Fangs For The Fantasy

In terms of the female characters on American Horror Story there are quite a few problematic elements. There is the issue of violence and rape, but one that often gets overlooked is the treatment of sex. It is impossible to have a discussion about sex and American Horror Story without examining the character of Moira.

In many ways, Moira is defined by her sexuality, even her origin as a ghost came about through her sexuality when Constance killed her for sleeping with her husband, shooting her in the eye and burying her body in the garden.

Since that moment, her ghost has been stuck in the persona as a sexual object for the pleasure of straight men. It is expressly labelled as this by the way her body shifts form depending on who looks at her. Alone of all of the ghosts in the house, she is not stuck in the body she died in - she is not always the young, attractive woman that Constance murdered. She only ever appears as her original form when a straight man is looking at her and not only does her appearance change, but so does her demeanour, her words and her actions. Moira’s attractiveness, her body, her sexuality is only ever apparent when it is time to titillate a straight man - it’s expressly there for both straight male pleasure and to be used as a tool for power against straight men. And many of the living straight male characters recognise this: for example Ben being surprised that Vivien is happy to keep Moira on because her attractiveness and her overtly sexual and seductive demeanour is so blatantly aimed at him that he assumes Vivien must see her as a threat or problem (especially since he has cheated before).

When Moira is not around a living straight man, a target for that sexuality, she is an old woman displaying a damaged eye where she was shot. She is presented as completely lacking in sexual attractiveness - not only in appearance but in demeanour as well. Her sexual nature is reserved for straight men.

Moira’s most fascinating persona is that of an older woman played by Frances Conroy. Older Moira is virtually passive until Vivien Harmon enlists her help to scare a new family away from the murder house. This character plays upon the idea that seniors, particularly senior women are not sexual and most certainly never the object of sexual desire.This is a societal construction that’s continually reified by the media. Consider for a moment that Sean Connery and Richard Gere are most definitely senior citizens but are still constructed as sex symbols and paired with significantly younger women in movies. There is never a question that they are desirable and their age is certainly never a barrier to sex. With Moira, her advanced age makes her decidedly non-sexual and without the veneer of youth and sexuality, she is powerless and impotent.

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This is a Guest Post submitted to Fangs for the Fantasy

I’d like to thank Fangs for the Fantasy for having us.

Despite such lights as Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee and Suzy Mackee Charnas, and editors like Ellen Datlow, horror is perceived as a male field. There’s even a Women in Horror month, February. But it’s still generally accepted that women aren’t as scary as the men.

I asked the founding members of the Literary Underworld, (http://www.literaryunderworld.com ) an independent author consortium, to talk about their experiences writing horror while female.

The three of us, Sara Harvey, Elizabeth Donald and myself, Angelia Sparrow, all write dark fantasy or horror. Yet, all three of us are consistently relegated to romance panels at conventions. Sara and I usually get the steampunk ones, but I’m always on the 11 PM sex panel, because I write erotic horror.  Elizabeth may have a zombie or vampire panel and Sara probably has a costuming one, but we almost always get at least one romance panel.

I write mostly GLBT, heavy on the paranormal and erotic horror. My gay Christmas werewolves may be peaceable pups, just wanting to be left alone and enjoy their short story series, but my post-millennialist vampires in Power in the Blood aren’t averse to forcible conversions to bring about the Second Coming and their antagonists aren’t shy about filling a megachurch knee-deep in blood to make sure it doesn’t happen.

My first experience with the general attitude that men write horror, women write sexy vampires came at Hypericon. I stopped Brian Keene and Bryan Smith, two writers I read, who were working for a press I was researching to ask some questions. I said I had written a horror novel, with about as much sex as Smith usually had, and was interested in knowing some basic stuff about the publisher. The first words out of Keene’s mouth (Smith’s very quiet) were “Are you sure it doesn’t need to go to the romance imprint?” I looked at them and said “Let me give you two words: buzzsaw penis. The main character’s reverse Prince Albert piercing turns into a buzzsaw threaded on a spindle of flesh.” They both flinched, nodded and said, “Yeah, horror.”

In that instant, I felt proud of myself for making men who give me nightmares flinch, but I also felt deeply annoyed by having to prove myself and give away the biggest, baddest scene in order to do so.

