#where even if he's interviewing he's not going to be emotionally connected to lestat in the same way

[silverity]

Gabrielle in the Interview with the Vampire books is one of my favourite female characters.

Born and raised in 1700s France, as a noblewoman her life is restricted to marriage and motherhood. She ends up in a marriage she was never truly satisfied by, and she was never really maternal enough to take to motherhood. She is described as somewhat cold and emotionally closed-off. But she does love her children, particularly Lestat who reminds her of herself (a son she lives through), and so for them she tries to provide what they need of their mother. We see her grow old, weary, and sick from the effects of multiple childbirths, and get the sense she hasn't truly lived a life of her choosing.

Before she can die from sickness Lestat turns her into a vampire, essentially a supernatural reversal of his own birth where instead of his mother bringing him to life he brings her into the living dead. This frees her of all the bounds of human society. We first see her as a vampire having changed into men's clothing, having refused the option of a new dress. Later she is described as always dressing like an explorer. Whereas Lestat still enjoys human society and entertainment as a vampire, Gabrielle does not, preferring to adventure off all across the world into the wilderness alone and survive from the sun by slumbering in the dirt. She returns only to maintain some connection to Lestat.

"Come with me, Lestat," she said. "By day I sleep in the sand. By night I am on the wing as if I could truly fly. I need no name. I leave no footprints. I want to go down to the very tip of Africa. I will be a goddess to those I slay."

I thought this was an incredible portrayal of an oppressed female character gaining, for the first time in her life, autonomy, individuality and ultimately freedom. The freedom to explore is something women have fantasised and written about throughout history and literature. It just so completely resonated with me that this woman would care nothing for luxury or status, even though she was born wealthy, because in her mortal life this was inseparable from her oppression as a woman. That, yes, she would prefer to completely abstain from society, a society that holds nothing for her since she would be restricted to the roles forced onto her as a woman. That she would feel so much contempt for man-made civilisation that at times she even advocates its destruction:

She shrugged.

"When the world of man collapses in ruin, beauty will take over. The trees shall grow again where there were streets; the flowers will again cover the meadow that is now a dank field of hovels. That shall be the purpose of the Satanic master, to see the wild grass and the dense forest cover up all trace of the once great cities until nothing remains."

"And why call all this Satanic?" I asked. "Why not call it chaos? That is all it would be."

"Because," she said, "that is what men would call it. They invented Satan, didn't they? Satanic is merely the name they give to the behavior of those who would disrupt the orderly way in which men want to live."

I write all of this because I see people now in this modern era of "gender identities" class Gabrielle as "trans masc", a person with a "masculine gender identity". I find that so abhorrently regressive to our understanding of the experiences of women throughout history, and contrary to Anne Rice's own written words on the page. Women throughout every era of history have always defied and resisted their dehumanisation. To class one resisting their sexual dehumanisation as "internally male" only reinforces it, only reinforces that any expression of humanity must make a person in some way male, that women possess no humanity. Interestingly, this was quite often the attitude of the Church. Women who earned sainthood through great heroic feats were classed as "spiritually men". Good job to everyone for reinventing the patriarchal wheel.

But honestly I truly have no idea how people can read Gabrielle's story, with passages like the above, and conclude she must have a "masculine gender identity". Her story to me is so quintessentially a story of womanhood. You can't understand it any other way. She does not "transition into a man". She transitions from a woman confined to a woman now free. Even more so, a woman now truly empowered, possessing great supernatural powers, such that she compares herself in her own words to a Goddess. She has, like many women throughout history, desired the freedom, humanity and agency afforded to men, not manhood itself. The wearing of men's clothing during a time only men were free beings expresses this, not some internal "masculine gender expression" people in the present like to believe in. Instead of "masculinity" her clothing is an expression of her humanity and her newfound freedom.

[i-want-my-iwtv]

Is it just me, or are most people in the VC fandom women? (Not saying I mind, I'm just legit curious if and why.)

(Reminder: I am/was not a gender studies major, nor a student of fandom. This is just an entertainment blog and all that follows is my opinion only.)

This is a highly sensitive topic that people study academically for many fandoms, and I will hardly do it justice here. But I felt it was important to share what I can, anyway. Some links are under the cut for further reading about this topic, even though they do not apply to VC fandom specifically.

The short answer is that, from my experience, yes, most ppl in the VC fandom seem to be women. This is based on the past 20 years of AR’s booksignings I’ve attended, online communities, interviews/articles over the years, AR’s FB (her own posts + comments from her People of the Page), and AR’s Twitter. However, I would add that she absolutely does have fans who are men, NB, agender, genderqueer, transgender, etc. It would be difficult to do a thorough demographic study of all of her fans (current/past/specific time period(s)/etc.), so I wouldn’t know what portion of the fanbase is made up of women.

Let’s take a brief look at our superfan from movie!IWTV:

^What is superfan thinking? Does she think Santiago is a REAL VAMPIRE? Does she want to die? … or, is she simply a groupie of that media and enjoying it as a fantasy situation? We don’t get her backstory in the movie, so we may never know.

^Santiago has had to deal with hecklers and admirers for years so he’s not really fazed by her disrupting his show, and when he shuts her offer down, it draws a laugh from the audience. Laugh at the fan who confessed her love for the fantasy of it all and offered herself as tribute. 

