones presented in the novel.
For the heterosexual male this film was teeming with appeal. Particularly, the scene where the vampire theater company devours a luscious nude beauty. There is a bit of time allotted to the viewer to gaze at her supply young naked body with appreciative eyes. In a sense, this was cool because it was as if the film-viewer was now in the old playhouse watching the risky pulse-pounding production. It was also interesting that the female used for this scene looked like the picture of pure simple beauty and innocence. While some may lament about the scene being thrown in solely for hormonal teens to ogle a hot bod, I can appreciate it for its artistic beauty and symbolism.
Kirsten Dunst’s performance really blew me away. She certainly held her own and stood out amongst her older, more experienced cast members. She truly captured Claudia and managed to still look cute while killing innocent people. Her doll-like locks of golden curls and frilly dresses no doubt let her get into the character. What a fun role that must have been to play! I loved the fact that she really captured the frustration and rage that came along with never growing up and never dying. The scene where she chops off all her hair that manages to instantaneously grow back is chilling. I haven’t seen such a powerful performance from a child star in a long time.
As for Cruise in the role of Lestat…ummm…I wasn’t that impressed. His actions and mannerisms seemed almost comical at times. Okay, maybe I am being a little harsh on this couch-jumping scientologist, but I don’t know if I would have necessarily cast him. I guess because in the book I pictured Lestat as overpoweringly handsome. Maybe I just don’t find Tom all that attractive. Who do you think would be a better fit for the role?
For the heterosexual male this film was teeming with appeal. Particularly, the scene where the vampire theater company devours a luscious nude beauty. There is a bit of time allotted to the viewer to gaze at her supply young naked body with appreciative eyes. In a sense, this was cool because it was as if the film-viewer was now in the old playhouse watching the risky pulse-pounding production. It was also interesting that the female used for this scene looked like the picture of pure simple beauty and innocence. While some may lament about the scene being thrown in solely for hormonal teens to ogle a hot bod, I can appreciate it for its artistic beauty and symbolism.
Kirsten Dunst’s performance really blew me away. She certainly held her own and stood out amongst her older, more experienced cast members. She truly captured Claudia and managed to still look cute while killing innocent people. Her doll-like locks of golden curls and frilly dresses no doubt let her get into the character. What a fun role that must have been to play! I loved the fact that she really captured the frustration and rage that came along with never growing up and never dying. The scene where she chops off all her hair that manages to instantaneously grow back is chilling. I haven’t seen such a powerful performance from a child star in a long time.
As for Cruise in the role of Lestat…ummm…I wasn’t that impressed. His actions and mannerisms seemed almost comical at times. Okay, maybe I am being a little harsh on this couch-jumping scientologist, but I don’t know if I would have necessarily cast him. I guess because in the book I pictured Lestat as overpoweringly handsome. Maybe I just don’t find Tom all that attractive. Who do you think would be a better fit for the role?
Pointe du Lacan?
I don't know why I'm so fascinated with the ideas of lack and absence. I just can't help it.
And I can't help seeing it all through Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.
Pointe du Lac, for example. Louis's home, and the place where Lestat "vampirizes" him. See, if you loosely transliterate Pointe du Lac, it reads as "point of lack" or "place of lack." I believe I brought this up in class. There's more to it, though.
Remember Lacan? French psychoanalyst, had the idea that desire is fueled by the subject's lack of the Other; in Lacan's case, desire is the desire for what the subject lacks--seems Lacan is channeling the ancient Greeks, methinks.
I won't go here into the realm of Lacanian castration fantasies or anything--fear not. Back on topic, if Pointe du Lac reflects the "point of lack" for vampires, what is lacking, what is absent? Christ, they're immortal! Shouldn't everything be theirs?
And there it is: immortality--vampires can't physically change. They lack change. A mighty absence, I'll say, seeing as a body's physical change is integral and inseparable from understandings of sexuality. And Rice certainly paints her revenants as sexual beings. Sexual beings, yes, whose locus of sexuality circles around the desire for blood. If we were to categorize, does this make vampires "hemosexuals?" Ha! Just kidding. A desire for blood is as easily sated as a desire for change is hopeless--a "point of lack."
Bodily changes for vampires stagnate, but their minds change, develop, mature. This is the case with Claudia, the grown mind in stunted flesh, and she's pissed about it--"To give me immortality in this hopeless guise, this helpless form!" she accuses of Louis.
And Claudia's ominous obsession with dolls? I thought this one of the creepier angles in the story, and not simply due to my feeling that all dolls are somewhat eerie. Back, Barbie! I've got a Zippo!
Claudia and the dolls bring back the lack. Dolls can't change; like the vampires, they are physically fixed in time and space. Fixed, yes, unless they are destroyed. Once again, just like the vampires, destruction is their only path of physical change. A lack of existence equates a death of lack.
Perhaps this is why there is so much foreboding when Claudia says "I want to burn the doll shop!" Foreshadowing what happens to the Theatre des Vampires, I know, but it also reflects and inverts what Roland Barthes--aaargh!, more theory!--said about toys--read: dolls--as a coded microcosm of the real world. Any lack or absence detected in the real world is similarly represented in a microcosm of play. A burning doll shop=a burning theatre rather than a burning theatre=a burning doll shop. Claudia spins Barthes to kill the lack, the absence.
Seems I'm not the only one with an itchy Zippo finger.
And I can't help seeing it all through Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.
Pointe du Lac, for example. Louis's home, and the place where Lestat "vampirizes" him. See, if you loosely transliterate Pointe du Lac, it reads as "point of lack" or "place of lack." I believe I brought this up in class. There's more to it, though.
