"She's Not There"

There's so much I could talk about when it comes to the premiere episode of True Blood Season 4, "She's Not There". What to tackle first? There's Sookie's brief Alice in Wonderland-esque hiatus in Faerie with granddaddy Earl - who himself was gone for 20 years - and the pulse-pounding escape sequence that follows. Or, maybe the "who would you rather trust, a vampire or a politician" propaganda-off between Eric and Bill. And then, of course, there's the introduction of several new supes and magical personages for us to contend with.

But most of these have already been addressed elsewhere on the web, and with so many worthy and intriguing points of departure for contemplating the new season I think I'll veer off in a different direction altogether, thank you very much!

I want to explore a feeling.

The sucking, vacant, wanting feeling several scenes of "She's Not There" inspired in me - and with such a title, is it any wonder?

Sookie's not the only one who wasn't, or isn't, there.

What happens when one goes away - and stays away - departs the premises, or withdraws emotionally? How do those left behind deal?

Let's plumb this pattern of "not being there" a little deeper, shall we?

Arlene's not there, not really, for her son Mikey. She fears him; what's in him, what he is, how he reminds her of René. The guilt is killing her, and she professes to love Mikey, but she doesn't fully, she can't. How will her emotional distancing impact her baby boy, her new marriage with Terry, her sense of self? Will this darkness leach into her parenting of Coby and Lisa? As Terry (over?)identifies with Mikey, claiming him as his true son, will he begin to drift from Arlene? Will they become isolated in their troubles?

When someone withdraws from, or isn't there - fully present - in a relationship or community, tension and resentment are inevitable, whether the missing party returns or lingers, partly detached, not truly invested.

Conflict breaks out.

Images of sparring or downright pummelling were everywhere in "She's Not There"...

...from Tara (or Toni?!?) the cage fighter, pounding on the woman who is ostensibly her lover:

...to the colliding behemoths both Jessica and Sookie paused on while flipping the TV channels (did you notice that?!?):

And speaking of Jessica flipping through the TV stations, I gotta tell ya, the scene that unfolded between she and Hoyt, with her sitting on the couch - remote and Tru Blood in hand - as he's coming in the door from work really, really got to me. Maybe it's because I'm in a long term, committed, co-habitating relationship that I can feel their pain. Maybe it's because the person I'm in that relationship with - the man I married - is the one and only romantic partner I've had since I was 17, the age at which Jessica was turned and that she will remain for all time. So perhaps I feel a certain sense of kinship with her.

But, man - o -man, did that scene throw me for a loop. As the scene played out, I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. Who was that angry, resentful Hoyt, and where did he come from? How could their happy relationship devolve, dissolve this way? How could they verbally tear at each other so?

Some deeper, more allegorical questions took shape in my mind later.

Alan Ball has repeatedly stated that True Blood delves into the "terrors of intimacy"; here, I see a foray into the "terrors of domesticity" - and what can happen when the shine on a brand-spanking-new relationship dulls with time and apathy.

Hoyt: "You remember I eat, right? Like, food? Be nice to have some in the house".
Jessica: "You remember I don't eat, right?" (referring to human food) "It's all dead, permanently, forever, dead". 

What happens when what feeds one partner doesn't feed - or even revolts - the other? When one's hunger is not satiated in the relationship? Where can common ground be found? If one or both of them is looking for something outside of the relationship, are either of them really there?

On their post-fight date night at Fangtasia, Hoyt apologizes to Jessica for losing his temper with her; she says she's sorry too but she can't help staring at another man upon whom she wishes to feed from across the room. The smell of the "O neg with a twist of B pos" cocktail Hoyt buys for her at the bar turns her stomach. We know Tru Blood isn't enough for her; she can subsist on it - barely - but she's not living, not really.

And Pam, in the very special way that only Pam can - points this out to Jessica, remarking that if she's asking Hoyt to bring her to Fangtasia, their relationship probably isn't enough for her. Pam more than alludes to the idea that for Jessica, living with Hoyt is not normal or natural; it's not enough. Is she right? Do Jessica and Hoyt have irreconcilable differences?

Believe me, I totally understand the concept of the honeymoon being over, and that puppy-love doesn't last. But there was just something so sharp and jabbing about Hoyt and Jessica's ways of being towards one another that was totally jarring for me.

I can't help but hear the words to "Losing a Whole Year" by one of my favorite bands, Third Eye Blind, when I think about this scene. Not only is the title appropriate for this episode, but the lyrics are so choked with bitterness that I feel the song captures its emotional tenor, unfortunately, all too well.

I remember you and me used to spend the whole goddamned day in bed
lying in your room we'd lay like dogs
and the phone would ring like a joke that's left unsaid...

...and now I realized that you never heard
one goddamned word I ever said.
It always seemed the juice used to flow
in the car, in the kitchen you were good to go...

...now we're stuck with the tube
a sink full of dishes and some aqualube.

And if it's not the defense then you're on the attack...



And what about that freaky baby doll? It wasn't shown in "She's Not There" but it came back into play in a subsequent episode...could it represent that gangrenous appendage that infects, insidiously rots a relationship away from the inside out?

You know, the meddlesome in-laws...

Jessica: "I'm cooking for ya. Just like your mama."
Hoyt: "Look, don't bring her into this. That woman's dead to me".
Jessica: "Yeah, and if her aim were any better, I'd be a pile of goo and she'd be making your eggs".

...or money, or sex, or jobs...or just different expectations of what makes for a fulfilling and happy life. Can that diseased element of a relationship - the thing we find ourselves fighting about most - be excised, or at least worked around, or through?

The fact that this disturbing scene ended with both Hoyt and Jessica laughing - being able to find a common ground of humor and caring in spite of their conflict - gave me hope that there is still something of their original connection to build upon and salvage what they've got together. I do believe they love each other, but sometimes love isn't enough.

And what about when the life you've got isn't enough; when it's left you feeling vulnerable, exposed, traumatized?

Tara has responded by leaving it behind. All of it. Her friends. Her family. Her job. Her town. Her look. Her name.

She has taken on a new identity, a new life. But it seems to me that she's not really there for it. She's got a girlfriend, Naomi, who seems to truly care for her, but doesn't know her - anything at all about her, who she really is. I get it that we are all in constant states of flux, that there is no core, base, true self - that our entire lives are journeys of discovery. And not in the sense of a linear trajectory bringing us through a progression of trials and tribulations until we find ourselves; our real, true, selves. We are constantly in the process of becoming, until the day we die.

