Gotta kill to eat, gotta eat to live

Empata's story in "Inca Mummy Girl" brought to my mind the question "Would you kill someone if it was the only way you could survive?" We - or at least I - don't really think of Empata as being truly evil. She only kills people because she has to in order to keep up her existence. I mean, most people eat animals for the same reason (me included), and I don't really think of that as evil, just as I don't think a bat eating a mosquito in order to survive is evil either. (Then again, coming from Minnesota where lakes and therefore mosquitoes run rampant, I'm quite happy with anything that keeps down the mosquito population. But I digress.) What is interesting about this question is if you transfer the same logic to Carmilla. She only kills people and sucks their blood in order to survive, and she (presumably) didn't want to be a vampire in the first place. But I definitely think of her as more evil than Empata. I would also never call Empata anything remotely resembling "good". This tension between being an "evil" character or one you can be sympathetic to is a very intriguing theme which seems to be prevalent in the Gothic. I think it's why sympathetic monsters like Empata, Angel, and Spike in Buffy, or the classic Frankenstein's monster, are, despite their wicked actions and identities as murderers, so appealing.

As a side note since I didn't really mention Byers' article in this post, I really like her point that Buffy is an entertainment medium and therefore can have feminist aspects as well as potentially sexist ones. It's another instance of the blurring of lines that we've been talking about and I think it applies to almost everything else we're reading since the Gothic genre seems to mostly be geared towards entertainment.

Love Sick?

I wanted to write about feminism but it looks like everyone beat me to it so instead I will write about love. One of my favorite parts of the episode was when Xander said that rejection from a girl is like getting your heart pulled out and crushed. I like this because it shows the marriage between love and death. This whole episode is about Impata trying to defy her curse/death to follow her heart. Until the end, it worked! It seemed that she was going to have her wish and live happily ever after with Xander. Then right before she dies, she selfishly chooses life over love. While she did not die because she broke off her love with Xander, it cannot be a coincidence that denying him preceded her death. Even for ancient Mayan succubi, love is in some sense a symbol for life. You could also get a sense that Carmilla had a similar goal. Her demise is not as symbolic, but it seemed to me that part of her needed the companionship of her victims just as much as she needed their blood. She could have easily snuck into their houses and haunted them in their sleep but instead she got close with her victims and started to love them. Even her existence as a vampire stems from a vicious love triangle! The point is that love seems to be a commonality between humans and demons. It is the one thing we have seen to affect everyone the same. Despite their might, vampires, like humans, can both be victims of love.

Joss Whedon doesn't leave stuff out

Everyone's been posting about instances of feminism in Buffy and Carmilla, especially debating whether Carmilla is really a feminist character. I concede that an argument can be made for both sides. However, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to talk less on the apparent feminism the Buffy and Willow display, and recall our attention to the men in Buffy. Although most instances in the successive seasons feature the women in positions of power and savior, the men of the seasons aren't to be counted out. Particularly later in the seasons, Xander's character is forced to confront more than once the fact that his friends all have super powers of some kind, whether physical strength, magic, or extensive knowledge, Xander was clearly seen as an inherent part of the affectionately named "Scooby gang." There are a few episodes in which Xander gets an opportunity to showcase his courage and secret smarts. When circumstances call for his friends' strengths and he becomes a bystander, he shows his courage in allowing others to always stand in the spotlight. Being ordinary in a group of extraordinaries proves throughout the show to be difficult, but by the end Xander has developed the grace to accept his secondary position, and even finds a way to use it - being outside the spotlight, Xander tends to see things more clearly and objectively.
But at the risk of forgetting about feminism and this particular episode, "Inca Mummy Girl," Xander does at first play more of the oblivious, love-struck damsel in distress. But not to down-play him, he shows his salt at the end, protecting those he loves and trusts above all else, however he can. Also in Carmilla, the men prove to be strong, protective, heroic types. The issue I often have with the feminism "fad" (if I may be so bold as to assert the idea that feminism often teeters on the brink of fad and sometimes spills over) is that it totally downplays the role of men, focusing solely on women. Granted, this is not always the case, of course. Men in general are physically the stronger sex, biologically programmed to protect females, those who perpetuate the human species. Thus the role they play, especially in Carmilla should not be looked down upon, especially when one takes into consideration the time period Carmilla deals with. In Buffy, the only men that stick around through the plot (Xander, Giles with his dark past, Angel and Spike) are those that can keep up with the super-powered women. I feel that in celebrating the feminist representations in Buffy, which as a woman I am pleased to see, we must not forget the role of men and the juxtaposition that their traditional sex-oriented roles provide for the feminism.

