the unknowable Other
14 Apr 2007 03:43 pm[Several different threads prompted this response: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
meritjubet's comment on my Faith/Buffy rant, and difrancis's thread on vampires. It started to get too long (yeah, like you're suprised) for a single response-post, so here it is as its own post-topic.]
I think the bottom line of vampires, fairies/fey, werewolves and the rest being so sexy is because, fundamentally, they are Other. They exist outside the lines, outside society, outside our everyday rules. They are unknown and possibly unknowable -- and a society will happily lay all its fears and anxieties and secret wishes at the feet of the unknown/foreign Other. Our current favorite Other, thus, becomes the container of all we fear, want, would do/take/say if we could.
Look at the plethora of Hollywood movies from the 30's through the 60's, when the Dangerous Woman in so many action movies was Asian. Dressed in red cheomsang, possibly with cigarette in one of those long holder-things, the Dragon Lady is unattainable, unpredictable, and oozing a sex appeal that plays not only on her own attractiveness in an objective sense, but also playing up our innate fascination with the Unknowable Other. (And, too, upon the predominantly male audience's automatic instinct to see Female as Other, thus doubling the Dragon Lady's distance: Asian, and Female.)
And, too, we do it in a negative sense. The foreign Other is the bad guy, who takes on the worst (or lost) aspects of ourselves:
( In that last point -- much like when the Master Vampire deigns to 'explain' something to the human protagonist -- there are two things at play. )
meritjubet's comment on my Faith/Buffy rant, and difrancis's thread on vampires. It started to get too long (yeah, like you're suprised) for a single response-post, so here it is as its own post-topic.]I think the bottom line of vampires, fairies/fey, werewolves and the rest being so sexy is because, fundamentally, they are Other. They exist outside the lines, outside society, outside our everyday rules. They are unknown and possibly unknowable -- and a society will happily lay all its fears and anxieties and secret wishes at the feet of the unknown/foreign Other. Our current favorite Other, thus, becomes the container of all we fear, want, would do/take/say if we could.
Look at the plethora of Hollywood movies from the 30's through the 60's, when the Dangerous Woman in so many action movies was Asian. Dressed in red cheomsang, possibly with cigarette in one of those long holder-things, the Dragon Lady is unattainable, unpredictable, and oozing a sex appeal that plays not only on her own attractiveness in an objective sense, but also playing up our innate fascination with the Unknowable Other. (And, too, upon the predominantly male audience's automatic instinct to see Female as Other, thus doubling the Dragon Lady's distance: Asian, and Female.)
And, too, we do it in a negative sense. The foreign Other is the bad guy, who takes on the worst (or lost) aspects of ourselves:
- The Arab 'terrorists' who are obsessively jingoistic for their own cause:
like we have no social quarter consumed with ultra-patriotic fervor... - The Russian Communists trying to steal our secrets:
like they've none of their own, that we might want, and that only ours are valuable... - The indigenous native trapped in the Noble Savage stereotype:
with all the innocence that we've lost, but with a naivete we refuse... - The dark(er)-skinned Native or African whose uncontrolled sexuality will cause him to go bonkers at sight of a pretty white girl:
as though our civilized world has achieved asexuality or purity of self-control...
( In that last point -- much like when the Master Vampire deigns to 'explain' something to the human protagonist -- there are two things at play. )