race in the laughing corpse and in obsidian butterfly

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

Hi everyone --

I recently wrote two posts on race and gender as they're handled in the first 8 books of the series. I ended up focusing on The Laughing Corpse and Obsidian Butterfly. Here are some direct links to each post with a quick teaser. :)

Obsidian Butterfly — Laurell K. Hamilton
My goal when I began rereading the Anita Blake books was to finally write up a post centering on Obsidian Butterfly. I wanted to talk about how OB stood out as an awesome treatment of mixed race issues. Because it takes Anita out of her surprisingly monoracial St Louis context, and plunks her down in the middle of New Mexico, you’d think there’d be tons of discussion of Anita as a mixed race Latina. Since the plot revolves around Aztec mythology, you’d also think there’d be something on the various ways indigenous beliefs inform mainstream faith experiences as well as understandings of history.

Yeah, no.
http://thehathorlegacy.info/books/obsidian-butterfly-lkh/

The Laughing Corpse — Laurell K. Hamilton
A curvy trail of rationales leads Anita to the door of Dominga, the “grandmother of voodoo,” a woman who’s feared all over because of her magickal skills. She’s also incredibly evil, and will do anything for money, including some really unscrupulous things involving human sacrifice. She’s everything Anita’s not… including totally Mexican. Anita describes her as “the Mexican grandmother of [her] nightmares” (265), and Anita’s differences from her (Anita’s Christianity, her inability to speak Spanish, and her scruples) are all emphasized as crucial signifiers demarcating the line between a particular type of “Latin darkness” and the deracinated, supernatural cowboy identity Anita performs as the Executioner of the undead.

http://thehathorlegacy.info/books/the-laughing-corpse-laurell-k-hamilton/

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, in OB I read that conversation with Bernardo as his being jealous of the fact that she doesn't have to question her white privilege, not so much the fact that she's white. Or maybe even angry-- I'm pretty familiar with the anger at clueless white folk, and especially at clueless white folk who also happen to be mixed race.

...But it could be that I grew up as a white Cuban and questioned my ethnic identity all the damn time so what he was saying didn't sound like he was validating Anita by envying her at all. Rereading it, though, makes me feel seriously icked out.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

as a white puerto rican i've done the same damn thing MY whole life.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

The issue of passing is so fascinating, and there really isn't much written about characters who pass for white so there was so much that could be done with the idea. It disappoints me that LKH mucks it up so badly. I don't understand Anita's issues of passing and still being "other"-- many person in my situation seems to feel just the opposite (they don't feel authentic/are angry about being "just another white person"), or they feel othered culturally.

It's not like I expect everyone who writes books to always touch on these issues, but I at least expect them to understand what it's like enough to, you know, write them believably.

ETA: Forgot to add that I'm glad I'm not the only one who does the whole questioning thing.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

oh, totally. i live in nyc and at least here it's slightly easier...but at the same time it's like...you're not good enough for either. being both is like being neither.

let's be friends? :-)

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

it's faith and giles from season 8 buffy comics. they're supposed to look avengers-esque :D

[othellia.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought as well. XD

[ladyvy.livejournal.com]

but at the same time it's like...you're not good enough for either. being both is like being neither.

I totally understand where you're coming from there. As a Haitian-American, I have to be good enough to be both. I can't say that I'm black since that connotation leads someone to infer that I'm African-American, which I do not identify with. Being Haitian gives me an entirely different history and heritage. And being the first in my family to be born in America, makes me American. So in the end, I have to be good enough to be American (such as no ethnic accent when conversing in English) and be Haitian enough as well (knowing the old sayings, knowing my history, speaking Creole fluently with an accent-- the family's from Port-au-Prince). It was so hard when I was younger because I was so different. I hated it. Now I embrace it. I'm glad to have my own niche being unique give me my mark in the world.

It's strange talking about this because I know that my kids will go through the same thing one day when I have them. They'll have it a little harsher than I in the fact that they're truly going to be biracial with my boyfriend being Irish, Italian, and German.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

but damn, will they be pretty ;-)

yeah, it's totally weird. then, on top of that, there are the issues within the race due to oppression from without. sometimes i feel like other women of color have more against me than if i was just white (i'm mixed, but since both parents have puerto rican ancestry i consider myself puerto rican). we've internalized that "oh, you got that good hair" all across the board and it hurts because we hurt each other i hardly feel "white" though i realize my skin color does lend me certain advantages.

hopefully, your kids will have it easier as the world IS changing, albeit slowly.

and, i repeat, they will be AWESOME looking! :)

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Sure thing!

And "being both is like being neither" is such a good way to phrase it.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

that's what i actually felt the first time i read it! i was originally going to talk about OB as the book that gets anita's ambivalence about race really out there, as well as having her actually VOICE that ambivalence. rereading the first books back to back really shocked me tho.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

thank you! :)

[hellozombies.livejournal.com]

I'm about to start my algebra class now, but I wanted to let you know that I mostly skimmed the OB post and that you are a wonderful analyst. :) It's good to see somebody picking apart the Anita Blake books in a way that you are.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

:blushes: aw, shucks. :)

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

i lovelovelove that someone finally picjked apart OB in this way. I'm so pissed at the way anita treats being mixed race and the random way lkh chose to make her such just because of the phenotype traits. *fume*

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

thank you! :grins:

[lilacwire.livejournal.com]

Very interesting articles. I'm very glad to see some critical thought on this series rather than the usual "hate hate hate" it seems to get.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Yay you posted it! You posted it!

*dances and capers*

My original comments saying this would also all be prefect for Lashouts is here (http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/240303.html?thread=1615791#t1615791).