But my single experience is nothing compared to what my friends have gone through in a systemic way.

Sara Harvey:

I don’t necessarily consider myself a horror writer, per se.  I do like a bit of the creepy stuff and in my Blood of Angels series from Apex Publications, I definitely took things to dark places.

Two things came out of this particular experience for me.

The first was that The Convent of the Pure was reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly this is a really awesome step for a small-press like Apex and a relatively new author like me. I was completely thrilled to be noticed by such a prestigious reviewer.

The review was overall positive. Although I wasn’t sure of the reviewer had actually read the book, all the way through, all 36,000 words of it. See, it’s a very dark fantasy that some might categorize as horror. There is a romantic relationship between the lead characters but sex never happens on the page, or anywhere in the book as one of the main characters is a ghost that haunts the other. I reiterate that NO SEX EVER HAPPENS IN THIS BOOK. It isn’t even the least bit sensual, flirtatious, or smutty.

The two protagonists are both women.

This led the Publisher’s Weekly reviewer to declare my book “fluffy lesbian erotica” right after calling it “gothic Steampunk.”

Did I mention at no time is there sex in this book? For crying out loud, there isn’t even KISSING. But it has lesbians and was written by a woman and therefore must be erotica, right?

Said review also felt the need to mention that “Readers who aren’t put off by the cheesecake cover illustration of buff, busty Portia will appreciate the mix of heat, horror and humor.” So we had some fun with the cover, spoofing Penguin classics and pulp. Personally, I like it. It shows two strong women who happen to also be attractive and it illustrates a scene that happens in the book. AND no one’s ass or boobs are hanging out and no one has a tramp stamp.

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The wonderful thing about science fiction is that the writers have the opportunity to create a world, which while based on ours, can be markedly different. This means that there should be a place for strong female characters who are not restricted by sexism or forced into a situation in which they must perform femininity on a daily basis to be accepted as ‘woman.’ Despite the freedom of this genre; however, nothing is born outside of discourse, which means of course that we end up with the same sexist tropes repeatedly.
 
Even in shows which readily lend themselves to recurring scenes of violence, because women have historically been framed as delicate and passive, men end up in the leadership roles. This also means that when the action does finally happen, women are placed into nurturing roles like doctors and nurses to aid the wounded men. While some may see this exchange as complementary, it in fact sets up a serious gender divide that is reductive.
 
We actually see this most strongly and most blatantly in dystopias. In Falling Skies, humanity is locked into a battle for survival against an alien threat. Humanity is nearly extinct, the group is excited at the prospect of a capital that has managed to scrape together 2,000 survivors. The 2nd Massachusetts itself is reduced to a mere 150 people, meaning it has lost nearly half of its already low numbers since the series began. Clearly, this is a series about desperation - every man must be ready to fight, desperately, to survive.
 
And I said “man” purposefully there. Because, while there are plenty of women in the crowd scenes and even in most of the fight scenes we will find one token, nameless female fighter in a large number of men, the vast majority of the fighters are male. In fact, there’s only ever one named female fighter at a time (Karen, who gets replaced by Maggie after she is captured. She also inherited Karen’s love interest - which did rather make the two women seem interchangeable).
 
Remember how desperate humanity is here. For most of the show, Jimmy, a 13 year old boy was drafted to fight. As they get more desperate, Matt, a 6 year old boy, starts carrying a gun around and taking part in military action. Where are the women? It’s clearly not a matter of military background with both children and school teachers on the battlefield, why do we only see one or two women standing side by side with their men to hold the line against the alien threat?
 
By contrast, the most prominent female characters we do see except for the interchangeable-Hal-Love-Interest are, of course, caregivers. Dr. Ann Glass and Lourdes, the medical team for the 2nd Massachusetts. It’s the 21st century, humanity is nearly destroyed, every day is a struggle to survive - I think we can move past men holding guns while women roll bandages.
 
We can see a similar pervasive female passivity in Alphas, reinforced and ingrained by the special abilities the characters have. Two of the characters, Cameron and Bill, have abilities that make them dangerous in a fight. Their physical capabilities make them the team muscle - contrast that with the two women. Well, they have super senses and limited mind control respectively. The women are inherently placed in support roles and set up as support from the very beginning. And I know that someone will say “well, they don’t have combat powers!” true - but why was it written that way? Why couldn’t Nina have the super-strength? Why did the writers choose the women and the disabled character to have the less active, support powers? And that’s not to say their powers aren’t powerful or useful - far from it - but then, so is rolling bandages.