Before we specify why women are in VC fandom, one thing to consider is What is fandom? In my opinion, it’s a group of people who are drawn to a shared space bc of a shared interest in specific media. Within that, you still have to reach out to individuals in order to become friends. You don’t necessarily have to agree on every aspect of the media you each enjoy, but having chemistry certainly helps. Participating in fandom can also mean creating/consuming fanworks without having any personal connection with other fans. Sometimes it’s just in posting fic and/or leaving kudos. Some join a skype chat group so that they focus primarily on their personal connections with other fans. It’s a wide spectrum and there are different ways to engage with other fans within a fandom.

Why VC fandom? We all have our reasons for being in VC fandom. I would prefer not to speak for other fans as to their reasons, but everyone is welcome to respond in the comments/reblogs of this post, or message me on/off anon, and I might gather up those responses and add them to this post. 

Why I was drawn to VC: Personally, I’m a woman, and I’m in this fandom bc the canon/fanon is intellectually stimulating to me. I’ve made some of my best friends here. We share a love for these characters and we discuss them at length. This does not mean we 100% support everything the characters do in canon. We enjoy them as fictional characters, not necessarily as role models.

Secondly… I had posted a personal account about my reasons for being into VC canon, but later deleted that post bc I was informed that my reasons weren’t acceptable. That VC was not for straight women. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ll briefly tell you my reasons for being attached to VC, under the cut. 

Brief historical context:

These books are/were written by a straight white woman, and she’s always advised her fans to “write the book you want to read.” She currently writes for herself, presumably, as she does not use an editor in the traditional sense. She began VC in the early 1970s with the short story, “The Master of Rampling Gate” (which eventually became the full novel IWTV). The short story was published in Redbook magazine at the time, which is/was a magazine for women, and the short story was written in the vein (pun intended!) of the older gothic romance novels that were extremely popular in the ‘60s. 

^In fact, this edition of IWTV is straight-baiting, as the only female love interest that Louis might have gotten into that physical position with would be Babette, and that… definitely doesn’t happen.

IWTV is a dissection of Louis’ feelings, and Louis was a stand-in for Anne herself. VC in general has a lot of emotion, both in the dialogue, and the introspection woven into the narrative itself. The fact that these books are mostly written from the 1st person perspective is a very intimate means of communication to the reader, and makes the novels that much more emotionally rich. Some might say that such emotional writing tends to appeal to women.

The books are intimate. There is a constant thread of intimacy throughout which seems to appeal to women of all sexual orientations, in my opinion. I started the series with IWTV when I was 11 yrs old and I’ve heard from other fans of other genders that they also started VC when they were young, even around the age that I did. Being right before puberty, maybe that adds some extra addictive quality to it, that it explores a kind of intimacy when we’re in the phase of life where we’re just becoming interested in sexuality. I remember mooning over pics of Brad Pitt in my table group at lunch, and we would talk about him, but I doubt any of us would have wanted to actually kiss him at the time, we just wanted to speculate about dating and romance!

After the first book, the intimacy continues with TVL, where we get Lestat’s backstory, and as the series progresses, it just keeps going. Whichever book new VC fans enter the series, they’re going to hit that vein, more or less. It’s not as strong in the most current books, but it’s still there. I would say that AR found that the way she wrote the first 2 books was so well-received that she felt validated in her style of writing, that it was appealing to her readers, and continued to produce it.

There’s also quite a lot of wealthporn, where the characters describe their expensive clothes, jewelry, or lavish surroundings, none of them have to hold a dayjob or anything menial like that. Since many of us do not currently enjoy such luxuries of material goods and/or freedom of leisure time, it’s another element that might make it appealing to certain demographics. There’s a ton of wish fulfillment in the books. 

Hit the jump for a little more.

My reasons for being into VC

Basically, I was bullied when I was 11 (for having a bad fashion sense and bad teeth), which is right around the time that someone gave me a copy of IWTV. I had always loved horror novels and scary stories as a way to study monsters and see if I could unpack them and better understand them. I drew inspiration from the way the VC characters handled their own obstacles, I loved getting Lestat’s backstory, he was not just a colorful antagonist, he had his own reasons for acting the way he did. Reasons are not EXCUSES, but in understanding monstrous behavior, we can equip ourselves to weather it when we see it in real life. Eventually, I got braces, grew out of my 90′s grunge phase, and while the bullies changed form over time, I learned how to deal with them. 

Could I have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/music? Yes! And I did. But VC, for the intimacy of the stories, for the vibrancy of the characters, for so many reasons that I can’t go into on a post I’m trying to keep brief… this is a piece of media that I’ve held onto over the years. Not the only one, but certainly the main one, for me.

A few good posts to check out re: women in fandom:

And I don’t mean to attack you, Anon, but these posts are written with a tone because there is so much criticism of what women in fandom are not allowed to enjoy. Please read at your own risk, but they have some very good points about why women might be into certain things in fandom.

a comprehensive guide to mlm shipping habits in transformative fandom

THE DEPTHS OF MISOGYNY THIS PLACE PLUMBS

villain-relatable marginalization