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One of my favorite areas of interest is the analysis of stories, specifically myths and fairy tales. They fascinate me as examples of tiny operating manuals of how we and our ancestors are/were expected or recommended to function, not just externally in everyday life but in the internal levels of self meaning and symbolic goals. Of my favorite ways to look at fairy tales and myths I find the Jungian approach to be often times be the most helpful. This includes charting the behavior of characters in the story as potential Jungian figures, the anima|animus, Archetypes, and Shadow aspects of the Self (there are more aspects).
When in modern story telling new movies, TV, and more rarely books, a myth takes hold of a large percentage of my culture's attention I get intrigued. Is it a new variation, an old one refitted, or was it just the actors' charisma? Rarely does a wildly successful hit rely on only one factor but sometimes a stronger case can be made for the resonance of the myth being the engine of success than others.
The Twilight Saga and the Twilight Universe (Twiverse) have achieved a level of success that fascinates me. The books are not well written and feminists are right to be troubled by some of the overt messages contained within. The movie does have a batch of young up and coming actors but I believe its success is also based on the strength of the myth. It is a reworking of an older one and I find the reworking to be informative about our culture and what it means to be a successful female in it.
The older fairy tale comes in many forms but the formula tends to remain the same. Even gender in the old version can easily be swapped and I will argue that the same is true in the modern but in a more sublimated fashion. We are much more gender policed than our ancestors.
The first version is the Quest of the Servant Girl to win the heart of the Prince. The second modified version is the same but requires the breaking of a Curse, usually that of the Prince. (One of my favorite versions is the Farmer Boy and the Queen of Cats.) You might know this better as Beauty and the Beast. It has many variations and in some the active character simply has to win the heart of the Royal Heir such as happens in Cinderella.
If we apply the Jungian lens then we can say the story represents a guide for the completion of the Self, how to attain happiness. The versions set forth a formula. Starting with an impoverished but active Self that through overcoming challenges with the add of helpers (often a dead or infrequent parental figure or animal helpers) evolves to confront the Shadow aspects and win love and completion via union with the Desired Self (anima|animus). The Shadow aspects might include the source of the Curse basically by dismantling it usually with opposite action.
The role of wealth here plays both a symbolic and a literal meaning as does beauty. Happiness in these stories is sustained by moving beyond material uncertainty and the beauty of the active Self, the Servant Girl or Farmer Boy, and the revealed beauty of the Desired Self, the Prince or Princess symbolizes goodness, aka rightness of being. This is particularly noted when the Cursed one starts out ugly (wrong) and then is cured becoming beautiful (right).
Happiness in this model arrives with wealth and love married into sovereignty of Self and over the domain. It is important to consider that the breaking of the Curse is in this model an imperative for those actions to occur.
The Twilight version is interestingly different. While the Servant Girl/Cursed Prince quest aspect remains constant, we gain an interesting twist. Here we have similar challenges and helpers and confrontations with Shadow but the goal is not to break the Curse, rather it is crucial to share in it in order to successfully arrive at sovereignty of Self.
There are many excellent feminist rants available delving into the problems with the overt messages of the Twiverse. But what I find to be overlooked is the unconscious or at least seemingly unintentional new version of the myth.
Here we have the trials and tribulations of the Servant Girl earning her the transformation into the Cursed Princess along with her Princess. What has changed? In both the older and the modern versions romantic union and love stands for ultimate realization of the Self. This Self is contingent upon the evolution through the quest but more importantly it reveals the conditions of acceptability for completion. Here also Love is only available to the Beautiful, but in the Twiverse, Beauty alone is deadly to its bearer (it can as in the older tales elict help but it is more dangerous). The Self can only be safely Beautiful if it possesses the attributes of the Curse, and only if the Self is Beautiful is it eligible for Love.
To drop into more implicit framing, those that are Beautiful and not Cursed are helpless victims actively drawing to them tragedy and eventually their own demise. The fragile nature of Beauty in this framing does not allow for it to continue into the future of mortal life. It will be doomed to fade and so with it the chances of Love,and Happiness. The Curse itself provides the means to maintain Beauty and Love.
What has happened here? In the earlier models of the myth we see the goal of Sovereignty of Self, the unified right way of being, is through Love as signified by the romantic union of the noblest parts of ourselves and other. Now the same comes only with the support of the very aspects of the Shadow we once had to dismantle.
