read your thoughts "elsewhere", @TriBel, and I particularly liked the bit about The Color Purple. I've also been wondering since reading #3 if there was a bit of a reference to Moonlight / "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" with Roux's hair changing color. It seems like it might fit with the "forbidden love" element and the construction of different outward identities to fit what's "expected" of us.
The Colour Purple!
😀 Grace - I can't believe I was so thick! And it took
@Priceless to point out
12 Years a Slave. Talk about missing the blindingly obvious! The Moonlight reference is quite feasible - there are film references (I'm sure the Daughters of the Dust reference will hold up). It they're not specific then I think they're shared tropes within African American culture. If you've read all the rambles over there you'll know I'm not the only one excited by this. To go back to Moonlight - one of the music references is to a song about St James Infirmary. The song itself has a really complex history and there's one version of the song which involves genders being inverted - so the male homosexuality would imply lesbianism - which ties in with Willow's comment at the end of BtVS 11. As I said, I think some of the references are to film - the difficulty is that some of the texts I mentioned are both novels and film. Not that it matters much because they've made this comic filmic by adding a soundtrack.
I noticed this yesterday - it's from the end of Baldwin's
I am not your Negro: "You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming
something monstrous yourselves. And furthermore, you give me a terrifying advantage. You never had to look at me. I had to look at you.
I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history".
I Am Not Your Negro (2016) Movie Script | SS
Roux of course - carries her history with her literally - she "glows" with it (which MIGHT be a reference to Spike). That aside, I think it's this sentiment that's conveyed by the mirror Roux gives to Giles. Perhaps the "family member" that returns is Ripper - or Giles from the series before he died? I'm not convinced the "powerwalk" on the S12 cover is real - it could be symbolic - or they could be characters from different timelines. Similarly, with the baby. I'm fairly sure it's referencing key episodes in the TV series. "Listen to Fear" (the stars Willow identifies are Canis Minor and Cassiopeia - dogs was easy - it was Pricey who spotted the Cassiopeia symbol on Roux's jacket), "Seeing Red" (we're being asked to "see Roux").
It might be worth checking this out (it's on Google books - and it mentions Buffy on the second page). "Octavia Butler's Vampiric Vision" by T. Robinson. " in
Vampires and Zombies: Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations edited by Dorothea Fischer-Hornung, Monika Mueller. I've just bought the Butler book. I've only read the beginning of the essay - which refers to slave masters as metaphorical vampires.
🙂
Can't say he's doing a good job at it...
And slavery =/= "exploring issues like race"
I totally disagree - on both points.
"The Clear Connection Between Slavery And American Capitalism"
{{meta.title}}
"In the last three decades, gender has become an indispensable category of analysis in the study of slavery in the Americas, illuminating both the day-to-day lives of enslaved and enslaving peoples and ideas about race and slavery. While studying gender means much more than studying women, the literature on enslaved women is especially influential, in part because of gender analysis's origins in women's history and in part because of women's central importance in slavery: women and ideas about them shaped slavery from beginning to end. This article discusses the origins of slavery, the gendered division of slave labour, reproduction in slavery, sexuality, enslaved families, black femininity and masculinity, mastery and white gender identities, and politics."
Oxford Handbooks - Scholarly Research Reviews
Marx: "Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks".
Vampire Capitalism: Fractured Societies and Alternative Futures by Paul Kennedy
😀 First chapter The Rise of Vampire Capitalism (and not a slayer in sight) I love this title given what might happen in S12.
There are clear connections between slavery, capitalism, gender and privilege (and vampires). That aside, as Grace says, it's only one aspect of her story. There's a reason we see Ebba and Roux in a factory - there's a reason the men are killed in the factory. There's a reason Ebba is paid more than Roux (racial discrimination and division of labour).
To answer your earlier question - the above exchange with Grace is why I like this text so much. Other reasons include:
Because as Nina Auerbach said “every age embraces the vampire it needs”. This was apparent in S7 and I thought it might be Spike through to the end. Now I think it’s Roux.
Because it looks as though it might just question the nature of the soul. Which is fine by me because everything we know about the soul has come from men.
Because of the way it cleverly roots itself in alternative tropes.
Because of what it has to say about the detective genre – and the way it uses this to question how we see and what we know.
Because of what it’s saying about intersectionality – it’s not just about race. It’s about class, gender and sexuality.
Because of its re-cursiveness. I’m intrigued as to where this is going. As far as I can tell, it’s taking us back to S7, possibly S6/S5. Are these stepping off points for a multiverse? IDK
Because of what it says about history – I think it’s moving from historicism to a messianic model of history - the revolutionary moment.
Because of how it might link into S12 and Fray. Is it Infinity Wars-lite? Will we see the (apple) seeds sown inside the (peach) Stones?
Because we might see more of Ripper.
