100 sci fi women #36: Claudia

Another list which could form the basis for a movie viewing project can be found here. it features the Top 70 vampire movies ranked according to their average IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes scores. Interesting to see that most of the top five are at least 30 years old – maybe says something about the self imposed snobbery we have about rating old films – or maybe they are just better. Anyway, a reference to that list allows me a neat segue to me next entry.

Claudia Interview with the Vampire (both film and book versions)

Claudia is trapped eternally in the body of a child. She is turned into a vampire following the death of her mother from plague. Claudia goes on to discover that immortality is hard when you can never grow up and never really experience and adult life, even when you are really quite old. Claudia is not without her own steely determination, however. She uses her anger over being made into what she is by trying to kill Lestat. She uses her guile and cunning and determination to try and free herself and Louis from Lestat’s influence and only fails because he is almost unkillable. She is viewed by some other vampires as an abomination, too young to have been turned. And like so many women characters before her, is then killed for that which was not her fault; for the threat she offers to other men;  for the fact that she does not conform. Her death is horrible, exposed to the sun and left to burn.

I did it for us. I did it so we could be free.

Discriminating vampires

This article contains season 1 spoilers!

Having just watched season 1 of True Blood (no Season 2 spoilers please!), it is clear that one of the central themes of the show is around discrimination. From the opening credits with the “God hates fangs” graffiti, the show is continually engaging with discrimination and it companions of fear, prejudice and hypocrisy.

Naturally, a lot of the discrimination subtext revolves around vampires. As far as I can tell, this is a relatively new trope for vampire depiction (and I must admit I haven’t seen or the read the Twilight books so I don’t know how they deal with the idea of vampires being out in the open). Shows like Buffy and most traditional vampire fiction involves the vampires being unambiguously evil. And in Moonlight the vampire thing goes without too much drama. However, I would be interested to hear of other situations where this idea as vampires-as-minorities is utilised.

But back to True Blood. So there is a strong thematic element of discrimination around vampires. The background discussions of the vampire rights act frame this idea about the way that vampires are treated and their minority status. They are also clearly persecuted by the police as we see the police raiding Fangtasia and the sheriff immediately assuming vampire involvement in crimes. What does, however, make this discussion of discrimination rather more complex is the fact that the vampires are, in fact, dangerous and guilty of some of the things people assume they are. Bill himself kills and covers up crimes and points out that vampires have become very skillful at covering their tracks. The murder of the anti-vampire preacher and his family underlines a certain ruthlessness, and we clearly see that vampires themselves are even more bigoted against humans than humans are against them. The idea that Bill could be harshly punished for killing a vampire to save a human, shows the disdain with which vampires hold humans. So while the humans are clearly not in the right, neither are the vampires innocent victims of discrimination.  The argument that Bill tries to make to Sookie, however, is that humans also kill for all sorts of ends, including political, so why should vampires all be judged for doing so. In essence what we see is the argument that each vampire must be judged on his or her merit. The fact that more vampires seem to be bad than good does not negate the wrongness of discrimination. Just because the bigot may be right more often than he is wrong, it doesn’t mean he or she is always right, and even being wrong once, makes the prejudice unfair and wrong. We should never judge a person just because they belong to a particular type or class of people. It is more challenging to force people to consider not being prejudiced against the morally dubious, than to always make discrimination about the less powerful as it creates some extra moral challenges.

This is reinforced by the fact that those who are bigoted are warped, hypocritical or stupid. And in most cases anti-vampire discrimination is linked with other forms of discrimination.a Rene’s murders of women involved with vampires shows both a misogynist and anti-vampire bent; the rednecks who burn the vampire nest are also show to be homophobic as is the hypocritical politician-client of Lafayette.

Lafayette though seems constructed entirely to be about prejudice. While Tara as angry-black woman often articulates issues of racism, the Lafayette presents another in control, morally complex character who is the focus of discrimination. Black and gay he is the anti-redneck. And we never see him as a passive victim of discrimination. When he licks the hamburger bun of the rednecks who complain that their burgers might have AIDS because he cooked them, he takes control. Just as he does when he confronts the hypocritical politician who has sort the stimulus of V – vampire blood – from Lafayette but had to make do with a head job before he gives a speech where he condemns both vampires and homosexuals. Lafayette is on the margins, but he does not allow this marginal status to control him.

Between African-Americans, homosexuals, “loose” women, vampires and shape shifters we see a constant stream of prejudice and hatred in True Blood. In season 1 the program does not, however, resile from the condemnation of this discrimination, even when acknowledging that, in some cases, the judgement resulting from the prejudice may, on occasion, be founded. As an exploration of prejudice, this, I think, makes True Blood more powerful and more thought-provoking.