Waiting for Prince Charming, or I Miss Literary Discussion Apparently

[annundriel]

The latest Entertainment Weekly is about vampires. It includes a list of the "20 Greatest Vampires of All Time" which makes me want to cry a little because Edward Cullen is number four. That is sad.

Lestat is number one. I don't really have an opinion on that, except that I thought Interview With the Vampire was kind of dull. Maybe I need to re-read it. Maybe it was just Louis that I was bored by.

Anyway, what I found interesting were the small Q&A bits with authors who write stories featuring vampires. And I particularly agreed with Laurell K. Hamilton's response when asked, "What are your thoughts on the Twilight phenomenon?"

"Stephanie Meyer has come and she's taken the genre that I sort of pioneered. Her original audiences was 11- and 12-year-olds, so she - very rightly - sanitized the genre. She took out a lot of the sex and violence, especially for the first book. My readership is both male and female, but Twilight is very much a girls' book. I ask people, Why has this really captured you? What I heard from all ages is that it was very romantic that he was willing to wait for her and that there was no sex. They like the idea that [Bella] was like the fairy princess and [Edward] is the handsome prince that rides in and saves her. The fact that women are so attracted to that idea - that they want to wait for Prince Charming rather than taking control of their own life - I find that frightening."

What she said.

Twilight was a guilty pleasure book for me and I enjoyed it, but I have not read the final two books and I don't really plan to because I know what happens and the characters drive me crazy. Plus, the writing makes me want to shoot myself in the face.

But what bugs me the most about the books is that they're just carrying on that idea of Prince Charming. Where the Prince Charming is emotionally abusive. Which is NOT OKAY.

It's not the idea of Prince Charming in general that ticks me off. It's the idea that the girl waits for Prince Charming to enter (and save her) and then her life starts. In the past couple of years, Sleeping Beauty has become my least favorite fairy tale for exactly this reason. I mean, Aurora's not even a heroine, is she? What does she do? She goes and does the one thing she's not supposed to and then falls into a coma and the rest of the kingdom follows after. And then a prince comes and wakes her with a kiss (or other things in some versions) and they get married and there's a happy ending.

All she did was prick her finger, sleep, and wait for some guy to come in and wake her up, making her life "complete."

And, okay, symbolic of sexual awakening. Sure. But it's still that idea that in order for a woman to fully come into her own, she has to have a man. Load of hooey.

Seriously, though, how is she a heroine? Is she somehow brave because she faced the one thing that could harm her? I want to understand how other people view it. Because to me she's just a empty vessel waiting for other people - the fairies, the prince - to fill her.

I apologize if it's anyone's favorite fairy tale. Maybe if I found source material and read more versions I'd get something else out of it.

I didn't know this post was going here when I started it.

Comments

[olivelavonne.livejournal.com]

This got me thinking about a conversation Malatha, Chris and I had at work a while back. I was describing to Malatha how Disney can be incredibly sexist in some things and Chris came over and said that he didn't really understand some women's veiw of Disney movies. Apparently some of his past girlfriends told him that Disney ruined them for any real relationships because it taught them to expect to be saved by the prince.

It confused him because it was just movies and it added extra pressure on himself to be some sort of perfect prince that sweeps in and saves his love interest from whatever she needs saving from. It kind of made him angry that that was expected of him and it made him angry that girls, inteligent girls, were blaming their lack of interest in him on Disney because he didn't "save" them or wasn't someone that looked like he could save them.

It just made me angry because those girls/women were expecting to be saved. Why is someone going to save you, if you're not even going to try and save yourself? And save yourself from what really? Most people don't need to be saved. To me, needing to be saved, means you're a victim, you're helpless and cannot do anthing to help yourself. Only a few people really fall into this category. Other people need help but they don't need to completely rely on someone else to take care of them.

Anyway, I see what your saying about Twilight. Edward is abusive and I wouldn't necessarily want someone who doesn't/can't think about the Bella/Edward relationship critically to be reading the book. On the other hand I did read all 4 books and enjoyed them. I may not have agreed with some of the themes or ideas put forward but I found it interesting. To me, the child birthing thing that many people had issues with wasn't so horrible. That sounds bad. But I wasn't thinking about it as a statement about women not enjoying sex. I kind of looked at through the way someone who has never been pregnant and has serious fears about having children. Which is this: it kind of described how I feel about being pregnant/giving birth. It scares the crap out of me and I kind of see the fetus like a little parasite causing a bunch of discomfort, tiredness, at times pain, and fear. I'm afraid that if I ever give birth, I won't be able to properly love the baby and the pain of child birth seems like too much, you know? Like you are dying. And hey, something is dying because your old life isn't going to be the same. You're going to have this little person relying on you to love it and take care of it and be the center of it's little world. It's worth it because hey, you get this little beautiful, wonderful baby. But I'm still afraid/terrified that I won't experience that moment of complete love for my kid. I'm terrified and scared that I won't be able to be what my baby needs and yet for some reason I still want to try, someday.