Does Feminine Power Always Equal Feminism?

However I have tried to look at it, I can’t see “Carmilla” as a feminist text. While Carmilla has enough power to be seen as a threat and is able to overpower the General when he confronts her, based on the time period in which LeFanu wrote “Carmilla” as well as her portrayal throughout, I don’t think Carmilla could be called a feminist ideal. She is powerful, but evil—female power of this kind is seen as ominous and dangerous. Her beauty is used for seductive purposes, making it a negative quality rather than a positive one. She already represents the “other” by being a supernatural being, and it contributes to the effect of horror and strangeness that she is female. While we may feel sympathy for her and look for her side of the story, that attitude is certainly not present in the text itself, which I think is important. In contrast, Laura, the “good” character, is unable to protect herself in any way or even understand what is happening around her, nor is she expected to... and yet, she is the heroine. The ideal here is to be demure, and independence or assertiveness is really completely unnecessary.

Buffy, on the other hand, is much more clearly a feminist figure. Her beauty serves to reinforce the idea that she is not simply an “imitation male hero,” as Byers asserts in her article. She is appealing and cheerleader-esque, which diminishes the idea from “Carmilla” that there is something ominous in feminine power. Buffy’s relative normality as an American teenager seems to communicate that there is no reason shoe shopping and kicking ass shouldn’t go hand in hand. She is also constantly lauded for her power heroic actions (at least by those who know about them).

Ampata presents an interesting middle ground between these two distinctly different representations of female power. Yes, she is beautiful, though in her human life this caused more problems for her than it solved, as the Incans presumably chose her to be sacrificed at least partially because of her beauty. She is not characterized as an exceptionally strong woman. She does have power, but she seems constantly anxious and distressed, and certainly not a particularly independent thinker. All she wants is a normal life, and it is not hard to imagine that if she were suddenly normal, she would not be much of a feminist. She sometimes slips into the role of seductive succubus (such as with the boy at the dance), but she is in many ways a weak character. She is able to rationalize killing, but cannot bring herself to kill Xander because all she really cares about is being with him. She makes no very clear choice, and her hesitation kills her. She is certainly far too sympathetic a character to be a conventional villain, but she comes across as more desperate than feminist. She is an odd combination of Laura and Carmilla, and it seems as if she has some of the worst traits of each.

Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and "Carmilla"

