Not So Dreary Dracula?

I like epistolary novels, but they can get very dry after a while, so I got an audiobook to listen along with while I read. And honestly? Nothing about this novel is scary without it. I think that a large chunk of horror as a genre is based on Dracula or delineated from later work inspired by it, so the source material seems generic to us when it might've been groundbreaking (and terrifying) when it was released. Also there is so much more blood and gore and so many more (and much weirder) monsters in horror movies and literature today than in Dracula, so the original novel seems toothless in comparison. But, as I often find, a good narrator can breath life into even the most tired-out stories imaginable, and I have to acknowledge that Dracula in and of itself isn't tired-out. We as a society have just beaten the concept of Dracula to death. Give the Count a break (even if he is.... ya know.... an absolute monster).

All the same, I think it's really cool to read a book that has had such a significant impact on the way we consume horror and thriller literature (whether through film, print, podcasts, etc.) and depict different kinds of monsters. I love horror movies (even if I am a big coward), so I'm very excited to see where this goes!

This is both me watching horror movies and a gif from my favorite 80s horror movie, An American Werewolf in London.

It’s easy to be upset over Jonathan Harker’s stupidity (I know I am), but we as an audience feel similar things towards idiots in horror movies today, and our poor, stupid Jonathan Harker didn’t have over a century of vampire literature and film to put him through his paces and prepare him for unsettlingly religious villagers, howling wolves, spectral fires, creepy counts, the kidnaping and murdering of children, and generally dangerous women. If we can be mad at the dumb blonde that is brutally murdered and still enjoy a horror movie, then I don't see why we can't be mad at our dear idiot Harker and still enjoy the book.

Shout out to Buffy for smashing that dumb blonde in a horror movie trope. That's my girl!!

Lastly, I didn't like the mess with Lucy and her suitors, but can I just say how much I love how ridiculously and stereotypically Texan Quincey Morris is? He's so funny to me. I hope he doesn't drop off the face of the earth. Or get turned into a vampire. I think True Blood gave us all more than enough Southern vampires to last a lifetime (or several lifetimes, as the case may be).

I love Charlotte and forgive her for being in this terrible series

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has the potential to be a charming adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, but it stumbles into so many obnoxious tropes and offensive throw-away lines that I can’t find it anything but aggravating. The characterization was fair, even if people came off as obnoxious and offensive. I liked all the puns, like “Mr. Douchey,” and the little references to Pride & Prejudice’s fandom, like Lizzie’s love of Colin Firth movies. They were cute and clever. I also liked when people knocked Lizzie off of her own pedestal, like when Charlotte asked Lizzie what was wrong with Bing Lee besides the fact that her mother liked him and then adds a bit to the video to specifically say that “Lizzie hates changing her mind.” Or the time Charlotte points out that Mrs. Bennet dressed Lizzie as a witch (NOT a spinster) for Halloween. OR the time she made her own video to show Lizzie’s bias against Darcy. I liked Charlotte, if that isn’t clear already.

Me, adoring this adaptation of Charlotte beyond all reason.

As I have already established, I loved Charlotte, but I was concerned about casting her as a Chinese woman because one of her key features as a character is that she is undesirable. She’s not supposed to be as pretty as the Bennet girls. She doesn’t have as much money as the Bennet girls. She’s older than the Bennet girls. Her only real redeeming marriageable quality is the fact that her father is a knight, but that may not be a factor to many suitors, especially the nouveau riche. By making Lizzie and her family white and making the comparatively plain and undesirable Charlotte Asian, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries seemed to imply that Asian women (specifically Chinese women) are less attractive and generally less appealing than white women. I doubt that this was purposeful, but that doesn’t make it okay.

The way Lydia said “they’re too hot and single to be gay” was probably meant to make her and her homophobic comment look as ridiculous as it is. On a slightly different note, as a lesbian, the fact that Lizzie immediately jumps from “What if he’s gay?” to “What if he’s a serial killer?” is.... Disquieting. It shows me that people think a person being gay is just as shocking and upsetting as a person being a murderer. That really hurts. I had been prepared to like the series, but that really put me off, and I had trouble warming back up to the series after that. Again, I doubt that this was purposeful, but that doesn’t make it okay.

Is that a gun in your bathrobe or are you just happy to see me? jk, I know it’s a gun. That’s dangerous.

I'm going to be blunt. I wasn't expecting a dick joke in this reading. And I used to read Holmes stories all the time when I was in middle school. Maybe “it is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one’s dressing-gown’” (218) wasn't a dick joke at the time, but it definitely is now. I’m disappointed in my younger self for not remembering this. I wasn’t a very careful reader at the time, so maybe the whole thing escaped my notice (although I don't know how a middle schooler can fail to recognize a dick joke).

Seriously though, I think the fact that Moriarty’s comment comes before Sherlock even told John, and therefore the reader, that he “had slipped the revolver from the drawer into [his] pocket and was covering [Moriarty] through the cloth” (218) is an important aspect of the story’s narrative and character development. Moriarty knows what Sherlock has done before the reader does, and because he is the one to tell us instead of Sherlock, we are unsettled by Moriarty and more acutely aware of his powers of perception. Dick jokes are just an unexpected bonus.

Holmes’ size had also escaped my memory, so it was a shock to read that “he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller” (24). Plus, I had forgotten Holmes’ brute strength! I remembered he was a skilled pugilist (thank you RDJ movies for jogging that memory), but I hadn’t realized he was strong enough to bend a steel poker back into place (162)! I guess we tend to associate very intelligent characters with physical weakness. Nerds are wimps, jocks are dumb, etc. Clearly, Conan Doyle would’ve disapproved of these beliefs.