It was my favorite poet, afterall - the sage Walt Whitman, who wrote in his masterwork Leaves of Grass:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

We may very well all contain multitudes - but which of her multitudes is Tara revealing to Naomi, what of herself is she sharing? Naomi believes her to be Toni, from Atlanta. And while it's possible that Tara may be bisexual or lesbian - that the Tara we have known throughout True Blood's run thus far, is a front, a facade - honestly, there has never been any hint that Tara might be gay. Is her sexual relationship with Naomi just another part of her escape? How can Tara be present in their relationship, or to herself, for that matter, if the self she shows to Naomi is a fabrication woven as a protecting wrapping against her past?

Now, we know that Tara has been fighting an internal battle for quite some time...

...but now, with all she has done to sever her new self from the old, might she become lost to herself - as amnesia Eric does in subsequent episodes?

Coming back to Bon Temps and rekindling her relationships with Lafayette, Sookie and the rest may be good for her. And what of Naomi's place in her life? We'll see.

Right now, that question's sort of making me think of more "Losing A Whole Year" lyrics:

I kind of get the feeling like I'm being used...

...When you were yourself it was tasting sweet
soured into a routine deceit
well this drama is a bore...

...and I don't wanna play no more.

Sam doesn't want to play anymore, either. With guns, at least. In this episode, he spills to his shifter "anger management" group:

I knew it was wrong, even before I pulled the trigger. It was like some other person fired that gun and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Sam feels like he wasn't there - wasn't in his body. Sam's description of this kind of "out of body experience" sounds an awful lot like dissociation - a disruption of normal psychological functioning in response to stress or trauma - that is often triggered unconsciously as a means for the self to, in essence, protect itself. To or retreat from or insulate the self against something too threatening to face. In Seasons 2 & 3 we saw that Sam does indeed have things in his past that he's running away from, actions he deeply regrets. Now he can add shooting Tommy, his own brother, to that list. Can he get back to himself in Season 4?

As the episode wound down, we found ourselves at Hot Shot with Jason, observing his friendly and good natured rapport with the youth of the town as he doled out foodstuffs from the back of his truck. He has stepped into and more than filled the vacuum left by Crystal, who is also among the missing - she's not there. Jason feels her loss. He's tired. He comments to the kids, "We really need to get your Aunt Crystal back here ASAP. Y'all could use a momma and I could use a break". When Becky asked had he spoken to Crystal, he replied, "not yet, but I can think of one or two things I'd like to tell her when I do find her". His resentment comes through. It doesn't feel good to be abandoned - to be left holding the bag. To be on the hook for other people's responsibilities.

And by the end of the show, we knew that others might soon be feeling the way that Jason felt about Crystal having taken off, disappearing, about him - since people would eventually notice that he was missing, not there, but wouldn't know why - that he was being held against his will.

I'll be interested to see how this theme carries through the rest of Season 4.

Any thoughts? Please share them in the comments space below. Thanks!

~ Rachel  

Tru Blood Tru World: In the Face of a Harsh Economic Landscape for African-American & Latino Men, Lafayette Adapts

It's not often that I send off a quick missive, but here's one.

Listening to NPR as I was driving home from work yesterday (I know, something else out of character for me, right?) I was struck by some disturbing labor and economics statistics. Unemployment amongst African-American men is currently hovering at around 15% and the figures are similar for Latino men. Here's the kicker: most economists agree that these numbers will likely not budge for the next decade!!!

I immediately thought of Lafayette. Yes, I know. He's a fictional character. The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics is probably not keeping data on him or his cohorts, the town of Bon Temps where he works as a short order cook at Merlotte's (also fictional), or on Reynard parish and its environs where he plies his various other trades, since these locales, too, are fictional.

Even so, is it really so odd that Lafayette would cross my mind in the context of a news report pointing out that unemployment figures for African-American and Latino men are nearly double those for white men?

We know that popular culture not only shapes, but is shaped by society. Therefore, could the desertified Bon Temps economic landscape and its dried-up job market - one's options for (low wage) work include Merlotte's (apparently the town's chief employer, aside from the sheriff's office), big box stores like the one Tara quit in "Strange Love" (perhaps a stand in for Walmart which just got an enormous class action gender discrimination suit tossed), or the Grab-It-Quik - be an allusion to the U.S. Main Street vs. Wall Street divide?

Is it that hard to see how, in the face of limited opportunities in the mainstream economy, Lafayette or someone like him may resort to carving out a niche for himself in the informal (i.e. underground or shadow) economy?

LaLa the short order cook

LaLa the drug dealer

LaLa the prostitute

LaLa the road crew worker

LaLa the webcam operator

Lafayette is a hustler; a survivor. He's got jobs in both the legit and the informal economies.

He's got to work - hard - to stay above ground because unlike the Stackhouse kids, he hasn't benefited from intergenerational wealth transfer. Sookie and Jason work hard too, but they each inherited the homes they live in from deceased family members. This affords them a certain level of comfort and financial stability that fewer working and middle-class people of color will have access to in the future, given that the sub-prime mortgage and foreclosure crisis has disproportionately impacted their communities. It should go without saying that without homes to either be sold or passed down as an inheritance, families with fewer means have less options available to them as they plan for their heirs' futures.

As a social worker for a non-profit that - amongst other things - provides community development services I've seen the Great Recession's negative impact on first-time homebuyers and homeowners who are upside-down on their mortgages as well on low-income households who are striving for financial self-sufficiency. Disparities across race, class, and gender lines, unsustainable and often predatory lending targeting elders and people of color, and a lack of living-wage jobs are driving the gap between those with a foothold on the economic ladder to the middle class and those without - to say nothing of those who are tumbling from the middle-income rungs every day.

Will the informal economy expand in response to the constriction of the mainstream one? What are the implications if it does, and what kinds of outcomes can we anticipate in key sectors of our society?

It looks like - for the next decade, at least - LaLa's gonna have to keep on hustlin'.

~ Rachel   

And is he dark enough? Enough to see your light? IMAGES OF HOLISM IN TRUE BLOOD

And is he dark enough? Enough to see your light?

~ Accidental Babies by Damien Rice

Rebecca will be so proud of me, quoting her beloved Damien. But really, I couldn't resist. I've been plotting and scheming for a way to best to use these lyrics for quite a while in relation to Sookie and Bill, and since it's last call for this idea around holism I brewed up during Season 3, I figure it's now or never!

Here's my thought process. Much ado has been made about how they are just far too different for their love to ever work; she's mortal, he's vampire; she's of this era, he's of one long bygone. And perhaps, most importantly...

SHE IS

  OF THE

                                                   LIGHT

AND HE IS

  OF THE

                         DARK

Remember when Sookie first met Claudine? How during an out of body experience Sookie's soul, or consciousness arose from the hospital bed where her body lay hooked up to life support and followed a trail of flower petals out the door and into an alternate, liminal plane where fairies romped amidst the tombstones of Bon Temps Cemetery?