Remember Lacan? French psychoanalyst, had the idea that desire is fueled by the subject's lack of the Other; in Lacan's case, desire is the desire for what the subject lacks--seems Lacan is channeling the ancient Greeks, methinks.
I won't go here into the realm of Lacanian castration fantasies or anything--fear not. Back on topic, if Pointe du Lac reflects the "point of lack" for vampires, what is lacking, what is absent? Christ, they're immortal! Shouldn't everything be theirs?
And there it is: immortality--vampires can't physically change. They lack change. A mighty absence, I'll say, seeing as a body's physical change is integral and inseparable from understandings of sexuality. And Rice certainly paints her revenants as sexual beings. Sexual beings, yes, whose locus of sexuality circles around the desire for blood. If we were to categorize, does this make vampires "hemosexuals?" Ha! Just kidding. A desire for blood is as easily sated as a desire for change is hopeless--a "point of lack."
Bodily changes for vampires stagnate, but their minds change, develop, mature. This is the case with Claudia, the grown mind in stunted flesh, and she's pissed about it--"To give me immortality in this hopeless guise, this helpless form!" she accuses of Louis.
And Claudia's ominous obsession with dolls? I thought this one of the creepier angles in the story, and not simply due to my feeling that all dolls are somewhat eerie. Back, Barbie! I've got a Zippo!
Claudia and the dolls bring back the lack. Dolls can't change; like the vampires, they are physically fixed in time and space. Fixed, yes, unless they are destroyed. Once again, just like the vampires, destruction is their only path of physical change. A lack of existence equates a death of lack.
Perhaps this is why there is so much foreboding when Claudia says "I want to burn the doll shop!" Foreshadowing what happens to the Theatre des Vampires, I know, but it also reflects and inverts what Roland Barthes--aaargh!, more theory!--said about toys--read: dolls--as a coded microcosm of the real world. Any lack or absence detected in the real world is similarly represented in a microcosm of play. A burning doll shop=a burning theatre rather than a burning theatre=a burning doll shop. Claudia spins Barthes to kill the lack, the absence.
Seems I'm not the only one with an itchy Zippo finger.
Monday, March 19, 2007
The Bittersweet Love Between Claudia and Louis
In IWTV, I noticed several examples that related to the topics we discussed in Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. In my opinion, the most obvious of these examples existed in the relationship between Louis and Claudia. On several occasions, Claudia talks about her love for Louis in a manner that extreme; she both loves him and hates him at the same time.
I think that the root of this “bittersweet” relationship may be in that there are really two separate relationships between the two, one of father-daughter love, and one of lover-companion love. Although Louis is Claudia’s father, it appears that she begins to develop a love for him that goes beyond what her child body allows. She even calls him “Louis. Lover,” (pg 116) and at one point, suggests that he holds a position in her life that, if she were human, would be fueled by desire.
Another problem is that these “duel” relationships seem to always be in conflict with one another, putting strain on the feelings that Claudia has for Louis. At one point in the novel Claudia expresses to Louis that she feels that they are eternally “locked together in hatred,” (pg 116), and yet she is constantly telling him that she loves him. I think that she is tormented by her feelings for Louis, and hates that he views her as a daughter, and more specifically a child. Claudia even begins to resent Louis for taking her life so early, wishing that her human body had been further developed before she had become a vampire. She seems to wish that Louis could physically see her as she is, a “woman” who loves him.
Also, in my opinion, her decision to kill Lestat was fueled by her desire to have Louis all to herself. I think that Claudia was happy alone with Louis until he met Armand and she realized that her love would never be returned in the same manner. Louis needed love from some one he could look up to, and relate to, and although he loves Claudia, she is not this person. She is angered by this, and again, the “bitterness” of her love for him is revealed. In the novel, when Claudia begs Louis to give her Madeline and then leave her she states, “I love you still, that’s the torment of it. Lestat I never loved. But you! The measure of my hatred is that love. They are the same! Do you know now how much I hate you!” (pg 262).
She really couldn’t make it any more obvious! She both loves and hates Louis with the same intense “bittersweet” passion. Its hard to tell in the novel if Louis even understands what is troubling Claudia, but I think that he does realize that, like most women, she wants to possess him for herself and doesn’t want to share!
I think that the root of this “bittersweet” relationship may be in that there are really two separate relationships between the two, one of father-daughter love, and one of lover-companion love. Although Louis is Claudia’s father, it appears that she begins to develop a love for him that goes beyond what her child body allows. She even calls him “Louis. Lover,” (pg 116) and at one point, suggests that he holds a position in her life that, if she were human, would be fueled by desire.
Another problem is that these “duel” relationships seem to always be in conflict with one another, putting strain on the feelings that Claudia has for Louis. At one point in the novel Claudia expresses to Louis that she feels that they are eternally “locked together in hatred,” (pg 116), and yet she is constantly telling him that she loves him. I think that she is tormented by her feelings for Louis, and hates that he views her as a daughter, and more specifically a child. Claudia even begins to resent Louis for taking her life so early, wishing that her human body had been further developed before she had become a vampire. She seems to wish that Louis could physically see her as she is, a “woman” who loves him.
Also, in my opinion, her decision to kill Lestat was fueled by her desire to have Louis all to herself. I think that Claudia was happy alone with Louis until he met Armand and she realized that her love would never be returned in the same manner. Louis needed love from some one he could look up to, and relate to, and although he loves Claudia, she is not this person. She is angered by this, and again, the “bitterness” of her love for him is revealed. In the novel, when Claudia begs Louis to give her Madeline and then leave her she states, “I love you still, that’s the torment of it. Lestat I never loved. But you! The measure of my hatred is that love. They are the same! Do you know now how much I hate you!” (pg 262).