That was kind of off hand, but whatever. Also, I kind of wonder about the power dynamic between Edward and Bella. In a submissive/dominant sort of way. Some people want to be taken care of. I'm not saying that Bella does or that it's good for her to want that. She is strong in that she does what she thinks is right, even when people, Edward, are holding her back. But for the most part I think she likes being taken care of. She's been the one taking care of other people (her mother, father, and to some extent the romantic lives of her classmates), to me, it makes more than a little sense that she would enjoy someone taking care of her. I'm not saying that Edward's actions are right or good for her. But it makes me wonder, what is a good submissive/dominant relationship suppose to look like? What if I want to be taken care of? I can still stand up for myself and do things for myself but what if I want to give someone else power over me and let them stand up for me and make decisions for me? Does that make the whole relationship wrong and abusive?

That was long and possibly off topic. But something I've been thinking about too.

[annundriel.livejournal.com]

There is a lot in this comment that I want to respond to, but I don't know where to start!

So I'm going to start with the bit that sticks in my head the most: But it makes me wonder, what is a good submissive/dominant relationship suppose to look like? What if I want to be taken care of? I can still stand up for myself and do things for myself but what if I want to give someone else power over me and let them stand up for me and make decisions for me? Does that make the whole relationship wrong and abusive?

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be taken care of. But there's a difference between being taken care of in an everyday "I want to do things for you" kind of way and being taken care of in an "I know better than you do, so I will do things for you." In everyday things, not just in situations where expertise would be wanted/needed. And I think that's what drives me crazy because it's condescending.

I think there's a very fine line between giving up power because you want someone else to take the load for a while and giving up power because you think you can't handle it. Or something. I'm not really sure how to explain what I'm thinking. How about this...I don't like the idea of someone turning into this passive, worn down thing because their in a relationship (any kind of relationship) where they're not being allowed to assert themselves.

Does that make sense? I don't know. We should totally talk about this more.

To me, needing to be saved, means you're a victim, you're helpless and cannot do anthing to help yourself. Only a few people really fall into this category. Other people need help but they don't need to completely rely on someone else to take care of them.

Word.

I think your fears about pregnancy and childbirth are relavent. And not something I would have thought about in regards to the series before. But then, of course, I never finished it.

[olivelavonne.livejournal.com]

The submissive/dominant relationship is something that I really like to think about. I'm not sure why it interests me, but I do think we should talk about it more.

I kind of see a dominant/submissive relationship a little differently. I view it like this: a submissive has power but they choose to give that power to another person, the dominant, in exchange for that person taking care of them in some way. The power exchange may not be obvious. In fact, I think that it usually comes in the form of people caring for one another. This may sound stupid, but a government and its people are a good example, so are parents and children, not to mention the sexual submissive/dominant couple. Government officials are chosen/given power by the people they govern. They have the ability to not only make laws but give money, decide policies, declare war, take care of the population that cannot take care of itself. Government officials have a serious amount of power that the people choose to give them and the people expect those officials to take care of population/act in the way that they believe cares for them. A child gives a great deal of power to the parent (this power exchange isn’t necessarily seen as a choice and as such has high probability of being abused) and in exchange the parent cares for the child (feeds them, clothes them, teaches them morals, keeps them safe, etc). I think in this relationship the power the child has is what they give to the parent (as someone who takes complete care of them). They give the parent love/friendship, prestige (as a successfull adult), and someone to take care of them when/if they ever become unable to do so for themselves (I guess this would be a huge advantage in any interpersonal relationship).

In a way the power exchange makes the submissive rely on the dominant and can make them extremely vulnerable to the dominant. I think some people (submissives and dominants alike) get lost in that power exchange. Once a person gives up their power, they might start to believe that they never had it in the first place. In that instance, I think a dominant/submissive relationship can become abusive if the dominant takes advantage (abuses the power given to them and/or starts to believe that they really had all the power all along). If the dominant uses the power to hurt the submissive and the submissive allows the dominant to, believing that they have no ability/power to stop the dominant from hurting them, I think that would be an abusive relationship. Does that make sense?

Not all relationships are like that though. For the most part, I think common relationships are an exchange of power, the couple/people involved takes turns being the dominant/submissive. But there are some relationships were I think one person can stay predominantly in a submissive/dominant role without it turning abusive. There would be times when a role reversal was called for but not often.

If this makes sense, I don’t think of submissives as victims because they’re not. They do have the ability to help themselves (for the most part-like I said there a very few people whom I think could not help themselves, like young children).

That was a lot :)