Recall how, as a shadow swiftly enveloped the heretofore sunny scene, Claudine fearfully declared, "The dark approaches"? Next came her hasty retreat - remember how she paused to warn Sookie, "He (Bill) will steal your light" and, in response to her protestations that Bill is not like that, to admonish Sookie, "Don’t let him take it from you, promise me!” before slipping below the surface of her light pool escape hatch?

Can you feel Descartes' influence?

I know, I know, it's a silly reference to glamouring (you know how Bill generally says, "can you feel my influence?" when he's working his powers of persuasion) and perhaps an even sillier insinuation that a 17th century French philosopher would have anything at all to do with True Blood.



 René Descartes (1596-1650)

Or, maybe this Descartes thing isn't so silly after all; let's unpack it a little, shall we?

We are living in a time of profound disconnection and extraordinary dissonance; a time in which the vestiges of what Professor Emeritas of Rutgers University Bruce Wilshire points out as a Baroque era (particularly Cartesian) conception of reality and our place in it still holds sway. This framework highlights “self as scientific knower, self as self-sufficient individual and as ego, self as master manipulator of objects” (p. 37). It is connected to the famous mechanistic theory of nature that requires us to perform an immense abstraction from our own bodies and the world. 

Cartesian science believed that in any complex system the behavior of the whole could be analyzed in terms of the properties of the parts. Remnants of Caresian dualism remain in contemporary consciousness: self cut off from other, mind from body or matter, human from animal, present from past and future (Wilshire, 1990). Some examples of other heirarchical dualisms (the first-stated member of the pair is considered as superior, the second-stated as inferior Other) that trickle down to us today include Hegel and Rousseau's public/private, male female, eason/nature; Plato's reason/body, reason/emotion, and universal/particular.

These dualisms are seen as totalizing, meaning that they are thought to exhaust the alternatives within the parameters in question (Wilshire, 1990). What does this mean? According to theoretical physicist Basarab Nicolescu (p. 26, 2002), classical logic is founded on three axioms:

1. The axiom of identity: A is A
2. The axiom of noncontradiction: A is not non-A
3. The axiom of the excluded middle: There exists no third term (3rd term = "T"); T is at the same time A and non-A

In other words, something is what it is - absolutely. Classical logic renders it impossible to consider day as night, black as white, life as death...

...feminine as masculine (Nelsan Ellis told the crowd at Dragon * Con 2010 that Alan Ball's vision for Lafayette to embody both the feminine and the masculine originally threw him for a loop; even Eric's metrosexual vibe may appear suspect to some)  

    or dark as light...

No, no, no...that would be repugnant to the prescribed order! That's why Bill entering the land of fairie is seen by Claudine as such an aberation...dark simply cannot be light!

According to dualistic thinking the two obviously must cancel one another out - they cannot occupy the same space.

We've got to let old Descartes off the hook at least a little bit for this schismatic, fractious worldview; even Wilshire (1990) prudently avoids holding him wholly culpable for the pervasiviness of dualistic  influences which have given rise to the divisive and isolating trends that have dominated much of modernity: xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. He implies that the genesis of the patriarchal period around 2500 B.C.E. set the movement towards rigid, rationalistic thought in motion and that definition as negation (if it's this it can't be that) has its roots in Aristotelian philosophy. 

Wilshire (1990) cites the great circles and mounds of Neolithic Europe as evidence of the integral thought patterns that were alive in our dim past, long before the shift to the dualistic modes that dominate today.

Stone Age Orkney Island neolithic womb-tomb earthen structure

These earthen structures were temple observatories constructed around 3000 B.C.E. They anticipate field and relativity theory in the sense that space and time were seen as interdependent. Human reality was experienced as being interdependent with space-time; the human life cycle nested within the Cosmic. Within the vast, pregnant-seeming bellies of the mounds people reawakened to their own possibilities as they observed the regenerative course of Nature through the deaths and rebirths of the seasons and the movements of astrological bodies (Wilshire, 1990). "Human birth and death were just two ritual acts in the great sprial of life" (Ward, p. 88, 2006).

Newgrange spirals

Hypogeum spirals

   

Another vision of our realty has been set forth in the last century through systems thinking; a “new” way of thinking in terms of connectedness, relationships, and context that recalls the worldviews of these indigenous and ancient goddess oriented civilizations. Quantum physics in which subatomic particles are not seen as “things” but as interconnections among things; Gestalt psychology which is characterized by its “hunger for wholeness” that sees the existence of irreducible wholes as a key component of perception (Capra, 1997), and deep ecology which seeks to expand the notion of self beyond the confines of the ego and personal history, and to extend concepts of self-interest to include the welfare of all beings (Macy, 1991) are part of the systems thinking zeitgeist. 

According to activist, systems scholar and progenitor of The Work that Reconnects Joanna Macy (1991), a dramatic shift is occurring in our time from notions of linear, unidirectional causality to perceptions of dynamic interdependence where phenomena affect each other in a reciprocal or mutual fashion. This new-old picture, or likeness of reality that is emerging in our times - which was the prevailing metaphor for the Cosmos and human’s place in it in Neolithic civilization - is the ideal that Wilshire (1990) says might be embodied in contemporary life, if we are inventive and resolute enough.  

Returning now to True Blood, might the scene below in which Sookie and Bill join forces to help Tara throw off Maryann's possession be an expression of the integral - the light and dark, female and male unified - a vision that can help synthesize the fragmentary aspects of the self and culture into a meaningful whole?

On their own, neither Sookie nor Bill were able to break Maryann's hold on Tara. Only together were they able to help her return to reality.

Scholar and midwife Arisika Razak (1990) proposes that birth is our major metaphor for life and coming into being, a universal and central aspect of human experience that can serve as the nucleus around which we can build a paradigm of positive interaction and functioning - and a model for physical, emotional, an dspiritual transcendence.


Transdisciplinary theorists' calls for a non-dual vision of reality are pregnant with allusions to birthing. Nicolescu offers, "In my view, the 'death of man' is after all a necessary stage in history, one that anticipates our second birth (p. 74, 2002). He links the evolution of humanity with the evolution of he universe, and suggests that a new type of human (remember the idea of the eco-individual in my last post?) homo sui transcendentalis is in the process of being born. Of this new type of human, Nicolescu says, "He is not some new man but man reborn (p. 74, 2002). Also on p. 74, Nicolescu states that the process of his (new man's) birth involves transgression, originally meaning "to pass to the other side, to cross" - "crossing from one level of Reality to another, or from one level of perception to another". Morin and Kern (p. 18, 1992) hypothesize, "It, starting from a paradigm of complexity, a new method can be born, can take flesh, can advance, make progress, then it would be able perhaps to start a revolution everywhere.


Let's apply this birthing imagery to the scene above.     