She really couldn’t make it any more obvious! She both loves and hates Louis with the same intense “bittersweet” passion. Its hard to tell in the novel if Louis even understands what is troubling Claudia, but I think that he does realize that, like most women, she wants to possess him for herself and doesn’t want to share!
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Comparison of the book and film of Interview with a Vampire
From watching the movie I didn’t feel that there was too much different. Yes of course the movie didn’t give you all the scenes that are in the book, but it did convey the struggle that happens internally for all the characters and the struggle that existed amongst them all. What I was surprised to see is that they didn’t censor out too much of the feelings of love and hate that exist between Louis, Lestat, Claudia, and Armand.
A scene from the book that I would have liked to see how cinema would have portrayed would be the relationship between Louis and Babette. In fact, considering on how cinema likes to use heterosexual tension in film, I was surprised that they didn’t use any of that material. I can only imagine that it would have taken up too much of the video to focus on the real struggle, so in the end I’m glad they didn’t waste time on it.
One of the things that I did notice that they seemed to alter was Louis’s personality. In the book I kept feeling what a sad weak character he was, always so afraid and worrisome. In the movie you can see that Louis, Brad Pitt, does struggle, but yet he does it in such a masculine way. At times I would think of Louis as a coward when it came to dealing with Lestat, Claudia, or his inner struggles. I thought this mostly because through the book I could read his inner thoughts, so maybe if I was able to read the movies Louis, then maybe I would have felt those same things conveyed.
As an overall summary I would say that I did enjoy the movie just as much as I enjoyed the book. I felt it kept a similar story line and didn’t leave out the feelings of love and hate that struggles all through out the book. I wasn’t too surprised that they had Brad Pitt portray a more masculine and secure character since he was, for most, the focus of desire in the film.
A scene from the book that I would have liked to see how cinema would have portrayed would be the relationship between Louis and Babette. In fact, considering on how cinema likes to use heterosexual tension in film, I was surprised that they didn’t use any of that material. I can only imagine that it would have taken up too much of the video to focus on the real struggle, so in the end I’m glad they didn’t waste time on it.
One of the things that I did notice that they seemed to alter was Louis’s personality. In the book I kept feeling what a sad weak character he was, always so afraid and worrisome. In the movie you can see that Louis, Brad Pitt, does struggle, but yet he does it in such a masculine way. At times I would think of Louis as a coward when it came to dealing with Lestat, Claudia, or his inner struggles. I thought this mostly because through the book I could read his inner thoughts, so maybe if I was able to read the movies Louis, then maybe I would have felt those same things conveyed.
As an overall summary I would say that I did enjoy the movie just as much as I enjoyed the book. I felt it kept a similar story line and didn’t leave out the feelings of love and hate that struggles all through out the book. I wasn’t too surprised that they had Brad Pitt portray a more masculine and secure character since he was, for most, the focus of desire in the film.
Eros: The God of Expectation *Correction*
I just realized that I mistakenly kept writing Lestat instead of Louis. There are two lines where I make this error, so please keep that in mind as you read. I apologize for my mistake.
Rated R
When a film features two men that exhibit an attraction or need for one another, any women in the scene are downright mousy-looking. However, when only one male is featured (even if he may be homosexual), bring on the beautiful babes! Voyeurism in this regard has two components--watching two men engage in "forbidden" behavior and objectifying the human form, be it male or female. Since Mulvey writes of the "male gaze", the cinema provides a safe place for men of both persuasions to look at individuals as objects (male and female) without the associated guilt or stigma of specifically seeking out blatant erotic content. In IWTV, Louis, Lastat & Armand are the figures to gaze at; Claudia is made to look like a pudgy china doll who's usually in a bad mood. With Maurice, Clive, Maurice & Scudder appear attractive but Maurice's sisters, mother, and later Clive's wife, all have the appearance of dowdy, plain females. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof goes in the opposite direction. Maggie is so attractive, she's the one that will make that tin roof HOT! This movie shows that when there is question, doubt, or known fact of the male preference but only one male is featured . . . bring on the lovely lady and let's see the PTA (P*ssy, T*ts and A**)!!!
Eros: The God of Expectation
As I was reading Interview with a Vampire I found myself highlighting many things that touched on similar topics in Eros the Bittersweet. Love is definitely a fickle thing. It’s almost like no matter what side of the fence you are on you always feel like the other side might be a little greener, even if you’ve already jumped back and forth to each side already. I notice this in a lot of people. When some people are single they begin to hate it and crave love and affection, but then when they find someone they do love the security it brings yet also resent the person for the relationships confinement.
When it comes to hate and love I don’t feel that it is all directed to one particular part of the relationship. They could love the person, yet hate the relationship. Please remember I’m not saying this applies to everyone, but in some way it may be relatable to all. You can love a person and hate or dislike parts of their personality, behaviors, and attitudes. This love that I am referring to doesn’t have to be towards a romantic relationship, it could apply to friends, family, or even somewhat strangers. No one is perfect or exempt from flaws.
I could feel the same struggle over this topic in both Eros the Bittersweet and Interview with a Vampire. Poor Lestat, he was doomed from the start. He did have a love for life, but hated the pain that it could bring and this is the whole struggle with Eros. My mind is still boggled from trying to comprehend this oxymoron, but yet in ways it does make sense. For Lestat he loved Louis for his creation and guidance, but yet also hated him at the same time because of his lack of appreciation for his gift. Also, before he became a vampire he loved the idea of escaping his pain and becoming something more, but once he was able to obtain this gift he did love it for some of its ability yet he also hated it for what else it brought to him.
