RSSS 315 Tier 2: Fourteenth Week

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RSSS 315 (Tier 2) Fourteenth Week

• Vampires and Werewolves Slavic Folklore in Our
  Culture

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An American Werewolf in London 1981

• John Landis, dir. (Animal House, Blues Brothers)
• Comic and creepy
• Key element the transformation
• Scare it could happen to anyone

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Davids transformation

• Multiple murders
• Waking in the zoo
• Realizing what he needs to do

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Meanings

• Something is wrong with David not normal
• Does Alex know?
• Nightmares meaning?

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What are his sexual interests?

• Jack articulates his
• Alex takes the initiative
• Does he like it?
• He only sleeps well (no nightmares) after hes
  been with animals
• Then realization hes got to move to the next
  stage

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The Next Stage

• Suicide?
• He says goodbye to family, he loves themand to
  Alex too
• She is a mother figure nurturing, relates well
  to children
• Ending failure to reach the proper maturity
  stage OR

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Ending successhe finds mature love, parents and
Alex

• And the beast within is tamed
• Maturity quest learn through pushing limits
• True love by a special kind of woman will change
  you from a beast

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Armand Chapters 11-13

• Two Christian traditions
• Fathers
• Ascetic traditions
• Sex with Bianca
• Writing lessons, reading lessons
• A night on the town

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Tanith Lee

• Wolfland (1980)
• Reprinted in Red as Blood or Tales from the
  Sisters Grimmers (1983)

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Red Riding Hood Issues

• Nature of evil
• Sexuality violence, curiosity, link with
  reproduction
• Otherness
• Avarice
• Intergenerational cooperation, rivalry,
  seduction, hostility
• Maturity stages
• Trust

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Interpretations?

• This modern version emerges as a tale about
  matriarchy written in defence against masculine
  violence and the order of society build upon it.
  Whatever the gothic setting, the
  werewolf-grandmother, who is definitely not
  "masculine and overpowering" nor sexually
  devouring stands for matriarchy as a humane and
  pragmatic order of society. The potential of
  intertext which operates in this tale is highly
  communicative and it is by no means tragic, as
  the genre would have required. Thus, as
  Jacobmeyer concludes, the postmodern scepticism
  against 'meta-conventions' gives rise to new
  forms of creation

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Features

• Matriarchy
• Husband dead, murdered
• Defense abused spouse issues

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More features

• Gothic setting
• Character reversal grandmother as wolf
• Not ordinary wolf werewolf bound by lycanthropic
  rules
• Intertext all the LRRH stories
• Humane and pragmatic order of society?

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Problems

• Is grandmother humane?
• What was her relationship with her husband really
  like?
• Abused woman syndrome
• S/M dimension
• Who/what is Beauty?
• Acceptable notion of male small, feminized,
  pet
• Accepts rough treatment without complaint

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Other Problems

• What kind of people/women are these two?
• Mean-spirited?
• Horror story? Or Story with a message?
• What is it? Revenge?

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Neil Jordan, 1950-
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Filmography

• Company of Wolves, 1984
• Interview with a Vampire, 1994
• Crying Game, 1992
• Good Thief, 2002
• Now Breakfast on Pluto

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The film.