When I rewatched it recently I noticed how, as Sookie stared into Tara's "dark, empty" saucer eyes trying to make a connection, she said to a desperate Lafayette, "it's not her, she's gone". Unable to penetrate Maryann's control over Tara, Sookie turned to Bill for help. He counseled, "you have to go further into her mind than you ever have before". Sookie tried again, and was only able to grasp quick flashes of Tara's experiences with Maryann. Bill decided glamouring Tara may help, suggesting, "if we leave her like this who knows what harm may come to her...or to us".


Crouching in front of Tara as Sookie cradled her from behind, Bill's attempts at glamouring began as gentle cajoling but became a labored affort. At first, it seemed to me like Bill was taking the role of a priest performing an exocrism but the more I thought about it, I see this scene as a birthing. Together, Sookie and Bill - Sookie in the position of mother, Bill as midwife, bringing Tara across the "something I can't cross - an abyss" (Sookie to Bill)  - the chasm neither of them could span alone.

Duality working in concert. The spell is broken. Tara is whole again.

What do you think?

Have you noticed any other images of holism in True Blood  - anything that for you communicates the truth of the Tejo-Bindu Upanishad: To direct the mind towards the basic unity of all things and to divert it from the seizing of differences; therein lies bliss? 

Please use the comments section below to share your thoughts!

~ Rachel

References

Capra, F. (1996). The web of life: A new scientific understanding of living systems. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Macy, J. (1991). Mutual causality in Buddhism and general systems theory: The dharma of natural systems. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Morin, E., & Kern, A. B. (1999). Homeland earth: A manifesto for the new millennium.  Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London, UK: Routledge.

Razak, A. (1990). “Toward a Womanist Analysis of Birth”. (pp. 165-172). In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism”. Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.) San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.

Ward, T. (2006). Savage breast: One man’s search for the goddess. New York, NY: O Books

Wilshire, B. (1990). The moral collapse of the university: Professionalism, purity, and alienation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.       

Well, how do you know? Um, I read.

The title of this post comes from a memorable exchange between Jason Stackhouse (first part) and Tara Thornton (second part) during S1E4 "Escape From Dragon House". The scene went down in the walk-in refrigerator at Merlotte's and ended with Tara zinging Jason, "You're not the first vain-ass, body-conscious ex-jock to overdo the V and wind up with an acute case of priapism!". Next stop, hospital!

This bit of dialogue captures the subject matter of this post perfectly...no, no, no, not priapism; reading!

When we first met Tara in Season 1, her penchant for reading was evident. It was, in fact, a foundational aspect of her character development. The types of books she chose to read (i.e. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine), the frequency with which we found her with her nose in a book, and her rationale for reading ("school is just for white people looking for other white people to read to 'em. I figured I save my money and read to myself") all gave us insight into the person of Tara Thornton. She was presented to us as a multifaceted character who is, amongst other things, an independent-spirited-and-minded, sociopolitically aware young woman who has been self-educated and empowered through books.

Oh, Season 1 Tara, where art thou?!? That's fodder for another post, perhaps...

In her last post, Rebecca mentioned that we've given ourselves some homework to bolster the discourse here at the PPT. Ever the eager students, we're both currently immersed in True Blood-related literature. One of the books I'm reading now - a collection of essays entitled, "True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You" - draws upon a quintessential Stackhouse quote to set up the "blend of smarts and sensuality" (2010, p. 1) that editors George A. Dunn & Rebecca Housel saw in TB and hoped to bring to the book: "Jesus Christ, I want to lick your mind!".

Jason's exclamation to then-girlfriend Amy Burley oddly mirrors publishing magnate Charles Scribner, Jr.'s (1921-1995) quote: "Reading is a means of thinking with another person's mind; it forces you to stretch your own".

When taken together, the Stackhouse-Scribner quotes form a sort of strange conglomerate; this idea of licking, blending, and melding with another's mind...it conjures a weird but potent image for what the act of reading can do to enrich one's life, doesn't it?

In the Introduction to "True Blood and Philosophy", editors Dunn & Housel discuss the ease with which TB brings "unabashed carnality" to the screen while "raising tough questions about the human condition". They write of TB in terms of "death and transgressive sexuality"; "overturning expectations and tempting us to think outside conventional boundaries"; "dark corners of the human mind"; "uncomfortable truths that others prefer to leave buried"; "a quest for the meaning of life that often seems quixotic"; and "the paths and impediments to erotic fulfillment" (pp. 1-4).

Forgive the pun, but I'm just starting to sink my fangs into these kinds of "mind-licking good" (p. 4) themes which run through many of the essays in both "True Blood and Philosophy" as well as the other book I'm reading, "A Taste of True Blood: The Fang-Banger's Guide" edited by Leah Wilson. Don't let the latter's title fool you (as I nearly did) - both books boast essays that seem quite relevant to the aims of the PPT, like: "'I Am Sookie, Hear Me Roar!': Sookie Stackhouse and Feminist Ambivalence" and "Sookie, Sigmund, and the Edible Complex"; "Working Class Heroes"; "Blue-Collar Bacchanalia"; and "True Stud".

American writer and social critic Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) once said, "No two people read the same book". While surely untrue in the literal sense, this quote is quite true in the sense that while many may read the same book, each reader derives her own unique, subjective experience from it.

I suspect that this will be the case with the books Rebecca and I will exchange once we're done reading them. I am looking forward to bringing our different takes on these True Blood titles into the PPT - and to you sidling up to the bar with your take on these books or other True Blood readings.

More to come, so stay tuned!

~ Rachel

P.S. I recently discovered the Journal of Dracula Studies; while it doesn't address True Blood per se, it does look at the the vampire in folklore, fiction, film, popular culture, and related topics. I've bookmarked some intriguing essays therein such as, "Vixens and Virgins in the Nineteenth-Century: Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the Feminine in Bram Stoker’s Dracula"; "In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” and the Dragon Order"; and "The Post-feminist Vampire: Heroine for the Twenty-first Century". We'll see how they can be brought to bear upon our conversations here (or not).

Another Quickie!

Just enough time for another quickie...wink wink ;-)

The Pierced Pomegranate Tavern will be opening up shop for a limited time (kinda sorta) in San Antonio, Texas from April 20-23rd, 2011.

I'll be presenting an academic paper exploring issues of sexuality and representation through the lens of True Blood at the PCA/ACA & Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Associations joint conference, in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Area: Special Area: True Blood track.