It seems that we are never happy with what we have. We desire and desire and desire so much more than what we have, but only to realize that once we have it that it is not all that we imagined. I think we are just in love with dreaming, because some things can never be as good as in our dreams. There we have control of the outcome. If only we could be more realistic and withhold our expectations and maybe than love wouldn’t bring so much disappointment and hate. I guess Eros could also represent expectations. Most expectations bring hope and sometimes bitter disappointment when they don’t go as we wish.
*Sorry for the delay in my post, this applies for week 03/07/2007*
When it comes to hate and love I don’t feel that it is all directed to one particular part of the relationship. They could love the person, yet hate the relationship. Please remember I’m not saying this applies to everyone, but in some way it may be relatable to all. You can love a person and hate or dislike parts of their personality, behaviors, and attitudes. This love that I am referring to doesn’t have to be towards a romantic relationship, it could apply to friends, family, or even somewhat strangers. No one is perfect or exempt from flaws.
I could feel the same struggle over this topic in both Eros the Bittersweet and Interview with a Vampire. Poor Lestat, he was doomed from the start. He did have a love for life, but hated the pain that it could bring and this is the whole struggle with Eros. My mind is still boggled from trying to comprehend this oxymoron, but yet in ways it does make sense. For Lestat he loved Louis for his creation and guidance, but yet also hated him at the same time because of his lack of appreciation for his gift. Also, before he became a vampire he loved the idea of escaping his pain and becoming something more, but once he was able to obtain this gift he did love it for some of its ability yet he also hated it for what else it brought to him.
It seems that we are never happy with what we have. We desire and desire and desire so much more than what we have, but only to realize that once we have it that it is not all that we imagined. I think we are just in love with dreaming, because some things can never be as good as in our dreams. There we have control of the outcome. If only we could be more realistic and withhold our expectations and maybe than love wouldn’t bring so much disappointment and hate. I guess Eros could also represent expectations. Most expectations bring hope and sometimes bitter disappointment when they don’t go as we wish.
*Sorry for the delay in my post, this applies for week 03/07/2007*
Monday, March 12, 2007
A Note on the Importance of Gender
As I was reading through an article in VenusZine on dating and people's "types" (Issue no. 31, Spring 2007), I found myself flippng to the end to see whether the person who penned the piece was male or female. They authors were discussing girlfriends/boyfriends/both, and I just HAD to know what gender to identify with. This action of mine got me questioning my curiosity. Why did I have to know the gender before venturing too far into the piece? Why was I so fascinated with the fact that a female author was writing about girlfriends/boyfriends/both? I've certainly been friends with my fair share of homosexual/transexual people in the past (and present), and I am certainly not opposed to the idea. But something strange was happening. I was sitting completely alone, peering into other people's lives via their words. I felt like a voyeur. And I liked being able to delve into their lives and read about their crazy past relationships. I especially liked reading the pieces that were not the typical boy-meets-girl (or vice-versa) stories we as a culture are used to reading. This magazine presented me with a wide range of stories that warmed my jaded heart and fed my voyeuristic tendencies. Thanks for letting me be a nosy little voyeur, VenusZine. You guys shoud check it out. Its almost as good as Bust Magazine.
Fragility, the Fragment, and Distance
Here's what I wanted to say during the last class, and I would've, but that my domineering tiredness kept my thoughts from forming effectively.
SPECTATORSHIP--in terms of film and theatre, and the differences separating the two when we experience either, yes, I wanted to say something of the theatre's FRAGILITY.
A performance not caught in a fixed format is fragile, easily disruptable. True, the fragility of a fixed format film or tv program depends upon technological reliability, and such reliability is indirectly human reliability--film projectors and booster towers are human inventions, after all. Theatrical performances, though, are highly dependent upon its spectatorship's agreement to remain in a state of "absence/presence"; for the illusion of a performance's reality to succeed, the spectatorship's "presence" is known, just as its "absence" is integral.
And, yes, this "absence/presence" required for theatrical performances runs parallel to Carson's dissection of eros as a "desire for that which is missing"; in this case, the "missing" the performers' desire are the elements of disruption, the things capable of punching through a theatre's FRAGILITY: coughing, talking, whispering, trendy cell-phone ring-tones, etc. If such disruptions remain "missing," the "fourth wall" of DISTANCE is undisturbed.
And if DISTANCE is another word for lack (a rift, a separation, a space, a void--a place of "missing"), this DISTANCE is, too, eros.
Oh, there's more to DISTANCE here, but before that, there's:
THE FRAGMENT--Mulvey writes "conventional close-ups of legs (Dietrich, for instance) or a face (Garbo) integrate into the narrative a different mode of eroticism . . . a fragmented body destroys . . . the illusion of depth demanded by the narrative; it gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon . . . to the screen." Film accomplishes this ceaselessly; traditional, non-experimental theatre cannot. Film can erotically isolate body fragments into potential fetish-points. Elizabeth Taylor's legs in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Myriads of "muscle-cam" montages (this one's for the ladies!) in any Schwarzenegger flick? Might the mass media of film be a means of mass-fetishization? Am I treading on Mulvey's toes here?
Films--DVDs--are already commodity-fetishized these days (smile, Marx!), and they're mass produced to meet commodity demands.
Yikes!--where's a way to wrap this up?
Perhaps--
Theatre carries a fragile depth, film a depth of iconized anatomy.