Until reading Michele Byers's article "The 'Feminist' World of Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I actually hadn't put a lot of thought into Buffy as a feminist text.  We've spoken about it once or twice in class, usually in reference to the paradox between Buffy's appearance and her ability to kick-ass as a slayer, but I believe there is a lot more that could be said about this topic.  In her article, Byers addresses the legitimacy of Buffy as a feminist text and how modern feminist critics often dismiss it as one because of the conventional beauty of its characters.  While she admits that the characters in Buffy fit into the "Hollywood" convention - they are, "Young, white, beautiful, and very thin" - she asserts, "These characters are more than pretty bodies on the television screen; they also raise interesting questions about gender and the potentialities of third wave feminism" (175).  She is correct, for Buffy's beauty doesn't detract from her physical and mental prowess.  In fact, as Sydney observed in her post, it makes her more powerful.  We certainly saw that today in "Inca-Mummy Girl," where Impata derived most of her power from her beauty, which grew increasingly apparent as the episode continued.  By allowing herself to be seen as a "damsel in distress," she is able to draw Xander in, gain his trust, make him fall in love with her, and set him up as her defender and champion, even against his friends.  Similarly, her beauty allows her to seduce a strange boy away from the dance, so she can use her supernatural powers to suck out his life force.  Although she is ultimately unsuccessful, her beauty allows her to disarm those around her without exerting herself.  In other words, people underestimate her power because of her beauty.  As we have already seen, Buffy benefits from a similar misconception.  Similarly, Carmilla uses her beauty and her apparent feminine weakness to insinuate herself into the lives of her victims.  Laura and her father only allow Carmilla into their schloss because she gets hurt and, as proper nineteenth century people, assume she, a beautiful aristocratic woman, needs to rest and recuperate for several days.  Likewise, her mother's whispered confidence that Carmilla isn't crazy but has a weak constitution, along with Carmilla's open admission of this fact, enables her to draw close to Laura and to insinuate herself as Laura's best friend.  Additionally, her apparent weakness protects her from any suspicion when the attacks on the villagers begin.  Carmilla maintains this façade for a reason.  As with Buffy and Impata, her apparent weakness hides impressive physical strength.  Carmilla realizes that it is her best interest to cultivate her beauty because it gives her power over the hearts and sympathies of the men protecting the women she preys on.  In fact, the General admits he only allowed her into his home because, as a man, he felt the need to protect a beautiful, helpless young woman.  Thus, Buffy and "Carmilla" are both feminist texts.  While "Carmilla" paints active femininity in a negative light, it still allows a woman to act outside the traditional limitations imposed on women by the Victorian era.  Also, by making Laura the narrator and making her obviously intelligent, LeFanu provides a positive example of active femininity.  Additionally, Buffy is truly a feminist text because, despite its obvious limitations, "In the Buffy world, competence, strength, and independence are precisely what is being offered to women, not just breasts, abs, and lip gloss" (Byers 177-178).

"Inca Mummy Girl" and "Carmilla"

After reading the peer-reviewed paper, I began to think about Buffy’s feminist implications and specifically the other women in the show not Buffy. Like Buffy, Ampata was chosen to be a sacrifice. She was told that she alone could save her people. According to the myths, the Incans chose a beautiful teenage girl to be buried alive to appease the gods. As Ampata hints at, it took an extraordinary amount of courage for the sacrifice to fulfill her “destiny”. There is no mention of any male character in the myth, heroic or otherwise, only a girl. I believe that this is a reflection of the feminist movement of the 20^th century. The same implications cannot be said for Carmilla, written in the 1872, in which Carmilla is discovered by the Baron and the doctor. Laura is not a heroine, but rather a victim saved by the older men. The strong female character is rather the villain of the story, Carmilla. Carmilla, however, fulfills the Western stereotype of the female, tempting and eventually destroying innocents. A superficial reading of Carmilla shows Carmilla as an evil creature playing with her food before she eats it. A deeper reading show Carmilla as someone looking to reconnect with her humanity by befriending Laura, but if nothing else, Carmilla’s need for blood outweighs her desire to live with Laura.

The interesting problem is that Ampata becomes like Carmilla. She sucks the life from the innocent men, like Carmilla sucks the blood from her victims. At first she resists taking Xander’s life, seemingly because she wants to live happily in love with him. When he comes between Ampata and her chance to regain life, however, she, like Carmilla, chooses to kill her love to live more. The strange thing is even after watching the episode once, the viewers still sympathize with her for being a strong character whose youth was stolen from her. Her heroic, feminist character makes her more favorable to the audience, even if that person existed 500 years ago. Carmilla is portrayed in such an unfavorable light that it is hard for the audience to sympathize with her.