The paper's entitled, True Blood Reenacts the Goddess Persephone's Ordeal of Abduction and Rape...or Self-Directed Sexual Initiation? Opening a Vein on Woman-Centered Sexuality

Here's a summary:

HBO’s hit series True Blood is not only wildly entertaining; it is also a potent medium through which to explore the human condition and to critically engage the cultural currents and provocative sociopolitical issues of today. With the surging movement of contemporary women’s studies as its guiding framework, this visual talk revolves around two True Blood sexual story arcs—one centered on Tara Thornton; the other on Sookie Stackhouse—both of which culminate in scenes featuring a white nightgown reminiscent of a wedding dress. Although similarities exist between these narratives of carnal encounter, they differ markedly; each can be seen as paralleling one of two versions of the Demeter-Persephone myth—the first being the well-known version of Persephone’s abduction and rape and the second being the feminist imagining of the original pre-Olympian sacred story in which the Goddess enjoyed a free and joyous sexuality. Cycling between True Blood and the mythology it recapitulates, we will explore the charged concepts and themes of sex and sexuality they illuminate: virginity, sex-roles and stereotypes, pleasure, initiation, the erotic, violence, dominance and rape, attitudes toward sexually autonomous women, the sacred sexual, etc. Persephone’s mysteries confront us with the divide between Goddess and patriarchal consciousness. Drawing upon 30,000 years of art, myth, histories and poetry, we will contextualize modern notions about sex and gender revealed in True Blood within the shift from egalitarian to dominator societal structure, explore woman and sex-positive cultures, and identify new models for sexual and body sacrality – both female and male.

My main challenge will be fitting all my content into the 15 minutes presenters are allotted! Think I can do it? I'm not convinced!!!

Feel like joining us deep in the heart of Texas this spring? Here's a link to the conference website for more info: http://www.swtxpca.org/

Back later...

~ Rachel

Contemplating a Different Kind of Jingle Ball...Celebrating Secession?!?

I listen to NPR; it's a great way to keep up with current events. While driving around the other day, I heard something on one of the afternoon shows that puzzled, and frankly, upset me: South Carolina, in the first of a four-year series of events planned to celebrate the state's decision 150 years ago to secede from the United States of America, held a "Secession Ball"  this past Monday.

Have you heard about this? It doesn't seem to have garnered widespread media attention - but I was able to find a piece in the Huffington Post covering the gala, "NAACP Protests 'Secession Ball' In South Carolina".
The article's title certainly hints at the controversial nature of the Charleston ball; protesters held up placards emblazoned with phrases like, "SC Suffers from the 'Confederacy of the Mind'", while supporters and attendees spoke to the desire to honor heritage, not hate.

What is your reaction to this? Clearly, the fallout from the Civil War and Reconstruction continues to reverberate; North and South alike must face and process this painful period and come to grips with how the issues that were germane to it are still a part of our lives today.

I, for one, would love to hear some diverse takes on this, from readers in different parts of the nation, and perhaps outside the U.S. Please weigh in on this one!

Remember a while back when I posted an image from the wall of Fangtasia - George W. Bush as a vampire taking a bite out of Lady Liberty? One of the points I was trying to make in that post is that True Blood is such a dense, multilayered show; like an onion, you can just keep peeling away layer after layer of skin and find something new underneath.

This issue of the "Secession Ball" reminded me of a powerful - though fleeting - image from Season One, Episode Five (I think), Sparks Fly Out. Do you remember the scene when, right before the Descendants of the Glorious Dead meeting got underway, two men came out with the Confederate Flag and placed it in a pedestal at the front of the church? The camera panned to Tara - the only African-American present as far as I could see (and certainly the only African-American woman in the all-white audience), and she was clearly impacted by the introduction and prominent display of this loaded symbol.

Here's that part of the scene transcribed, courtesy: http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56195

In the church, two older men place a Confederate flag onto a pedestal base, as Tara (perhaps the only African-American in attendance) watches wide-eyed, saying nothing. There is an empty seat to her right, and more on her left. Sam and Sookie make their way down the row of chairs.)

Sookie (to Tara): Hey, girl. Can we join you?

(Sam and Sookie approach Tara.)

Sam: Hi, Tara.

Tara (laughing nervously): Sure, come on in.

(Sam sits at Tara's left, and Sookie sits at Sam's left.)

look closely and you'll see the tension in this picture- recall that Sam recently
slept with Tara but still pines for Sookie; and Tara knows it 

Tara (to herself): Could always use more white people.

(Tara elbows Sam and he jumps)

I've got to go and make merry with my family (Rebecca will be there!) for the holiday, but when I come back, I'm going to be putting up some images from this scene, some quotes from the book "Regulating the Lives of Women" that I think are relevant to it, and posing some questions to ponder as visions of sugarplums dance through your heads on this Christmas Eve!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE PIERCED POMEGRANATE TAVERN!

OK, I'm back after a snowed-in Christmas weekend. Hope your holiday was happy! As I was saying...

TARA AND THE CONFEDERATE FLAG
What might this potent imagery and quietly- but powerfully - written and played scene say about the legacy of Confederate culture and slavery in the South, and how Tara confronts it?

Does Tara's relationship to symbols of the Confederacy like the flag differ than those of anyone else gathered for the DGD meeting? What are her experiences with the Confederate flag, and with her predominantly white friends and associates (and as of Season One when this scene took place, lover) as an African-American woman? What happens for Tara at the intersection of race, class, and gender in Bon Temps?

We can't answer all these questions in this post, but we can take on a few.

I wonder if Tara's relationship to Sam, and to Sookie, in the quasi-love triangle they found themselves in over the course of Season One, might have been at least in part informed or impacted by how "white colonial society simply denied the 'rights of womanhood' to black slaves" (Abramovitz, 1996) - particularly in the South.

In her book "Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present", Mimi Abramovitz deftly uses first-person narrative material to paint a devastating picture of what life was like for black women under slavery. They never had the right to legal marriage, family integrity, or protection from physical, sexual, or economic abuse. The brutality we associate with slavery - the beatings, lynchings, mistreatment, and more - was in many ways exacerbated for female slaves; they were vulnerable in ways male slaves weren't.

According to Abramovitz, the reproductive labor done by female slaves for their masters was indistinguishable from other kinds of labor. Especially after the slave trade was outlawed in 1808, plantation owners became increasingly interested in the inhumane "breeding" of slaves. The threat of sexual assault from white masters and overseers was constant. Virtually all of the slave narratives contain accounts of the sexual victimization of slave women. Although our modern sensibilities may be shocked or offended by the use of language in this slave's report, I think it's valuable for us to read her first-person account of the rampant abuse which originally appeared in "We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century" by Dorothy Sterling:

Ma mama said that a nigger 'oman couldn't help herself, fo' she had to do what de marster say. Ef he come to de field whar de women workin' an' tel gal to come on, she had to go, He would take one down in de woods an use her all de time he wanted to, den send her on back to work. Times nigger 'omen had chillun for de marster an his sons and some times it was fo' de ovah seer. (Abramovitz, 1996, p. 64)

Rape was institutionalized as part and parcel of slavery; black women's sexual integrity was crushed, their rights of motherhood denied, their choice all but removed when it came to sexual contact with white men. The child of a slave recounted what happened when his mother tried to choose:

I don't like to talk 'bout dem times 'cause my mother did suffer misery. You know dar was an overseer who use to tie mother up in the barn wid a rope aroun' her arms up over her head, while she stood on a block. Soon as dey got her tied, di block was moved an' her feet dangled, you know, couldn't tech de flo'. Dis ole man, now would start beaten' her nekked 'til the blood run down her back to her heels. I asked mother 'what she done fer 'em to beat and do her so? She said, 'Nothin 'other dan 'fuse to be wife to dis man'.