A fragile depth, depths of icons, theatre and film--both brought to you through:
DISTANCE--Sappho's glukupikron, the "sweetbitter" nature of eros. I believe I made some attempt at relating this to film trailers in class. I'll clarify things here, through the concept of DISTANCE.
It's simple, really.
Eros, "sweetbitter"-ness, happens during the interval separating the first time a film's trailer is seen and the anticipated time the film itself is seen.
During this stretch dividing the ad from the product, eros, a longing to see the film, intensifies, mounts--but it is only within this DISTANCE, this region of lack, this time anticipating "that which is missing," that eros builds.
Once the DISTANCE is reached, and the film seen, something akin to bitterness might set in.
An anticipated film seen is an anticipated film had, experienced; eros is no longer lack, "that which is missing" is no longer missing, no longer "sweet."
And the trailer, the manipulative, "sweet" morsel of image-FRAGMENTS, pieces of the film separated from the film-body through the DISTANCES wrought through the celluloid surgery of edits, a collection of DISTANCES, gaps in the story, lack-spaces, a promise of future "sweetnesses," of future wholeness (is that Aristophanes I see at the editing console?)--is this what a trailer is?
And the greater DISTANCE in this deal?
Film and its attendant SPECTATORSHIP are forever distant.
I can identify with screen images all I want, taking a cue from Mulvey via Lacan; I can let my ego libido cut a rug 'til the management tells me to leave--but identify is all I can do. In film, whether anticipating it or experiencing it, there are layers of lack
There's always the separating DISTANCE.
SPECTATORSHIP--in terms of film and theatre, and the differences separating the two when we experience either, yes, I wanted to say something of the theatre's FRAGILITY.
A performance not caught in a fixed format is fragile, easily disruptable. True, the fragility of a fixed format film or tv program depends upon technological reliability, and such reliability is indirectly human reliability--film projectors and booster towers are human inventions, after all. Theatrical performances, though, are highly dependent upon its spectatorship's agreement to remain in a state of "absence/presence"; for the illusion of a performance's reality to succeed, the spectatorship's "presence" is known, just as its "absence" is integral.
And, yes, this "absence/presence" required for theatrical performances runs parallel to Carson's dissection of eros as a "desire for that which is missing"; in this case, the "missing" the performers' desire are the elements of disruption, the things capable of punching through a theatre's FRAGILITY: coughing, talking, whispering, trendy cell-phone ring-tones, etc. If such disruptions remain "missing," the "fourth wall" of DISTANCE is undisturbed.
And if DISTANCE is another word for lack (a rift, a separation, a space, a void--a place of "missing"), this DISTANCE is, too, eros.
Oh, there's more to DISTANCE here, but before that, there's:
THE FRAGMENT--Mulvey writes "conventional close-ups of legs (Dietrich, for instance) or a face (Garbo) integrate into the narrative a different mode of eroticism . . . a fragmented body destroys . . . the illusion of depth demanded by the narrative; it gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon . . . to the screen." Film accomplishes this ceaselessly; traditional, non-experimental theatre cannot. Film can erotically isolate body fragments into potential fetish-points. Elizabeth Taylor's legs in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Myriads of "muscle-cam" montages (this one's for the ladies!) in any Schwarzenegger flick? Might the mass media of film be a means of mass-fetishization? Am I treading on Mulvey's toes here?
Films--DVDs--are already commodity-fetishized these days (smile, Marx!), and they're mass produced to meet commodity demands.
Yikes!--where's a way to wrap this up?
Perhaps--
Theatre carries a fragile depth, film a depth of iconized anatomy.
A fragile depth, depths of icons, theatre and film--both brought to you through:
DISTANCE--Sappho's glukupikron, the "sweetbitter" nature of eros. I believe I made some attempt at relating this to film trailers in class. I'll clarify things here, through the concept of DISTANCE.
It's simple, really.
Eros, "sweetbitter"-ness, happens during the interval separating the first time a film's trailer is seen and the anticipated time the film itself is seen.
During this stretch dividing the ad from the product, eros, a longing to see the film, intensifies, mounts--but it is only within this DISTANCE, this region of lack, this time anticipating "that which is missing," that eros builds.
Once the DISTANCE is reached, and the film seen, something akin to bitterness might set in.
An anticipated film seen is an anticipated film had, experienced; eros is no longer lack, "that which is missing" is no longer missing, no longer "sweet."
And the trailer, the manipulative, "sweet" morsel of image-FRAGMENTS, pieces of the film separated from the film-body through the DISTANCES wrought through the celluloid surgery of edits, a collection of DISTANCES, gaps in the story, lack-spaces, a promise of future "sweetnesses," of future wholeness (is that Aristophanes I see at the editing console?)--is this what a trailer is?
And the greater DISTANCE in this deal?
Film and its attendant SPECTATORSHIP are forever distant.
I can identify with screen images all I want, taking a cue from Mulvey via Lacan; I can let my ego libido cut a rug 'til the management tells me to leave--but identify is all I can do. In film, whether anticipating it or experiencing it, there are layers of lack
There's always the separating DISTANCE.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Hmmmm....
Everybody wants what they can't have. That's what makes something such a great desire. Its like that commercial that out about having EXPERIENCE. If you got it, you don't need it. If you want it, you dont have it. If you want it, but you dont have it, then you need it. But how does this desire become bittersweet or have a love/hate feeling? Lets say you desire to have a special someone. You want them, you need them. And after wanting and needing them for so long, you finally get them. Which is sweet of course. But you dont know how sweet it is. It could be horrible. The person you longed for and wanted so much could be someone totally different than what you expected them to be. Which would be bitter and horrible.