"Whose Feminism?" : "Carmilla" and "Inca Mummy Girl"

“Feminism can be about many things, but central to it is the idea of advancing and rendering visible the lives of women, in all their diversity” (Byers 183).
If Byers’ assertion in her article “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Next Generation of Television” is true, which I believe it is, then both Carmilla and Buffy can be considered feminist texts. Both highlight women who are operating outside of what would conventionally be considered their “place.”
Lefanu varies from what is popularly thought to be the “typical” vampire story by having Carmilla chose women as her victims. He further departs from this norm by creating Laura not to be solely a victim, but to be a companion for Carmilla. While the sexual tension between the two girls likely scandalizes some readers, it should not obscure the fact that Lefanu is giving validity to the idea of a close female friendship, with all the passion and tempestuousness that such a bond entails. By focusing on the relationship between Laura and Carmilla, instead of on one between Laura and a male vampire, Lefanu ensures that the focus remains on the female. In this way, the story is considerably more feminist than a contemporary story like Twilight, which suggests that a teenage girl’s main desire is to please a man, at the expense of all else.
Similarly, Buffy can be viewed as a feminist text because of its focus on women. The episode “Inca Mummy Girl” depicts the showdown between two “chosen ones”: Buffy and Ampata. This episode inverts the expected gender roles of a hero story by making the beautiful women the “chosen” instead of the reward for the “chosen” male, as is the case in a traditional story like the Illiad. In fact, the most prominent male in this episode, Xander, is portrayed as a hapless goofball at the mercy of the attractive women who surround him.
Though both Carmilla and Buffy undoubtedly depict strong women, and therefore can be considered feminist, these women are of the dominant class. Laura and Carmilla are literally of the aristocracy and Buffy is white and middle class. The only conceivable exception to this rule is Ampata, and even she becomes part of the ruling class of high school because of her beauty. Thus, while these texts are feminist, their feminism is one that may alienate certain members of their audiences.

Beauty as "Feminism"

In Inca Mummy Girl, every female character is conventionally attractive. Even Willow, who is characterized as the “nerd,” is able to catch an approving masculine eye. In Michele’s Byers peer-reviewed article, she argues that Buffy the Vampire Slayer does present a feminist agenda, despite the character’s “conformity to the Hollywood norm” (Byers, 75). Like Byers, I disagree with Rachel Fudge’s sentiment that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s low cut shirts and midriff-bearing tank tops detract from the feminist power that the show wields. In today’s episode, there was an undeniable parallelism between Impata, the mummy princess and Buffy. Not only are both the “chosen” sacrifices for their people, but they are also traditionally beautiful. In fact, one of the ways in which both women use power is through their beauty. Impata not only employs her literal strength to suck the life out of men, but is almost successful in exercising her beauty to seduce a random boy at the school dance, had Xander not intervened. I think that it is important to acknowledge that beauty, in its own right, is a feminine power. We live in a world in which being attractive, especially if female, allows one to make gains in a way that she might not if she were not pretty. I was a bit bothered by the argument that beautiful female characters cannot exemplify feminism. This argument is almost anti-feminist, in a way, because it buys into the stereotype that in order for one to embody feminism, she must be unattractive and especially, unappealing to men. Beauty is no different from wit. Some of us are born with it, others not. But does one advise an intelligent person not to use a gift that could serve to be incredibly advantageous to his or her personal advancement? Certainly not. In the same way, Buffy and Impata are powerful in that they both not only successfully exploit their physical strength, but that they deftly promote their beauty as a weapon in their feminist arsenal.

Succubi

Though a large majority of the similarities between Impata and Carmilla have already have been discussed, I thought I’d bring up the minor point of both of these characters’ remarkable abilities to charm and seduce the people they encounter in everyday life. Both women arrive under very unusual circumstances that they never fully explain to the characters they meet, yet these people who normally appear to be rational, fall hook line and sinker for the seductresses. In Carmilla, we are perhaps beginning to see the early stages of the vampire’s allure, which features heavily in Dracula, and subsequent iterations of the vampire tale. In Incan Mummy Girl, Impata arrives as a number of odd events have occurred, including the death of a student and the disappearance of a centuries old mummy, yet no member of the Scooby Gang seems able to connect the dots, as Impata seems unable to draw negative attention to herself. I suppose none of this is really that controversial, as both are considered types of succubi, which already have the stigma of seduction attached to them.