Under slavery black women often found them doubly victimized when white women took their wrath out on female slaves while their husbands, sons, and brothers continued to rape and abuse with impunity.

Now, we know that for a time slavery also existed in the North and racism continued here far after its abolition. We also know that despite the regulation of slavery, black family ties persisted, black slaves- both men and women - resisted their subordination' they escaped slaveholders, carried out uprisings, deliberately withheld their labor, and taught themselves to read in clandestine "midnight schools" often run by women. I am not for a moment suggesting that black slaves, or African-Americans living in the South or other part of the U.S. today should be seen only - or mainly - as victims. What I AM suggesting is that we face the painful history of slavery and we must consider how its legacy still impacts and influences life in our nation.

We see some of this in Tara's character development and story arc; she is depicted as a strong women who is self-educated, she has directly challenged men - Bill over the issue of slavery in his family, Sam over what she perceives as his racism in their sexual relationship (which he may well be blind to), and Andy and Bud over what she views as illegitimate police power.

Is it unreasonable to think that her sexual relationship with Sam might be problematized due in part to the history of female slave's sexual exploitation by white men?

SOCIAL CONTROL OR CHANGE?
Maxine Fortenberry admonishes that Adele Stackhouse hadn't really thought through the idea of booking the church for this particular DGD meeting, since the guest of honor was a vampire who might just sizzle up like a slab of fat-back bacon when he caught sight of the big cross at the front of the room. But maybe, just maybe, the church as venue was more thought out and purposefully planned (not by Gran, but by the writers, of course) to send a message of social control.

Could it be that the church as institution- and all the symbols of religious tradition housed within which condition us and to a certain extent mold our ideas and behavior (even if we are not personally religious, since we live in a society deeply rooted and soaked in Judeo-Christian tradition)...

...like the altar bearing the words from scripture which recall Jesus' sacrifice and the sacrament of communion commemorating it, juxtaposed with the DGD sign featuring the Confederate flag as a reminder of yet another sacrificial body - the rebel soldiers killed in battle - and the cross, here draped by yet another powerful symbol of patriotism, the American Flag...

...be set up here as legitimizing devices for the maintenance of the status quo - the version of the social order that the DGD so fondly recalls?

Adele told Mayor Norris she didn't know why Bud Dearborne felt compelled to wear his Sheriff's uniform to the DGD meeting. Could it be that True Blood's writers wanted the friendly lawman to bring a tacit expression of state power to the DGD by having him wear his uniform, which is emblematic of law and order?

We may be onto something with the theme of seemingly benign reassertion of social order and control. Let's take a look at surface-level appearances. Certainly Adele Stackhouse, the organizer of this event, is a beloved figure for many reasons and a model of welcoming and tolerance in Bon Temp; the grandfatherly Mayor Norris - although slightly wary of Bill's vampiric presence - does not seem to be a bigot...

...and looking out over the (overwhelmingly white) faces of the DGD attendees one may be inclined view this as a celebration of family and community history as opposed to the uplifting of racism.

And yet, the Confederacy it celebrates had in its very constitution a clause outlawing the banning of slavery; it was an inherently stratified (and often brutal) society built upon the backs of people who were owned as chattel. 

Here we see the people of Bon Temps casting a nostalgic eye towards this past, perhaps earnestly wishing to find themselves in the recollections of the gallantry and heroic deeds of their forebearers who bravely fought in what Adele called the "war for Southern independence". We've got to take pause to really think about the complexities of the impulse behind the DGD.

I think this scene beautifully illustrates the push-and-pull of old and new ideas and social constructions; of changes happening within the community and within the larger society even as some try desperately to hold onto the past.

Remember when Royce and company made their entrance to the DGD meeting, commenting that everyone assembled looked so old; to paraphrase, they thought they were there for vampires, not the descendants of the walking dead? In this seemingly throwaway turn of phrase, the DGD and its aging membership is cast as a dinosaur, a quaint if irrelevant relic from another time. Could this be a comment on the place of the most damaging of the ideas that formed the backbone of the Confederacy in the New South - a fading remnant?

Could it be that having Bill Compton, both "Other" (vampire) and "one of us" (founding citizen of Bon Temps) at the front of the congregation, speaking from the pulpit, was True Blood's way of suggesting that perhaps Southern society is wrestling with its history and identity - it can be at once old and new, rooted in legacy and facing the future, and that things, people, and whole cultures can, and do, in fact, change?

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION (AND IDENTITY, AND BACKGROUND, ETC...)

These are the musings of a white woman from the North of a certain age and background. We need diverse voices to round out this conversation. Please lend us yours!


~ Rachel

References

Abramovitz, M (1996). Regulating the lives of women: Social welfare policy from colonial times to the present. Boston: South End Press. 

Raise a Glass to Real Grrrl Power: Women in Solidarity Part II - Theme 1 - of Mothers and Daughters

Confronting "Girl-On-Girl Combat"
In Part I of this series I outlined some questions Naomi Wolf's Harper's Bazaar piece Girl VS. Girl raises about the nature of female conflict and rivalry:


• Is it inborn or are we socialized to engage in emotionally devastating struggle with one another?
• Are there alternatives or other ways of being?
• What kinds of social conditions would have to exist for different relations between women to emerge?
• If this dynamic is based more in nurture than nature, who suffers most and who stands to gain by the way women are acculturated to be in fierce competition at all times?
• Are women's relationships distorted in the media and pop culture to insinuate a higher prevalence of rancor and social sabotage - and if so - who is getting their kicks at our expense?

How best to wade into the whirlpool of these questions?

I will tap into the twin wellsprings of True Blood and the surging movement of women's studies - scholarship, (and particularly feminist scholarship) in the areas of history, religion & spirituality, anthropology, archeomythology, linguistics, art, literature, and more. Bubbling up from both of these abundant sources are the stories, allegories, images, narratives, and analysis that can support us to:


• Understand contemporary women's relationships within the context of our prevailing (dominator) culture and to take a look at how its social structures (i.e. dating & courtship, career ladder, marriage, and family) can impact on a woman’s ability to maintain continuing, fruitful connections with other women

 • Explore the assumption that all women feel isolation and separation from or animosity toward other women; is it part of a larger trend towards conceptualizing women's experiences in universalizing terms that exclude diverse perspectives (i.e. women of color, indigenous women, etc.)

