Is It Really Just a Story?
For a little over half a year I lived, worked and went to school in western Wyoming. It was quite literally the middle of no where. The nearest city with decent shopping, medical facilities, what have you was Salt Lake City in Utah and that was three hours away. While I was there I had my eyes opened to an entirely new and different way of life. I went from a school that was completely racially diverse to a school where 95% of the population was white. I went from a city where I was used to having something to do every weekend to a town where the only thing to do was hang out in someone’s basement or garage. I went from a fairly progressive city to a town where conservatives ruled. I also went from a place of religious diversification to a town strictly christian with a strong Mormon presence.
I learned a lot about Mormons during those few months. Truth be told, I hadn’t even known of their existence before I moved there. I also learned a lot about intolerance, about racism, about religion and about myself. I took all of that to the table with me when I cracked open Twilight nearly a year ago now. Every female in my family under the age of 50 has read this book and some have become huge fans. I am “the reader” in my family. I have gotten a lot of flak for not at least trying to read this book, because they just knew I was going to love it. I did not. Then it became that I just needed to read the series as “it gets better”. It did not. If anything things got worse with New Moon. Now I’m faced with reviewing Eclipse and I am having a difficult time with it.
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Feminism and the Recent Vampire Craze
A while ago I tweeted a link to an NPR article called For Love of Do Good Vampires, and the article got me thinking. Why are vampires currently so popular? Why have they changed so much from vampires in the past? What does this say about us, our generation, and what our vampires are bringing to the table of vampire lore?
I’ve also recently been reading a book called The Chalice and The Blade that covers the history of feminism back to its roots and beyond into what caused the split from egalitarian societies of women and men working side by side to modern day male dominant society. It also covers the multiple attempts to swing back to an egalitarian model and the divisive (but not always complete) swings back to a gender dominant society that result.
These two works have been going around in my head and so here’s my take on Feminism and Vampires.
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