For some, this desire for a something is what motivates them. Its what keeps them moving forward and creating hope for the next day. Some love this desire for the challenge of it. This is what I thought about after reading the bittersweet and the part about love/hate. I had this friend who would want a certain girl to like him. He would send all the right messages, and eventually the girl would come around and start to like him too. Well, this was all he needed I guess because after he would find out that she liked him he would move on and lose interest. He lived for the challenge of it. Weird I know. And after this love and liking for the girl he would completely go away. Which left the girl hating him of course.
For some, this desire for a something is what motivates them. Its what keeps them moving forward and creating hope for the next day. Some love this desire for the challenge of it. This is what I thought about after reading the bittersweet and the part about love/hate. I had this friend who would want a certain girl to like him. He would send all the right messages, and eventually the girl would come around and start to like him too. Well, this was all he needed I guess because after he would find out that she liked him he would move on and lose interest. He lived for the challenge of it. Weird I know. And after this love and liking for the girl he would completely go away. Which left the girl hating him of course.
old post
Talk about a crazy situation to be in if your Maggie the cat stuck on a hot tin roof. On one side, she's got Gooper and Mae and on the other she's got Brick. In dealing with Gooper and Mae, Maggie has to sit through all the demonstrations that they put on, or rather how their kids put on. And for what!? Trying to win over Big Daddy so that they can have the estate for themselves. Maggie, feeling out of place, has to try to convince Big Daddy of the same, but without the assistance of Brick. And I would say that having to deal with Brick is a hard enough challenge to go through on your own.
In the movie, you can really sense the desperation between everyone towards the end of it. This is of course after everyone has found out that Big Daddy is actually dying. Gooper and his selfish wife Mae immediately bring out the paper work to Big Mama. But Maggie makes the ultimate desperation shot at the estate when she announces that she is pregnant with Brick's baby. And its nice to see Brick finally step up for his wife after all of her hard work and back her up in her lie in front of big Daddy.
In the movie, you can really sense the desperation between everyone towards the end of it. This is of course after everyone has found out that Big Daddy is actually dying. Gooper and his selfish wife Mae immediately bring out the paper work to Big Mama. But Maggie makes the ultimate desperation shot at the estate when she announces that she is pregnant with Brick's baby. And its nice to see Brick finally step up for his wife after all of her hard work and back her up in her lie in front of big Daddy.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Vampys!
Vampires have always been appealing. Their ability to live for hundreds of years gives them the opportunity to witness timeless changes. The movie an Interview With The Vampire incorporates homoerotic symbolism. The director uses handsome men to capture the "gaze" of the viewers. Also, their actions are sexualized. I also found a connection, that they lead a life that is "bittersweet." Eros the bittersweet states that life can be bittersweet, where one can experience a simultaneous feeling of bitterness and sweetness. Louie's life ironically becomes bittersweet. He is a vampire that must kill, yet he has a conscious not to kill. At times his life becomes hectic and unbareable. Louie must battle his innate vampiric desires while needing blood to survive.
Tom Cruise is so much more normal as a vampire!
When I first started reading Interview With The Vampire I of course was looking for the relevance of gender in the novel. I couldn't quite see this relevance too clearly until I read to page 42 and Louis began to speak of the Freniere Plantation and how it was to become run by the only son and how it wasn't possible for one of the five daughters to be capable of doing so. Also, strangely on page 42 I saw relevance to Eros' Bittersweet when Louis is talking to the reporter about how sugar was refined in Louisiana and how it is ironic that the refined sugar is like a poison, so sweet it could bring death. There is also a whole lot of the because whole receptor/reciever thing going on between Louis and Lastat because Lestat holds some sort of power over Louis by threatening him with the knowledge that he supposedly has and Louis does not. Also, because Louis was the receptor because he received being a vampire from Lestat and Lestat's teeth were somewhat of a phallus. It all makes sense in my mind but it al looks like a bloody mess in a blog! Haha get it, bloody mess?!?
Transylvania Tango
Naturally, I read and watched Interview with the Vampire looking for the relevance to gender. While both looked at mortality through the eyes of an immortal, and gave some interesting insight into all that immortality brings, it seems that the film skirted some sexual and gender issues that the novel developed more. I must admit that I have never been a fan of horror and more specifically vampires. IWTV is tolerable because it deals with some interesting twists on the human condition. But what of the gender issues? Hmm . . . There seems to be a bit of Maurice/Durham dynamic going on with Lestat/Louis: implied homo-eroticism and bisexuality. The whole oral fixation with sucking blood is, well . . . do the math. Then there is the resentment/affection and the struggle for power. I dunno, maybe it is just that I am not into the whole Dracula thing that I find it difficult to ferret out the DEEP MEANING.
Vampirism:Bloody Bisexuality?