The Twiverse is an awful place to be a beautiful girl because it is pretty much the rape culture writ large and gender stapled to everyone. The heteronormative gendernormative underpinnings firmly place males in the rapist's role and the females in the victim/DID role. Yet one must posses it to be eligible for Love. The active Self along with her helpers converse frequently about the fear of losing Beauty through age and the penalty for possessing it is made clear through the rape victim Rosalie. Here the only way of achieving power is through being monstrous, bearing the curse of vampirism (which may cost the eternal soul).
Here to the connections are made between being a vampire and being a rapist. The mythological history of the inherent sexuality of the particular breed of monster is well known. The role of sexuality as a destructive force, the women are ruined or killed, is outlined in great detail. Even child birth is treated as one of the trials and tribulations which are clearly direct requirements for achieving the Cursed state. (The awfulness of pregnancy, childbirth, and the resulting wise child int he Twiverse could very well be a topic for an entire other blog.)
What I find so enthralling is this reactionary evolution, no longer are wealth and Love enough to achieve happiness and Sovereignty. No longer is the goal removing the Shadow and achieving a benign mortal state, fruitful and limited. Now the goal is to achieve the destructive capabilities of the Shadow Self harnessed at best but maintained. The modern fears of aging and of victimization are so strong the Shadow cannot be completely dismantled. The new message is complete the Quest, win your Prince, and share in an eternity of Beauty and Love by becoming a monster. If you don't, you lose it all.
Monster as the third option, hardwired neither as victim nor rapist, emerges almost as another gender role. It is one that maintains its sexual allure, a heternormative sanctioned one, but with more flexibility. It does contain the inherent danger of loss of control (policed by monogamy) but tamed as an adult sex drive freed from reproductive responsibilities.
It should be noted that not all modern vampire stories have dropped the breaking of the Curse. In the Buffyverse the themes of redemption and eventual restoration are often explored. But it is interesting to note that in the Buffyverse the duality of rapist/victim is far less extreme. However that said there could be a further discussion of the inherent monstrosity of the Slayer.
Final note: Yo, it's just a blog and not a paper. I've seen the movie more times than an adult feminist should but it's hilarity on ice (RPattz is a treasure of WTF). I've not read the Twilight books but purchased them for my bff who then regaled me with the high and low points. Writing an actual paper would require reading the books and my book list is enormous already. Besides, a potent myth can be presented in craptastic writing and still go Joe Campbell on your ass.
My current work focuses on integrating the monstrous into femaleness so you can see why this interested me.
When in modern story telling new movies, TV, and more rarely books, a myth takes hold of a large percentage of my culture's attention I get intrigued. Is it a new variation, an old one refitted, or was it just the actors' charisma? Rarely does a wildly successful hit rely on only one factor but sometimes a stronger case can be made for the resonance of the myth being the engine of success than others.
The Twilight Saga and the Twilight Universe (Twiverse) have achieved a level of success that fascinates me. The books are not well written and feminists are right to be troubled by some of the overt messages contained within. The movie does have a batch of young up and coming actors but I believe its success is also based on the strength of the myth. It is a reworking of an older one and I find the reworking to be informative about our culture and what it means to be a successful female in it.
The older fairy tale comes in many forms but the formula tends to remain the same. Even gender in the old version can easily be swapped and I will argue that the same is true in the modern but in a more sublimated fashion. We are much more gender policed than our ancestors.
The first version is the Quest of the Servant Girl to win the heart of the Prince. The second modified version is the same but requires the breaking of a Curse, usually that of the Prince. (One of my favorite versions is the Farmer Boy and the Queen of Cats.) You might know this better as Beauty and the Beast. It has many variations and in some the active character simply has to win the heart of the Royal Heir such as happens in Cinderella.
If we apply the Jungian lens then we can say the story represents a guide for the completion of the Self, how to attain happiness. The versions set forth a formula. Starting with an impoverished but active Self that through overcoming challenges with the add of helpers (often a dead or infrequent parental figure or animal helpers) evolves to confront the Shadow aspects and win love and completion via union with the Desired Self (anima|animus). The Shadow aspects might include the source of the Curse basically by dismantling it usually with opposite action.
The role of wealth here plays both a symbolic and a literal meaning as does beauty. Happiness in these stories is sustained by moving beyond material uncertainty and the beauty of the active Self, the Servant Girl or Farmer Boy, and the revealed beauty of the Desired Self, the Prince or Princess symbolizes goodness, aka rightness of being. This is particularly noted when the Cursed one starts out ugly (wrong) and then is cured becoming beautiful (right).
