Sunday, August 23, 2015

Mutually Beneficial (Vampire response)

Having read a few books on vampires previously (Dracula, some cheesy young adult novels, etc.) the relationship between Constantine and Sunshine in Robert McKinley's "Sunshine" peaks my interests. First off we have the reluctance from Constantine and how he's almost being forced to feed from Sunshine (Of course, we know he doesn't but the premise is that he's being starved so that he will).
I find this to be very atypical. Of course it's almost this weird kind of Stockholm syndrome relationship between the two of them as they're stuck together and are both captives of the same greater evil.
Sunshine saving Constantine is also a bit of an odd thing as far as relationships between humans and vampires go. Usually the human (Almost always a human woman) is in a state of powerlessness and they're under the influence of the vampire. The interaction between them is very different. It's a mutually beneficial relationship which is very bizarre, it seems there is no real person who's in power here. The two of them need each other and although Constantine could potentially kill this woman, he doesn't. It's a weird twist of humanity to a traditional monster.

On an unrelated tangent, I read Carmilla and the relationship between those two and the form the vampire takes are a very different thing than what I'm used to and it was one of my favorite vampire tales. (Vampire cat creatures? Who could imagine that.)

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Week 1: Gothicness

The influence of gothic aesthetics and literature is incredibly strong in contemporary culture. Before we elaborate on particular examples it is best to establish what "Gothic" truly means.
In reality it is a term used to categorize media that combines the genres of romanticism and horror. Literary examples would be works like Dracula, Frankenstein, Turn of the Screw, etc.
Specific iconography associated with Gothic works are things like black cats, stormy weather, terrible frights, and things that go bump in the night (amongst many other tropes). But what really defines something as Gothic rather than horror?
Does it have to do with time period?
Does it have to do with where the material originates from?
I would reply no to both questions.

For an example of "Gothicness" in contemporary cultures I'd like to examine manga and comics.
A great example would be Itou Junji's Uzumaki.

In short, Uzumaki is a story about the overpowering magic of a spiral. It's hypnotizing effects and how it draws one's attention through it's organic shape. The comic is really a collection of short stories that all deal with the supernatural power of spirals and how a small japanese town is caught in the vicious cycle of it's shape.

I chose this example because it fits the category of a gothic work but it's not a typical european style of gothic. Uzumaki combines your typical tropes of mystery, horror, and romanticism to create a truly terrifying experience that fits the gothic genre perfectly. The most obvious connection is in the delivery/pacing of the story. As in many gothic works of literature uzumaki begins with a seemingly normal story about normal people in a normal place. However, as the story progresses the more the supernatural becomes apparent and it it's energy begins to affect the normal world the tale began in. Uzumaki draws on themes that a lot of gothic writers drew on. Nature versus civilization, the individual versus society, etc.
I chose the medium of comics specifically to talk about the gothic genre and how it can portray horror differently through words or images. With classic works of gothic literature the fear was created in the mind of the reader, the more immersed in the tale you become the deeper and more personal the experience can be and thusly the more horrifying an experience it can be. Creating images with your mind to give visual meaning to the words you're reading, that's the power of words in the horror genre. However, comics hold a slightly different level of power. Comics not only have the gift of words, but it's accompanied by visual imagery. These images can create horrors your visual library could not have possibly come up with on it's own. Images created by someone else can show horrifying things you just don't have the frame of reference for.
I digress and stray far from the original assignment, but I feel like it's a fair thing to address in terms of contemporary culture embracing "gothicness".