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Teen Wolf is far removed from the original Teen Wolf movie starring Michael J Fox.  We have gone from camp to a story involving menacing werewolves, and werewolf hunters.  Since the show is still largely aimed at a young audience, we are subjected to copious amounts of angst and the usual social justice fails.  We have decided to focus on gender this time because after a season a half, the women of Teen Wolf are treated quite differently than the males.

When we were first introduced to Erica she was a young teen suffering from epilepsy.  She was sweet and kind but, because she never knew when she was going to have an attack, Erica was quite removed from her contemporaries. When she meets Derek and is turned into a werewolf everything changes for Erica. Suddenly she is turned into a complete sex vixen who draws the attention of others the minute she walks into the room. Erica suddenly goes from weak and forgettable to powerful and desirable; however, her power is limited because as a beta, she spends most of her time doing Derek’s bidding. Erica has the distinction of being the only female werewolf and most of her power is based in her ability to beguile whereas Derek intimidates and did so from the time he was a beta.

Teen Wolf could reasonably get away with having Erica do Derek’s bidding because she is his beta but the fact that they have turned her into a vapid, jealous, angry person is incredibly sexist. Other than doing Derek’s bidding her only other purpose is to drive a wedge between Allison and Scott. This of course serves the purpose of giving the characterless Allison something to fight for. Erica’s sudden obsession with Scott is never explained.

Then we have Lydia, who is actually very smart, but pretends not to be intelligent in the hopes of keeping Jackson’s interest. In fact, Lydia does not show her intelligence until she is asked to translate ancient Latin after Jackson has left her for greener pastures.  Much of Lydia’s life involves putting on a show in the hopes of either achieving or maintaining the acceptance of others. Though she is supposedly best friends with Allison, Lydia is often left to her own devices to deal with her issues and only draws the attention of the group when she is need of saving. Stiles has had a long obsession with her and see her as a prospect for a girlfriend but beyond being physically attracted to her, he makes no real effort to get to know he as a person. In Abomination, (season 2, episode 4)  Lydia clearly needs to talk but Stiles says he will be right back and leaves her sitting in the car for a night. For all of the ridiculous antics that antis Stiles pulls to get her attention, when she really needs him, he is nowhere to be found.

Of course, no comment on women in Teen Wolf would be complete without looking at Allison. I’d love to say a lot about Allison, but I can’t, because she’s nobody. Allison is Scott’s love interest and under her father and grandfather’s intimidating control. That’s about the entirety of her character - she has no real personality, no real activity in the plot that doesn’t revolve around the men in her life. Even her interactions with her father are now eternally affected by her relationship with Scott. She is a character who cannot even spend time with or communicate with her family without her boyfriend looming large.

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Fairy tales are in right now. It seems more and more on TV, in books and films, taking these old classics and re-imagining them in the modern world and in modern contexts. While it’s something we like to see, we also do think it has its flaws.

Recently we came across these series of images of Disney Princesses made bad ass. And that’s definitely something we support. We’re beyond tired of heroines whose role in their story is to lie back and wait passively for a prince to rescue them. We much prefer heroines who not only can rescue themselves - but won’t be kidnapped or imprisoned in the first place, not if you know what’s good for you! So these images in fighting poses and weapons looking mean? We like.

Except… why does being bad ass mean a woman has to lose her clothes? They’ve become tough, dangerous, mean fighters - and this involves fish-net stockings (Snow White), a loin cloth (Cinderella, Belle, Rapunzel), and a bared navel (pretty much all of them). And Sleeping Beauty (ye gods). We’ve seen this time and again, when a woman goes to fight she leaves her clothes behind. Can a woman’s clothes and a weapon not exist in the same picture?

This unnecessary sexualisation of women whenever they are pro-active seems to be part of a prevalent message that a woman cannot be powerful or aggressive without it relating to being sexual; she is reduced to sex.

And these images have other flaws when we look at the WOC

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Many covers show an engaged heroine on the front. She’s stood in an action pose (or crouched in one anyway) but there’s another trend which bemuses me - the heroine apparently losing interest and walking away.