Is it just me, or does the relationship between sweet Louis and domineering Lestat seem to be teetering toward homosexual? Even their names look and sound good together. Can’t you just see the "his and his" towels with their cute names embroidered in blood! In all seriousness, the two vampires remind me of a couple which only stays together because amid all the bickering and dysfunction lies a strong bond. Louis at times appears upset by the inhumane actions of Lestat but also uniquely attracted to his fierce presence. Lestat at times seems annoyed with Louis’s goodhearted nature, and this leads the reader to ponder: “Why do these two stay together?” Well, the answer is simple: Both of these beings are getting certain needs met by one another. Louis, new to the world of vampirism, looks to Lestat to show him the ropes so to speak and listen to his concerns. Lestat gets great pleasure in having this power and command over Louis. Some may even say that Lestat is taking on the role of mentor and father with naïve Louis. Their relationship is one consisting of a subordinate partner and a dominate partner. The very nature of their union fits right into what "Eros: The Bittersweet" says about love and hate converging within erotic desire. Speaking of erotic, the part of the book in which Louis recalls the intense experience of Lestat draining his blood is very tantalizing. Even before Lestat sinks his teeth into Louis he lays down beside him “so gracefully” and his subtly movements so personal in nature remind Louis of how a “lover” would act. This proves to be great build up to the actual steamy encounter. It is in these heated moments of anticipation that Louis seems to admire Lestat’s physical appearance: “Never had I been so close to him before, and in the dim light I could see the magnificent radiance of his eye and the unnatural mask of his skin.” Now, simply cut out the “unnatural mask” at the end of the quote mentioned above and it reads like one that would grace the page of a romance novel. The resistance involved in the act that sent “shocks of sensation not unlike the pleasure of passion” through Louis’s body ties in nicely with Carson’s The Bittersweet. She devotes a whole section (Tactics) to explaining how forced sex, essentially rape, was encouraged in Ancient times. In Cretan society it was customary for male lovers to rape and kidnap their boy-lovers. The way that Lestat drains Louis’s blood resembles a rape because the act is intrusive and demonstrates the power he has over Louis. Even the prominent drum beat sounds of the two vampires’ hearts beating in unison seems very intimate and romantic. It is also interesting how the reader is told that Lestat’s favorite food is a fresh young girl but the “triumphant kill for Lestat was a young man.” Here, is Rice pointing out his blood-sucking preference for a reason? The vampire is allowed great freedom with who he wants to drain. The vampire has the liberty to sink his teeth into a diverse range of people (even animal) regardless of their race, class, age and biological sex! So is Vampirism a metaphor for Bisexuality? Is Vampirism a metaphor for the Sexual Revolution? Hmmm. Oh and one can not forget the double layered conversation between Louis and Lestat, in which Louis asks to let him stay in the closet for sleeping purposes. Yeah, this was very clever, especially when Lestat laughs and asks, “Don’t you know what you are?” So, was this conversation of sleeping in the closet just meant to show that Louis is struggling with accepting his role as vampire? Are Lestat and Louis more like the rugged cowboys from "Brokeback Mountain" or more like Oscar and Felix from "The Odd Couple"?...You decide!
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Vampire Double D’s (Desire and Death)
Just as in some of the other readings we have had, the characters in Interview With The Vampire all face internal desires that lead to death (not necessarily their own death though). The desire that they have is for blood, not specifically be for Eros, but it certainly appears that they are able to achieve love and ecstasy through their ability to kill. And of course, it appears that what they desire is rooted in what they lack.
Lestat is a prime example. He sought after Louis to fulfill his desire for a life of wealth and fortune, something he lacked in both his life and afterlife (except for what he was able to steal). Lestat was able to charm Louis into accepting his offer to become a vampire through his charm, physical beauty and an air of excitement. He offered Louis a “life” of death, precisely at the time in Louis’ life when he was welcoming death due to the pain and guilt he felt after the loss of his brother. They were able to fulfill each other’s needs, and therefore became partners for “life.”
The physical way in which Louis was converted into a vampire certainly is reminiscent of the Symposium. Lestat “laid” himself down next to Louis, their bodies touching one another creating an air of ecstasy between the two. But it wasn’t love that existed between them, it was the excitement of death that they both shared and found it one another. And the finale is when they drink each other’s blood. (That’s one way to swap fluids!)
And once converted, death itself becomes the epitome of happiness for the vampires. With each night, their thirst for blood results in a loss life, but killing is still the only thing that is able to quench their desire. Lestat needs specific qualities among his victims in order to be content, a young female beauty, an aristocratic male, etc., again people with qualities that he lacks. Louis, on the other hand, begins to value life in his “death” and prefers not to kill humans right away, desiring to preserve that what he now no longer possesses.
In the end, though, physical excitement and the thrill that killing gives the vampires, even Louis, prevails and each night is filled to the brim with desire…climaxing in death.
Lestat is a prime example. He sought after Louis to fulfill his desire for a life of wealth and fortune, something he lacked in both his life and afterlife (except for what he was able to steal). Lestat was able to charm Louis into accepting his offer to become a vampire through his charm, physical beauty and an air of excitement. He offered Louis a “life” of death, precisely at the time in Louis’ life when he was welcoming death due to the pain and guilt he felt after the loss of his brother. They were able to fulfill each other’s needs, and therefore became partners for “life.”
The physical way in which Louis was converted into a vampire certainly is reminiscent of the Symposium. Lestat “laid” himself down next to Louis, their bodies touching one another creating an air of ecstasy between the two. But it wasn’t love that existed between them, it was the excitement of death that they both shared and found it one another. And the finale is when they drink each other’s blood. (That’s one way to swap fluids!)
And once converted, death itself becomes the epitome of happiness for the vampires. With each night, their thirst for blood results in a loss life, but killing is still the only thing that is able to quench their desire. Lestat needs specific qualities among his victims in order to be content, a young female beauty, an aristocratic male, etc., again people with qualities that he lacks. Louis, on the other hand, begins to value life in his “death” and prefers not to kill humans right away, desiring to preserve that what he now no longer possesses.
In the end, though, physical excitement and the thrill that killing gives the vampires, even Louis, prevails and each night is filled to the brim with desire…climaxing in death.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Eros the Loony Tune
Remember the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons from years ago?
It didn't require the analysis of a child's mind to gender identify the coyote as masculine, what with his eternal tampering with ACME gadgetry--metaphorical of a stereotypical garage-rat male tinkerer--to capture and, we imagined, devour the sonically-gifted desert bird.