Actual irl footage of Holmes, apparently.

Another unexpected finding in the Holmes stories was Holmes’ moments of compassion. From the first time he’s introduced in A Study in Scarlet, and throughout the other stories, the reader is told that one would “not care for him as a constant companion” (19) because he is so “very desultory and eccentric” (19). Even if he is  “a decent fellow enough” (19), Holmes’ “cold-bloodedness” (20) can be off-putting and offensive. Since we are so often told things like “all emotions… were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind” (32) and are tolerated about as well as “grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-powered lenses” (32), I did not expect him to be so kind towards Helen Stoner. I’m not shocked that Sherlock perceived that she was “cruelly used” (159); however, I was surprised that he soothed her and “[bent] forward and [patted] her forearm” (153), promising he and Watson will “soon set matters right” (153) and even offered to help her escape from the abuse by taking her “away to [her] aunt’s at Harrow” (164). As an abuse survivor, it means a lot to me that this character recognizes signs of abuse and is compassionate towards the victim, especially considering the Victorian society’s general views of and treatment towards women.

I forgot a title when I first posted, so have this instead

I have a love/hate relationship with West Side Story. Or, at least, I have a love/hate relationship with the movie version of West Side Story. I saw a stage performance of it years ago and enjoyed it immensely. I know that it’s always hard to convert a musical into a film (the two media are very different and don’t always sync up), but I can’t help but be unsatisfied with the movie after enjoying the live one so much.

Admittedly, everything and everybody are exhaustingly overdramatic in both the movie and play versions. Then again, the same can be said of Romeo and Juliet, so I guess that there isn’t much difference between the reboot and the source material in that respect at least. Musicals are always ridiculous anyways, so I guess it’s part of the genre too. I know musicals aren’t for everyone, but I’m gay. Every gay person I know likes musicals. I think liking musicals is just a part of being gay.

In fact, I (a lesbian) sing “I Feel Pretty” with my gay friends (gay gang?) all the time. It always starts after one of us compliments another, and the rest just flows from there. Maybe I should write my paper on a queerer version of West Side Story. It could be about the forbidden lesbian lovers, Toni and Maria. Anybodys could be trans too! It could be grand.

Side note: The muppet version of “I Feel Pretty” is amazing, and you all should watch it.

Back to the point! I have always liked the idea of the Montagues and Capulets being portrayed as rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The fact that the origin of the blood feud between the families is never explained in the original play has always bothered me. Putting them in this context explains the conflict without needing to take time to delve into its history. The singing and ballet-dancing gang members are just a bonus. A very funny and easily heckle-able bonus.

The first time I watched this movie (before I saw it live), I was dangerously close to becoming an obnoxious Shakespeare purist, and Maria surviving Tony bothered me. It’s NOT how it’s supposed to go!!! I seem to have avoided the unfortunate fate of a Shakespeare purist because this time through I liked that touch. The fact that Maria lives forces the audience to confront the lasting effects of the rivalry and everything that it caused, whereas the original ending in Romeo and Juliet just seems to be a way to wrap everything up as quickly as possible.

I’m anticipating being among the very few that liked this movie (even if it can't live up to a live version), and I understand why so many people don’t. Hopefully, we can all still have a good discussion about it.

Wherefore art thou "wherefore"?

A few months ago I played Bards Dispense Profanity with a bunch of friends. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the Shakespearean version of Cards Against Humanity. It has quotations from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets on the white cards, and the usual CAH prompts (plus some Shakespeare quotes to mad lib) for its prompt cards.

A of mine friend that has never read Shakespeare, drew a quote from R&J as a prompt (“It is the East, and Juliet is the  _____?”), and had a lot of trouble deciding which card won the round because she had no idea what the reference meant. The group, composed mostly of English majors (hence why we were playing in the first place), took a 15 minute break to give her a micro-lesson about about it. A highlight of the discussion: She didn’t believe us when we told her that the word “wherefore” means “why.”

English majors when you ask what something means

(She ended up picking a card with a piece of poetry about the sun because we told her that the full line was “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/It is the East, and Juliet is the sun” (II.ii.2-3). It was my card. I won that game.)

The next day, I hung out with that friend. At one point she brought up the game from the night before and why I was so interested in Shakespeare because it had always seemed so boring to her. I told her that most of Shakespeare’s plays, even the tragedies, are at least one-third dick jokes and another third petty insults. She didn’t believe me. We went to a used bookstore, found a copy of Romeo and Juliet, and sat on some sofas and went through some of the highlights of the play.

Here is a small selection of innuendos she didn’t get from the first two acts:

• The first Montagues we meet are joking about taking Capulet women’s virginities.
• Romeo is so sad at the beginning of the play because Rosaline’s “strong proof of chastity well armed” (I.i.219) means he can’t “ope her lap to saint-seducing gold” (I.i.222), i.e. get into her pants.
• Juliet is Romeo’s rebound. She deserves better (as do most women in literature).
• Mercutio tries to “conjure” Romeo from the orchard by taunting him with sex jokes.
• The Nurse offers to get a ladder so that Romeo can give Juliet a booty call on their wedding night.

My friend is still not exactly a Shakespeare fan, but she did enjoy our conversation. The whole exchange made me realize that Shakespeare’s plays might be popular in the same way Saturday Night Live is popular if we changed the culture surrounding it and better explained what key words and phrases mean.