 • Seek representations of, or models for, the creative dynamic of women living in relation with one another; multigenerational patterns of connection, continuity, cooperation, and community amongst women to foster deepened insight into our relationships with each other at the personal, cultural, and archetypal levels

SO LET'S DIP INTO THE FONT, SHALL WE?

A Swimming Pool for the Metaphoric Mind

You remember my last posts' overview of the metaphoric mind, right? Well, to carry along the water metaphor I started above, what follows is a a virtual swimming pool for the metaphoric mind...and it ain't no kiddie pool, folks! 

No, dear friends, it's a near-bottomless well in which we can dive deep into select images that illuminate women's relationships on True Blood and surface with insight into the parallels that exist between the complex interpersonal dynamics and story arcs of the show's female characters and the art, myth, narratives, and histories of archaic cultures and living traditions that bring nuance to our ways of being and interacting with each other. Let's try to plug into our metaphoric minds and see where they take us...

No Simple Answers

Here's what this discussion isn't meant to be:

• An attempt to idealize women and our relationships with each other, deny our rivalry and conflict, or to paint us in broad, reductionist brushstrokes. After all, the feminine is no simple construct. I'm not saying Naomi Wolf has it all wrong; we women get along just fine all the time, thank you very much. To do so would deny the need to critically engage, interrogate, and challenge female conflict.
• An exhaustive, authoritative, or all-encompassing review or history lesson; it's a discussion of women's relationships organized around a sampling of True Blood images on the themes that stood out for me and the parallels that emerged from the historic and sociological record.
• An argument for the superiority of the mythopoetic worldview which speaks clearest to the metaphoric mind; it is a call to strike greater balance between this way of thinking and being and the linear-rational that dominates today.
• A call to retreat to the past. Even though many of the preeminent scholars of archaic Goddess-based cultures (Marija Gimbutas, Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Max Dashu, Riane Eisler, Vicky Noble, etc.) agree that the Neolithic and pre-Classical cultures which flourished in Old Europe and the ancient Mediterranean, Near, and Middle East showed all the signs of peaceful egalitarianism - no fortifications or caches of weaponry which would speak to the presence of war, no palaces which would indicate royal hierarchy or the existence of haves and have-nots but the remains of housing which evidences a comfortable quality of life enjoyed by all, and an artistic tradition which documents the free, joyous, and sophisticated societies our forebearers lived in - we can't, and shouldn't pine for a time machine that can take us back to those days. As Gadon (1989, p. 377) writes, "We cannot - would not - wish to return to some golden prehistoric age; but in reclaiming our lost heritage we can build upon the values encoded in the prehistoric survivals".
• A recommendation that we engage in cultural appropriation or a justification to think  - misguidedly - that we can graft some romanticized vision or version of other cultures or lifeways upon our own.

The main idea here is that WHEN WE ARE MET WITH...AND SEE THAT THERE HAVE BEEN - AND STILL ARE - ALTERNATIVES TO THE STATUS QUO, new paths open and we see that the way things are isn't the way they have to be.

We are washed out into floodplains of new and expanded human possibility in terms of women's relationships with each other. 

A Exploration of Women's Relationships Organized into 5 Themes

Here's the 1st theme:  

The Archetypal Mother-Daughter on True Blood: Themes of Separation and Connection

TARA & LETTIE MAE


Let's begin by looking at one volatile rendering of a most primal of female bonds; that of mother to daughter, which seemingly reinforces Shakti Woman author Vicki Noble's assertion, "The Feminine is fragmented, shattered, and scattered about the earth. Women have been isolated from one another" (1991, p. 3): Tara and Lettie Mae.

In her feminist reconceptualization of the Demeter-Persephone myth, Charlene Spretnak (1989) affirms the power of this original matrix and the fundamental importance of female relationships, asserting that the sacred story of archetypal Mother and Daughter long pre-dates the Christian deification of father and son; in the ancient Eleusinian (pre-Classical Greek) religion it was celebrated as an expression of the central human mystery.

The myth of Greek Goddesses Demeter and Persephone is the classic story of descent, death and rebirth, and of separation and reunion between archetypal Mother and Daughter (Austen, 1990).

Terracotta statuettes of Demeter and Persephone from Myrina, c.100 BC. British Museum
It's easy to see how much they cherish each other

In the myth's most well-known (patriarchal Greek) version, mother and daughter live together in a bliss state until Hades, God of the Underworld, rapes and abducts Persephone.

Demeter so mourns her daughter's loss that the world begins to wither.
Persephone finally returns to her mother, but because she was tricked into eating a few pomegranate seeds, she must go back to the underworld for part of the year, during which time winter reigns on earth above.



Austin (1990) posits that in the original mythology, Persephone chose to leave the paradise of life with her mother of her own free-will; perhaps she descended to the underworld to experience another side of herself like the Sumerian Inanna did, perhaps to gain wisdom from Hecate, the ancient Goddess of the Underworld.
 Either way, each version tells the story of descent and re-emergence, of separation from and reunion with the mother.

In her book Stories from the Motherline: Reclaiming the Mother-Daughter Bond, Finding Our Feminine Souls psychotherapist Naomi Ruth Lowinsky quotes feminist poet and essayist Adrienne Rich who reiterates the mother-daughter bond’s power:
Although there have been some poignant moments of tenderness between them, we have certainly seen more painful estrangement than deepest mutuality in Tara and Lettie Mae's relationship as they struggle to repair the frayed cord of their mother-daughter bond:

There is nothing in human nature more resonant with charges than the flow of energy between biologically alike bodies, one of which has lain in amniotic bliss inside the other, one of which has labored to give birth to the other. The materials are here for the deepest mutuality and the most painful estrangement. (1992, pg. 53) 

 

Lowinsky's (1992, pp. 34-35) vision of the pain and separation that punctuates the mother-daughter dance mirrors Tara and Lettie Mae's relationship:

We are all born of deeply wounded mothers...In listening to the stories from my patients' Motherlines, I can usually trace the deprivation or anger back for generations...They look at their daughters with the hatred they feel for their own female selves, and profoundly stunt their daughter's development.

Video courtesy of YouTube user kathchick7, thanks!

She continues, "In a great collective leap we distanced ourselves from the lives of our mothers and grandmothers...Mothers and daughters suffer a wrenching distance between them" (Lowinsky, pp. 28, 31).

Gadon (1989) writes that separation and reunion, the restoration of the primary relationship to the mother, is the great motif underlying the Demeter-Persephone myth. We have seen Tara and Lettie Mae cycle back and forth between separation and reunion; they seem in constant conflict and yet also seem to always - in one way or another - long for each other. Will we see their mother-daughter bond ultimately repaired and restored? Does this story arc comment on the value our society accords the mother-daughter bond, or women's bonds in general?