Happiness in this model arrives with wealth and love married into sovereignty of Self and over the domain. It is important to consider that the breaking of the Curse is in this model an imperative for those actions to occur.
The Twilight version is interestingly different. While the Servant Girl/Cursed Prince quest aspect remains constant, we gain an interesting twist. Here we have similar challenges and helpers and confrontations with Shadow but the goal is not to break the Curse, rather it is crucial to share in it in order to successfully arrive at sovereignty of Self.
There are many excellent feminist rants available delving into the problems with the overt messages of the Twiverse. But what I find to be overlooked is the unconscious or at least seemingly unintentional new version of the myth.
Here we have the trials and tribulations of the Servant Girl earning her the transformation into the Cursed Princess along with her Princess. What has changed? In both the older and the modern versions romantic union and love stands for ultimate realization of the Self. This Self is contingent upon the evolution through the quest but more importantly it reveals the conditions of acceptability for completion. Here also Love is only available to the Beautiful, but in the Twiverse, Beauty alone is deadly to its bearer (it can as in the older tales elict help but it is more dangerous). The Self can only be safely Beautiful if it possesses the attributes of the Curse, and only if the Self is Beautiful is it eligible for Love.
To drop into more implicit framing, those that are Beautiful and not Cursed are helpless victims actively drawing to them tragedy and eventually their own demise. The fragile nature of Beauty in this framing does not allow for it to continue into the future of mortal life. It will be doomed to fade and so with it the chances of Love,and Happiness. The Curse itself provides the means to maintain Beauty and Love.
What has happened here? In the earlier models of the myth we see the goal of Sovereignty of Self, the unified right way of being, is through Love as signified by the romantic union of the noblest parts of ourselves and other. Now the same comes only with the support of the very aspects of the Shadow we once had to dismantle.
The Twiverse is an awful place to be a beautiful girl because it is pretty much the rape culture writ large and gender stapled to everyone. The heteronormative gendernormative underpinnings firmly place males in the rapist's role and the females in the victim/DID role. Yet one must posses it to be eligible for Love. The active Self along with her helpers converse frequently about the fear of losing Beauty through age and the penalty for possessing it is made clear through the rape victim Rosalie. Here the only way of achieving power is through being monstrous, bearing the curse of vampirism (which may cost the eternal soul).
Here to the connections are made between being a vampire and being a rapist. The mythological history of the inherent sexuality of the particular breed of monster is well known. The role of sexuality as a destructive force, the women are ruined or killed, is outlined in great detail. Even child birth is treated as one of the trials and tribulations which are clearly direct requirements for achieving the Cursed state. (The awfulness of pregnancy, childbirth, and the resulting wise child int he Twiverse could very well be a topic for an entire other blog.)
What I find so enthralling is this reactionary evolution, no longer are wealth and Love enough to achieve happiness and Sovereignty. No longer is the goal removing the Shadow and achieving a benign mortal state, fruitful and limited. Now the goal is to achieve the destructive capabilities of the Shadow Self harnessed at best but maintained. The modern fears of aging and of victimization are so strong the Shadow cannot be completely dismantled. The new message is complete the Quest, win your Prince, and share in an eternity of Beauty and Love by becoming a monster. If you don't, you lose it all.
Monster as the third option, hardwired neither as victim nor rapist, emerges almost as another gender role. It is one that maintains its sexual allure, a heternormative sanctioned one, but with more flexibility. It does contain the inherent danger of loss of control (policed by monogamy) but tamed as an adult sex drive freed from reproductive responsibilities.
It should be noted that not all modern vampire stories have dropped the breaking of the Curse. In the Buffyverse the themes of redemption and eventual restoration are often explored. But it is interesting to note that in the Buffyverse the duality of rapist/victim is far less extreme. However that said there could be a further discussion of the inherent monstrosity of the Slayer.
Final note: Yo, it's just a blog and not a paper. I've seen the movie more times than an adult feminist should but it's hilarity on ice (RPattz is a treasure of WTF). I've not read the Twilight books but purchased them for my bff who then regaled me with the high and low points. Writing an actual paper would require reading the books and my book list is enormous already. Besides, a potent myth can be presented in craptastic writing and still go Joe Campbell on your ass.
My current work focuses on integrating the monstrous into femaleness so you can see why this interested me.