It makes them highly anonymous, very impersonal and pretty hard to engage them as characters. It also means that we’re basically focusing on her ass. Yes, let’s be honest here, these covers are all about the ass.

 I don’t know why it’s such a trend, but it seems a lot of our protagonists would rather we speak to their buttocks. And to take this to an  extreme - especially with the habit of protagonists being disembodied - we get to speak only to their buttocks. Yes, these covers are ass. One big ass. Extraneous body parts are clipped away so we can focus on the ass.

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In real life, motherhood is many things. It is love and bonding, affection and protection and most certainly inspiration. Mothers have been inspired to incredible feats over the years on behalf of their children, for their children and for the world their children live in. We have a world where motherhood can be a great strength and a source of great power and resolve.

In Game of Thrones, however, motherhood seems to coincide with victimhood - being a mother is rarely, if ever, a source of strength for the mothers of Westeros, but so often another avenue through which they can be vulnerable, attacked and manipulated

This is, perhaps, clearest of all with Cersei Lannister, Queen of the 7 Kingdoms, and mother of Joffrey, Marcella and Tommen. Cersei has lead a life with little love and a great deal of harshness. A callous father lead to a loveless marriage which in turn has lead to her seeing love as a weakness. She openly advises Sansa not to love because to love is to leave one vulnerable to being hurt. And with that assertion she has another lament - that you cannot help but love your children, she sees her children as an weakness.

And, considering her eldest son, it’s no surprise. Joffrey is, without a doubt, the most evil character in the Game of Thrones. Callous, selfish, cruel, sadistic and not very intelligent, he is a blight on Kings Landing and the throne - and everyone loves it when Tyrion slaps him. Cersei isn’t blinkered to the flaws of her son. She sees what he is and how truly awful he is - and has expressed so with Tyrion on more than once. She has told Sansa that she knows she will not be happy as Joffrey’s queen and she’s fully aware of the atrocities he’s committed, whether it’s slaughtering babies or having prostitutes brutalised.

Yet, she is still driven to protect and support him. She still worries about him when he goes into battle, she still wants to save him, she is still driven to support him. She is bound to the loathsome boy and even as she sees his crimes, she cannot turn away from him. She doesn’t even get any power from being the mother of the king as she is increasingly both outmaneuvered by Tyrion and, ultimately, unable to curb the excesses and foolishness of her son. Her son is a burden, something to endure.

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We have complained a lot about the unnecessarily sexualised and frankly ridiculous covers on so many Urban Fantasy novels. In particular we have complained at how the covers so often do not reflect the people who are actually in the book - there is no way the protagonist we know would dress or pose like that.

What is unique this week is that we have looked at the Chicagoland Vampire series, a series we really like by Chloe Neill - and I have to pity Ms. Neill for having to watch her cover artists gradually lose their ever loving minds.

The cover of Some Girls Bite, the first book in the series. And it’s pretty much perfect - maybe the t-shirt isn’t entirely Merit, but this isn’t too far from how I pictured her and the cover looks pretty intriguing anyway. A good cover.

Now we move to book 2, Friday Night Bites, and we’re slipping. High heels have creeped in. There’s some navel peeking. We have a sexy lean.

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This piece was originally posted at BitchFlicks

Urban Fantasy — the bringing of the fantastic (vampires, werewolves, magic, fae and so much more) to a modern, real world setting — has become ever more popular as a mainstream genre. From Twilight to True Blood to The Vampire Diaries, it is now firmly entrenched on our televisions. The books regularly reach the best seller lists - this isn’t a fringe genre. It’s here, it’s huge and it’s here to stay.

This means the portrayals represented matter. Any popular media has the power to shape culture and society; any stories that are consumed by a large number of people are going to draw upon our societal prejudices and, in turn, feed and encourage those prejudices and portrayals.

Urban Fantasy is a genre that seldom gets critical examination. At first blush, the opposite would appear to be true when one considers the social conversation around Twilight or True Blood, but these are only two examples within an extremely large genre. It is interesting to note that much of Urban Fantasy contains female protagonists and is largely produced and consumed by women. Considering the ongoing gender divide, it is hardly surprising that this immensely popular genre is being ignored by critics.

