Reading the Vampire, Ken Gelder
Apr. 11th, 2006 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaI'm done with the Victorian paper, but I wish I could have done better on it. Now I have my Feminism & Orientalism to do, due Monday, and my books on it are overdue and they will be late and continue to be late and I don't care.
So I read Reading the Vampire instead. It's actually a required text for one of the English courses here on the Gothic narrative, but I'm not fond of the Gothic genre, so I passed up on that. The fact that it's held over in Dartmouth may also have had something to do with my decision. It's an interesting text though, even if I wanted to scream when I came across queer theory (I saw so much of it in researching Oscar Wilde. I don't mean to say queer theory isn't important, it's as important as gender studies, but dammit, let the gay men be gay).
I kinda plodded along in my reading, and it brought up Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula - that's the one with Gary Oldman as Dracula and Winona as Mina. Now that I think about, it really isn't Bram Stoker's Dracula, considering how far it departed in terms of plot. I mean, I suppose Vlad the Impaler's wife Elisabeth killing herself after she finds out wrongly that Vlad's dead, and Vlad waiting forever and a half for her to be reborn is kind of canon by now, but it's not Bram Stoker! I remember that this Mina was also all swoony and giving in to Dracula (she willingly drink's Dracula's blood). HELLOOOOO?
Mina Harker in the original novel, by contrast, was perfectly capable of handling herself, helping the men along the way. It was HER suggestion that Van Helsing hypnotise her so they could look for Dracula, and SHE's the one who types up stuff from Dr. Seward's voice recorder. Mina was at least aware of the New Women, and had her own spunk.
This shows up NOWHERE in the film, now that I think about it. That makes me feel very betrayed. Instead, the film's Mina goes all "Oh Vlad I love you!" at the end of the movie. So much for being Jonathan Harker's fiancee. So much for fidelity. So much for women power. So much for being "Bram Stoker's Dracula". Bah.
Anyway, after reading that book, I really want to read Carmilla now *puts that on to-read list*
The book also covered a nice range of different aspects in reading vampire novels / watching vampire films - seeing the vampire as a capitalist, as an Other, as an unidentifiable (something that is usually in the realm of Frankenstein study) and as the uncontrollable (feminine). Really makes me realize how very misogynistic so many of these old texts are... I wonder if I could find any man-undermining texts out there that don't come from the 19th / 20th centuries? I mean, even Anne Rice had mostly male characters - I was disappointed when Claudia was shot off the scene, I really liked Claudia. You figure that a heterosexual mother would have more female characters in her novels, but most of the important relationships (and families) are comprised of male members - again, this isn't a bad thing, but it seems the only gender that becomes empowered in vampire canons tend to be male - Carmilla is destroyed (so that the men can re-assert their masculinity, and hell, Laura isn't even involved in the discussion). But Carmilla, interestingly enough, also gets to have her say, so I really want to read that text to see how le Fanu treats Carmilla's character.
So I read Reading the Vampire instead. It's actually a required text for one of the English courses here on the Gothic narrative, but I'm not fond of the Gothic genre, so I passed up on that. The fact that it's held over in Dartmouth may also have had something to do with my decision. It's an interesting text though, even if I wanted to scream when I came across queer theory (I saw so much of it in researching Oscar Wilde. I don't mean to say queer theory isn't important, it's as important as gender studies, but dammit, let the gay men be gay).
I kinda plodded along in my reading, and it brought up Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula - that's the one with Gary Oldman as Dracula and Winona as Mina. Now that I think about, it really isn't Bram Stoker's Dracula, considering how far it departed in terms of plot. I mean, I suppose Vlad the Impaler's wife Elisabeth killing herself after she finds out wrongly that Vlad's dead, and Vlad waiting forever and a half for her to be reborn is kind of canon by now, but it's not Bram Stoker! I remember that this Mina was also all swoony and giving in to Dracula (she willingly drink's Dracula's blood). HELLOOOOO?
Mina Harker in the original novel, by contrast, was perfectly capable of handling herself, helping the men along the way. It was HER suggestion that Van Helsing hypnotise her so they could look for Dracula, and SHE's the one who types up stuff from Dr. Seward's voice recorder. Mina was at least aware of the New Women, and had her own spunk.
This shows up NOWHERE in the film, now that I think about it. That makes me feel very betrayed. Instead, the film's Mina goes all "Oh Vlad I love you!" at the end of the movie. So much for being Jonathan Harker's fiancee. So much for fidelity. So much for women power. So much for being "Bram Stoker's Dracula". Bah.
Anyway, after reading that book, I really want to read Carmilla now *puts that on to-read list*
The book also covered a nice range of different aspects in reading vampire novels / watching vampire films - seeing the vampire as a capitalist, as an Other, as an unidentifiable (something that is usually in the realm of Frankenstein study) and as the uncontrollable (feminine). Really makes me realize how very misogynistic so many of these old texts are... I wonder if I could find any man-undermining texts out there that don't come from the 19th / 20th centuries? I mean, even Anne Rice had mostly male characters - I was disappointed when Claudia was shot off the scene, I really liked Claudia. You figure that a heterosexual mother would have more female characters in her novels, but most of the important relationships (and families) are comprised of male members - again, this isn't a bad thing, but it seems the only gender that becomes empowered in vampire canons tend to be male - Carmilla is destroyed (so that the men can re-assert their masculinity, and hell, Laura isn't even involved in the discussion). But Carmilla, interestingly enough, also gets to have her say, so I really want to read that text to see how le Fanu treats Carmilla's character.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-12 01:27 pm (UTC)i had the same angry feeling when i watched v for vendetta. natalie portman's character in the movie fell in love with v, which is fucked up because in the book they had a father-daughter relationship. that is just not right.
anyway if you like vampire movies, and am sick of the anne rice types, i highly recommend shadow of the vampire and nosferatu (if you haven't watched them). you kind of have to watch nosferatu first, it's made in 1922 and is THE definitive vampire movie despite being a silent film. shadow of the vampire was made a few years back and is a movie about the filming of nosferatu.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-13 02:06 pm (UTC)Nosferatu was one of the movies discussed in the book too. I'm not fond of horror / vampire movies (or books), but if I'm bored enough and I find it, I'll give it a go.