"Living Conditions" vs. "Carmilla"

I’d like to take my blog time to discuss the effectiveness of “Carmilla” and Buffy at creating compelling and thought provoking reactions in the audience by comparing Laura and Carmilla’s relationship to that of Buffy and Kathy.

As an authorial note I think it is important to state that I have not seen Buffy prior to this class. As a result my opinions regarding Buffy are not nearly as holistic as my thoughts on “Carmilla”. I am curious if those of you who have followed the series will find that my argument is flawed because I lack a greater knowledge of the show. However, I hope that my claims will be valid because “Living Conditions” is an independent/isolated episode.

In my opinion, Laura and Carmilla’s friendship is more successful than Buffy and Kathy’s at crafting a Gothic web that ensnares and captivates the audience because of the “moral grayness” present in their companionship. Even though Carmilla is a vampire, she and Laura care for each other and have a true camaraderie. When we discover that Carmilla is making Laura sick from sucking her blood, we also come to realize that she is doing it with the intent of turning Laura into a vampire. This human-like love makes Carmilla’s murder at the end of the story particularly moving and compelling. Their “gray” bond also causes the end of “Carmilla” to be all the more frightening - that a true and valued friend could be a vampire is a very scary thought and a Gothic triumph for LeFanu.

On the other hand, although Kathy as a character is “gray,” in that she is going to college to make friends and get an education rather than reek demonic havoc, her relationship with Buffy is not gray; in fact, it is black and white, simply good versus evil. Even though their relationship has the potential at the beginning of the episode (at least in Kathy’s eyes) of being like Laura and Carmilla’s, it swiftly becomes one rife with contention. Buffy rejects Kathy’s statement, “we’re almost like sisters now that we live together,” and instead decides to perpetuate opposition and deem Kathy an evil threat. Since the threat that Kathy actually poses – the stealing of the soul – is beyond the human realm of relatability, it is scary but not necessarily compelling like the “gray morality” in Laura and Carmilla’s friendship. Moreover, it is not particularly moving when Kathy is brought back to her world at the end of the episode. Granted, getting sent home is not the same as being murdered; yet even if Kathy were killed, which was Buffy’s intent, there would not have been the same emotive response in the audience because Kathy’s “grayness” was not as tangible as Carmilla’s nor was it accepted by Buffy. In my opinion, this episodic trajectory of good versus evil creates unfortunate limitations in Gothic form, which is otherwise expansive in its “gray” possibilities.

Ready, okay!

I hate cheerleaders. It’s not my fault, but the result of coming of age in the era of Grrrrl power and alternative vision that was the 90’s. Throughout my childhood, I was taught (as a brunette, I was NEVER going to be a cheerleader, regardless of athletic ability or personality) to despise those pep-monsters and expect them to be hateful blonde happy peppy bitches who lacked both empathy and split ends.

Of course, as I grew older (and stopped shopping at Hot Topic, thank God) I realized that cheerleaders can be nice, normal well adjusted people who probably foster no ill will towards me simply because of the color of my hair. However, while watching Buffy I was reminded of the cultural phenomenon that is cheerleader hatred.

In Living Conditions, Buffy (despite her flowing blonde locks) does not fill the cheerleader stereotype. Buffy is more my type of girl: a little snarky, a little messy and good at holding onto a grudge. Kathy, the OCD demon with a predilection for Cher, evolves into the cheerleader stereotype that we as generation have been told to hate. The qualities Kathy possess, however, are merely exaggerated values we have been programmed to strive for since childhood. She’s happy, idealistic (“We’re like sisters, right Buffy?” Adorable) and neat to a fault. Yet somehow I identify with Buffy, the bad roommate who leaves her gum on the table and hides creepy bags of crossbows in the closet. It’s easier to hate a person who possesses the qualities we admire but lack. Isn’t that why everyone hates the cheerleader?