Just because Urban Fantasy is largely produced by women and consumed by women does not mean that it is free of sexism and misogyny. When it comes to motherhood, a role that most women will one day assume, it is hardly surprising that within the genre most examples are highly problematic — when they appear at all.

The lack of representation of motherhood is so extreme that the viewer is forced to ask is, “where are the mothers?”. It seems like such an odd question, because you’d expect most characters, like most people, to have a mother lurking around somewhere; especially since most of the heroines in these stories are young women or even teenagers. Search as we might, the mothers are conspicuous by their absence.

The most common cause of the missing mother seems to be death — indeed, it is almost mandatory for an Urban Fantasy heroine to have a tragically dead mother. In The Vampire Diaries Elena’s mother is dead. True Blood has the orphaned Sookie; Charmed killed the sisters’ mother off before the series even started; Cassie, Diana, Melissa, Jake and Adam all have dead mothers in The Secret Circle. Buffy’s mother died part way through the series. In The Dresden Files, Harry’s mother died before the series began. In Grimm, Nick is yet another protagonist with a dead mother. The whole beginning motivation of Supernatural revolves around their dead mother. In Blood and Chocolate, both mother and father are brutally murdered. In The Craft Sarah Bailey’s mother is dead. In Underworld, Selene’s mother is murdered by Viktor.

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Of all the creatures in Urban Fantasy, it seems that werewolves more than any other are intrinsically masculine. Female monsters are often much rarer  - and often problematic at that - but female werewolves in particular seem to be an extra rarity.

In many ways a werewolf is the utter opposite of how we view womanhood, especially white womanhood. In many European traditions (and, we have to remember, the shapeshifter tradition is a broad one) the werewolf is an uncontrolled, hairy, animalistic creature. Something utterly unrestrained, something that is unleashed, something aggressive and violent. In short - everything a woman “should not be”. A woman should be restrained, delicate, gentle, always in control and most certainly not hairy! This unrestrained, unrefined, uncontrolled aggressiveness (and hairiness) is the very antithesis of pedestal womanhood.

When we do see female werewolves they usually have difficulties above and beyond what is experienced by other werewolves. They have extra angst, or extra problems or some other issue dealing with their werewolfdom.

Unfortunately the few times we do see female werewolves they are clearly less rational than their male counterparts. It is only when the text in question has only a male werewolf that the werewolf is allowed to become unglued, and subject to call of the moon.  The degree to which they are affected by the curse of lycanthropy, is directly related to the position of the moon. In some texts, the waxing gibbous is enough to cause significant change to their behavior pattern.  Oddly enough, regardless of the position of the moon, the female werewolf is generally effected by the curse. Her reason for a loss of control, has nothing to do with the moon, which I found odd because menstruation is often referred to as moon time.

Debbie Pelt of True Blood, is clearly out of control and when you cast this against her would be boyfriend Alcide, there is a clear difference.  With the exception of the full moon, Alcide is always in control; he is extremely rationale.  Alcide possess all of the qualities needed in a pack leader.  Debbie on the other hand is violent, a drug addict [note: vampire blood; known as V is her drug of choice], jealous, and vindictive.  Many of her problems are at first blamed on her drug addiction; however, at the end of last season, Pelt was sober and once again her jealousy and rage flared.

Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series brings us one of the few female protagonist werewolves out there and certainly another werewolf who struggles extremely with what it means to be a werewolf. Despite being part of the Pack - a lofty status among werewolves - she has extreme trouble integrating with the pack. In fact the whole plot of Bitten revolves around her leaving the the Pack and moving to Toronto — to try and flee not just them — but being a werewolf entirely. She seeks a normal, human life regardless of how dangerous or impossible that is. She’s certainly not the only werewolf to leave the Pack - but they have left the pack because of objections to the Pack itself - Pack politics, Pack restrictions, Pack personalities - not being a werewolf. The whole world of the series is set up to make her an oddity because she is the only female werewolf - female werewolves are not supposed to exist, they’re never born and don’t usually survive the bite. And we see that same impossibility of her existence as a werewolf in Broken, where she has constant doubts over whether she can actually have children because she can’t imagine a werewolf being able to be pregnant or carry children. Being a werewolf and being a woman is a constant impossibility that plagues Elena’s life - whether her own doubts and trouble integrating or by making her a bauble or novelty to possess.

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