And the Roadrunner's gendered identity? Perhaps it's just me, but as a child I'd always see the the Roadrunner as the feminine half of the deal. Long legs, feathery plumage reminiscent of a feather stuck in a woman's hat or maybe an exaggeration of a woman's haute couture hairdo--and, ah yes, the fact of the coyote's endless and determined chase after her, to devour her, consume her.
Something erotic here?
If "eros is lack," as Anne Carson says in Eros the Bittersweet, yes, there is; the coyote is forever lacking in his capturing the Roadrunner.
Until, that is, the fateful episode where Wile E. finally does manage the impossible and captures the bird. Maybe you remember this. And if you do, what does the coyote do? Mute, ears downcast, appearing disappointed, he simply reveals a sign with the words: (paraphrase) WELL, I'VE FINALLY CAUGHT HIM. NOW WHAT DO I DO?
(Yes, I know, the sign reads "HIM," but I still see the Roadrunner as a female image, for the sake of this argument, anyway, so I'll just go against the gender intentions of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Warner Brothers in general--not to mention foregoing any homosexual readings of the Loony Tunes canon.)
Carson, interpreting the Greek poets, writes "Who ever desires what is not gone? No one." For Wile E. Coyote, this is truth; the Roadrunner is no longer gone from him, and the coyote experiences the "[impossibility] for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it"--the Roadrunner--"is had, it is no longer wanting." All the coyote's desires of devouring, consuming the Roadrunner, upon capturing the bird, disappear down a Dickinsonian drain, where we might expect the coyote to break his silence and recite Emily D.'s "I Had Been Hungry":
So I found
that hunger was a way
of persons outside windows
that entering takes away.
Wile E. Coyote "had been hungry," too. Then he got what he wanted; he found himself no longer "outside windows." Eros is lack.
(A cartoon coyote reciting Dickinson as he wields his NOW WHAT DO I DO? sign? There's a project for an enterprising YouTuber!)
I'll here bring up the film Zodiac. I saw it the other day--no, I'm not crazy for serial-killer flicks, I just find Fincher's work interesting, if often uneven. Seeing it, with Carson's Eros in my head, I couldn't help seeing also the eros--where "love and hate converge"--of the police chase, the inherent love/hate duality of the chase, its glukupikron, its "sweetbitter"-ness--the love of the chase, the enmity for the reason of the chase.
This is something we can easily superimpose over Wile E. Coyote, can't we?
Carson: "A space must be maintained or desire ends."
Wile E. found this out.
And the police did, too--the desire, the "space" separating what is known and what is not, to know the killer's identity is eternal.
Eternal enough to make a film from this desire.
If only they'd run a Roadrunner cartoon before it.
It didn't require the analysis of a child's mind to gender identify the coyote as masculine, what with his eternal tampering with ACME gadgetry--metaphorical of a stereotypical garage-rat male tinkerer--to capture and, we imagined, devour the sonically-gifted desert bird.
And the Roadrunner's gendered identity? Perhaps it's just me, but as a child I'd always see the the Roadrunner as the feminine half of the deal. Long legs, feathery plumage reminiscent of a feather stuck in a woman's hat or maybe an exaggeration of a woman's haute couture hairdo--and, ah yes, the fact of the coyote's endless and determined chase after her, to devour her, consume her.
Something erotic here?
If "eros is lack," as Anne Carson says in Eros the Bittersweet, yes, there is; the coyote is forever lacking in his capturing the Roadrunner.
Until, that is, the fateful episode where Wile E. finally does manage the impossible and captures the bird. Maybe you remember this. And if you do, what does the coyote do? Mute, ears downcast, appearing disappointed, he simply reveals a sign with the words: (paraphrase) WELL, I'VE FINALLY CAUGHT HIM. NOW WHAT DO I DO?
(Yes, I know, the sign reads "HIM," but I still see the Roadrunner as a female image, for the sake of this argument, anyway, so I'll just go against the gender intentions of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Warner Brothers in general--not to mention foregoing any homosexual readings of the Loony Tunes canon.)
Carson, interpreting the Greek poets, writes "Who ever desires what is not gone? No one." For Wile E. Coyote, this is truth; the Roadrunner is no longer gone from him, and the coyote experiences the "[impossibility] for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it"--the Roadrunner--"is had, it is no longer wanting." All the coyote's desires of devouring, consuming the Roadrunner, upon capturing the bird, disappear down a Dickinsonian drain, where we might expect the coyote to break his silence and recite Emily D.'s "I Had Been Hungry":
So I found
that hunger was a way
of persons outside windows
that entering takes away.
Wile E. Coyote "had been hungry," too. Then he got what he wanted; he found himself no longer "outside windows." Eros is lack.
(A cartoon coyote reciting Dickinson as he wields his NOW WHAT DO I DO? sign? There's a project for an enterprising YouTuber!)
I'll here bring up the film Zodiac. I saw it the other day--no, I'm not crazy for serial-killer flicks, I just find Fincher's work interesting, if often uneven. Seeing it, with Carson's Eros in my head, I couldn't help seeing also the eros--where "love and hate converge"--of the police chase, the inherent love/hate duality of the chase, its glukupikron, its "sweetbitter"-ness--the love of the chase, the enmity for the reason of the chase.
This is something we can easily superimpose over Wile E. Coyote, can't we?
Carson: "A space must be maintained or desire ends."
Wile E. found this out.
And the police did, too--the desire, the "space" separating what is known and what is not, to know the killer's identity is eternal.
Eternal enough to make a film from this desire.
If only they'd run a Roadrunner cartoon before it.
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