This cheerleader/Kathy hatred seems to be the inversion of Gothic stereotypes we see in Carmilla. Laura is kind, blonde, and beautiful and we are expected to accept retelling of the story because she is the embodiment of Aryan values. When Carmilla exhibits passion and fits of anger, we tsk at her poor behavior and praise poor Laura for being so understanding. Yet Carmilla’s behavior is merely the actions of a (albeit undead) vampire teenager getting some angst out. Isn’t that normal behavior? I know I sure had my fair share of temper tantrums back in the day.

In Living Conditions, it seems Joss Whedon is preying on our mistrust of perfection and happiness in order to create a gothic drama. But in doing so, he is using a creation of the 20^th century—the proven phenomenon of cheerleader hatred—to make the gothic storyline ring true to the modern audience.

No cheerleaders were harmed in the making of this blog post.

Dreamy Reality

Vampire visit is a characteristic of the Gothic theme. This kind of visit is often viewed as a dream, rather than reality. This is rational because it is irrational to believe otherwise, to believe in the supernatural. This has been shown in both Carmella and Buffy. When Laura "dreams" about Carmella and getting bitten, she decided not to tell her father because she know her father doesn't believe in the supernatural. From Laura's descriptions of her dreams, they were so vivid as if it happened in reality. However, Laura refuses to believe her eyes because she cannot see how such dream about her companion can be true. Laura's physical weakening reflects that her dream about the visits from Carmella, the vampire, are real.

The demon appeared in Buffy is similar to a vampire in that it sucks the soul of its victim, instead of its blood. When Buffy first encounters with the demon, she also attributed it as her dream. Despite of her experience as a slayer, like Laura, Buffy chooses to believe she saw the demon in her dream. In her "dream", we see Buffy's soul getting sucked away by the demon. In reality, we see Buffy's friends, people who know Buffy the best, sense her lately strangeness. This is an indication of her dreams are real. In addition, parallel to Carmella, both the culprit and the victim shares the "dream". That was possible because those weren't dream, but actually happened, and that's why the culprits would know exactly what happened in their victims' "dreams".

Living Conditions

One aspect of the episode entitled Living Conditions, which served as our class’ introduction to Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that I particularly enjoyed was the way in which the program introduced us to the character of Buffy in a way that we could both relate to, being college students ourselves, and understand without having seen any prior episodes of the show. To see how a character inhabits a living space, especially one occupied by an unfamiliar guest, is a very useful exercise in understanding the habits, mannerisms, and personality of a person. Typically the manner in which a person organizes and shares their possessions is a good indicator of how they will act in other facets of their life, a fact that both freshman in college and Buffy and her roommate illustrate well.

Knowing practically nothing about the character of Buffy Summers prior to watching Living Conditions, I was intrigued by the fact that you could generally figure out her personality, even being able to correctly assume how she would handle her “slayer” responsibilities, simply based on her interactions with her roommate. Based on her consistent back and forth with Kathy, one could immediately tag Buffy as a headstrong type-A personality who is not used to not getting what she wants and often overlooks her own faults in her criticism of others. Unsurprisingly, this description ended up fitting Buffy’s personality quite well, as she appears to consistently have to be in command of every situation. I look forward to continuing to watch her character grow as the semester progresses.

Vampire Monkey

Vampire Monkeys have digestive systems that are specialized for their mainly liquid diet. The saliva of vampire monkeys contains a substance, draculin, which prevents the victim's blood from clotting. When it acts alone, this creature tends to lap blood rather than suck it as most people imagine. Nevertheless, as a group, they coordinate hunting efforts vocally and attack the prey systematically.