JESSICA

As Jessica's ties to her family of origin - and to her biological mother - give way to the new blood tie between she and her maker/father figure Bill, Season 3 of True Blood finds her involved in a trio of pseudo mother-daughter relationships that speak more to separation and strife than to connection:



Arlene tries to ward Jessica off

What is she so afraid of? Is she fearful because Jess is a vampire,

or is it something else altogether?

Demeter and Persephone were so closely linked that they were simply known as "The Two Goddesses"; as Gadon (1989) writes, in the early 5th century B.C.E. bas-relief to the left, mother and daughter are nearly indistinguishable in appearance - the maiden is characterized only by the flower she carries, the mother only by the fruit. The key to understanding the symbolic meaning of this image, as mother and daughter gaze intently - smilingly and knowingly, even - into each other's eyes, is that flower and fruit, narcissus and pomegranate, represent their respective roles. For Jungian Eric Neumann, the unity of Demeter and Persephone is the central content of the Eleusinian Mysteries; the goddesses belong together in their seamless transformation from one to the other. Gadon (p. 161) quotes Neumann, "the daughter becomes identical with the mother; she becomes a mother and is so transformed into Demeter. Precisely because Demeter and Kore (Persephone) are archetypal poles of the Eternal Woman; mature woman and virgin, the mystery of the Feminine is endlessly renewed.

Is it such a stretch to cast Arlene and Jessica similarly as archetypal poles? Think back to when Sam first hired Jessica - do you remember Arlene chastising him, saying something like, "you know there's only one redhead at Merlotte's!"?  Arlene sees a younger version of herself in Jessica, and when they're face-to-face in matching Merlotte's uniforms it's hard not to see a resemblance. Arlene fears being displaced by her "younger self"; a fear not entirely unwarranted in our youth-obsessed culture. Rather than embracing the vulnerable baby vampire, either as a young woman in need of a mother figure or as a symbol of the cyclical pattern of eternal rebirth, Arlene allows her fear to cast her into competition and conflict with Jessica.

Jessica's relationship with another potential surrogate mother figure; Maxine Fortenberry, her on-again-off-again human boyfriend's mother, doesn't fare much better (for different reasons), as these images attest:

 

 

 

Jessica yearns for mothering, and we can tell from her video blog that she'd like to think maybe she's found it (what she herself refers to as a "big-sister-crush") in Pam - a female vampire she looks up to and turns to when in need and no one else is around to help her - but who is also a a party to Jessica’s stolen humanity - she too can be seen as a (begrudging) surrogate mother figure:

Here's Pam callously kicking Jessica into her grave...

And yet, Like Athena before her, Pam herself is a "daughter of man" who has and needs no mother.

Athena came into being after her father the Sky God Zeus killed the Goddess Mettis and swallowed her; from his head was born Athena, fully formed and girded for battle (Christ, 1997)

And so it is that the Goddess comes from God, female from male; like Athena born of Zeus, Aphrodite was born from the severed genitals of Ouranos (Christ, 1997), the ancient Egyptian God Ptah caused all the other gods to come into being through an act of masturbation, thus totally eliminating the need for a Divine Ancestress, and as the Judeo-Christian Adam and Eve story - which to a certain extend pervades the collective consciousness of today's Western culture - states, "For the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man" (Stone, 1976, pp. 227-228).

Not only does this kind of mythology deny the biological truth of birth (thinkers like Christ and Stone posit that this was almost certainly a political move undertaken by the molders of these revisionist myths as a shift from matrifocal to patrifocal social structure was taking place), but it also paints a very different picture of the importance of the mother-daughter bond than does the Demeter-Persephone myth: it totally subverts, refutes, and disavows it.

Does this type of thinking - that the mother-daughter (and by extension, the woman-woman bond) is inherently prickly, has little real meaning, and is therefore expendable - have any bearing upon today's female relationships?

SOOKIE & TARA 

What do Tara and Sookie as surrogate sisters have to do with the theme of separation and connection between mothers and daughters? True Blood offers us some images of them in close sisterly bond which radiates out - at least in part - from their orbit around the same mother figure: Gran.

The relationship between Tara and Sookie has its ups and downs - like relationships between any sisters (Rebecca and I included) or very close friends usually do - but despite their differences and the trouble that always finds them they are joined by a deep mutuality. Their relationship sometimes comes to blows over men but it is never minimized or overcome by the men in either of their lives.  

They (try to) keep each other real!

   

Their caring for each other is born of the love they shared with and received from Gran, the same woman who was not their mother but to varying extents played that role for both of them from their childhood.

Lots to think about, huh? So what do you think?

If you'd like to explore my take on the Archetypal Mother-Daughter bond, which (as evidenced in the images from True Blood we see here) can manifest through a connection we have with a woman from our own bloodlines, or with a woman of an alternative or chosen lineage such as an adopted, surrogate, spiritual, or mentor mother figure further, you might be interested in checking out a paper that I presented at a conference on spirituality and social work in Canada in 2008: Re-Imagining the Myth of Demeter and Persephone: Exploration of the Constructs of Marriage and Nuclear Family  

In it, you'll find a practical guide for tracing the Motherline, which is what Lowinsky describes as a name for a pattern, for the oneness of body and psyche, for the experience of continuity amongst women. She conceptualizes it as a central organizing principle in the psyche of women, "like the stem and the roots of the tree of life, through which a woman is related to the ancient earth of female procreation" (p. 4).

Whether or not we feel a close connection to our mothers, whether or not our mothers are still living, the Motherline heritage this is passed down to us, or that we choose to subscribe to, can provide a rich exploration of our deepest selves. Tracing it might open new windows on the concept of female rivalry and conflict.

 

In the next installment, I'll look at images of  women's relationships in True Blood and their parallels in the art, stories, narratives, and histories of the past and present in the context of these themes:

• Female Competition Manifested in the Classic Love Triangle
• Women Sharing Support, Connection & Compassion
• Female Allies, Helpers & Guides
• Women United in Ritual

Bye-bye for now!

~ Rachel

References

Austen, H. I. (1990). The heart of the goddess: Art, myth and meditations of the  world’s sacred feminine. Berkeley: Wingbow Press 

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess.  New York: Routledge

Gadon, E. W. (1989). The once and future Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 

Lowinsky, N.R. (1992). Stories from the motherline: Reclaiming the mother-daughter bond, finding our feminine souls. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Spretnak, C. (1989). The Myth of Demeter and Persephone. In Plaskow, J. & Christ, C. P. (Ed.), Weaving the visions: New patterns in feminist spirituality. (pp. 72-76). San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Stone, M. (1976). When god was a woman. New York: Harcourt, Inc.