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

hee! thanks for the suggestion! this looks like a fun comm. :)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Great close readings!

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

thank you! :)

[belledewinter.livejournal.com]

Also, Dominga means boob.

No, really. In Spanish when you talk about someone's 'domingas' you refer to their boobs. XD

PS - Yeah, I know it's a proper name and all of that. I just thought it was funny considering how sex-obsessed LKH seems.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you giggled too!

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you posted the links to these. It seems like we do alot of point-and-laugh at LKH's books. We're snark-driven, I know, and these books just beg for ridicule on many levels. Admitting that, I crave meatier posts sometimes. Posts exactly like this. *Thank you* for sharing these.

Anita's ethnicity has always bothered me. The idea of her (and Manny, and Dominga) using voodoo instead of the many other options in Mexican/Central American mythology and actual cultural practices that fit better is a pet peeve of mine. Also Anita's supposedly tell-tale signs of ethnicity aren't actually very telling. Why anyone assumes she is latina at all never made sense to me.

All (unless I've forgotten a minor char) the people of color in this series have sketchy morals, are subservient to Anita (either officially or by romantic interest), or turn out to be evil. Then again that last sentence might be true of all the characters in these books anymore. :s But it was especially true of the non-white characters early on. I wish I had time to make a longer comment. Thanks for so much food-for-thought. :)

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

I also don't understand why LKH seems to think that black curly hair = Spanish heritage. I'm a Dominican immigrant living in the US and everyone assumes I'm GERMAN because my skin is white despite my long black hair and I have a cousin who has green eyes and blond hair. Even if you remove her creepy theme that being a minority is some sort of shame, her ideas about how much people's LOOKS are connected to their ethnicity is pretty stupid. I bet she thinks that ALL black people are African.

[ladyvy.livejournal.com]

The idea of her (and Manny, and Dominga) using voodoo instead of the many other options in Mexican/Central American mythology and actual cultural practices that fit better is a pet peeve of mine.

I second that opinion. When I was first told about the AB series, my best friend Katie was like, "Oh it has voodoo in it, you'll love it." Being that she was white and I was the first person she'd met that was Haitian and actually knew a thing or two about the heritage. Katie thought that this would help us bond on some level as we're both avid book readers. (Don't worry LKH didn't ruin our friendship, lol.)

I was so excited to read some paranormal stuff that dealt with voodoo. Hardly any deals with voodoo that's accurate. So I read the story and chalked up the voodoo debacle as a typo because I liked the writing. But several books later I could take it no more. Now I realize that there's just no excuse, LKH is just lazy when it comes to research.

[rfienneslover.livejournal.com]

LKH is just plain lazy.

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

I wonder if LKH herself is of mixed ethnicity or race. She probably is since her heroines both are. Merry is half human/half fairy, which is a constant source of annoyance in the Merry books. or were back when I was reading them.

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

I suppose this means LKH cannot speak Spanish either.

[lovedstrangely.livejournal.com]

is she really? i had been wondering about that. i had heard she wasn't.

[sandit.livejournal.com]

LKH is not of any Hispanic descent, at least not that she is aware of.

Scroll down to the end of the 4th paragraph:
http://www.locusmag.com/2000/Issues/09/Hamilton.html

Anita is like her fantasy avatar. The chance to write herself into the "ethnicity" she wishes she had. The problem is that she knows nothing as to what an "ethnic's" life or culture is really like, and took no trouble to learn before she started writing.

Then she goes to a predominantly Hispanic area (AZ/NM) and finds it disappointing? Hmm, not terribly surprised by that, given that she was never really interested in the culture to begin with, just in her own naive fantasies as to what it might be like.

And srsly, is she so stupid she doesn't realize that white people come from ethnic groups too? I'm white, but I'm of Slavic descent and it was a huge part of my childhood before my paternal grandparents passed away. Unlike LKH, it actually gave me some basis for empathy with other people here in the USA who are trying to continue to express their original cultures, if not for the discrimination they may suffer when their ethnicity includes darker skin than mine.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

wow, thanks for posting this! i'd assumed she was filled some serious self hate, but actually she's just a bad writer.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

And srsly, is she so stupid she doesn't realize that white people come from ethnic groups too?

I'll have to let her pass on that one, just because I know so many other people who group whites the same way. Perhaps it's just this way since I live in a place where whites are a minority, but I've come across it a lot on the internet and when I travel as well. And... it just gets annoying when I'm expected to know and tell apart the differences between Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, but the people I'm around don't even know the difference between Eastern, Western, and Northern Europe.

I think it's a concept that I'd like to see more of in writings... if it was handled properly. (And I'm half-Slovenian, half Central European mutt, so yeah... go Slavic people.)

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

no, she definitely is very much into racial essentialism/stereotyping through appearance like that.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

it's a complete ignorance of history and race relations in mexico. :P it's a nationality, not an ethnicity.

[her-schism.livejournal.com]

I'm half Mexican, half mixed white (some english, scottish, norweigan, and russian jew), with dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin. I kinda relate with the non-connection that Laurell describes between the characters. I feel disconnected from the Mexican half of the family since I don't speak Spanish, am not Catholic (or Christian), or aquainted with the culture.

I did not notice the serious racial issues when I read the books, but now that you have highlighted them, it has become painfully obvious and makes me not angry, but certainly disappointed. One of the major selling points of the Anita Blake novels was that it could be a stand in for me even if it was supposed to be Laurell's stand in.

I did not know anything about Voodoo or Santeria or Brujeria when I began reading, and still only have the faintest idea of what goes on in these rituals, so I missed the complete cultural illiteracy in Bloody Bones.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

I'm half Mexican and half white too, but I got the dark hair, dark eyes, and tan/olive skin, so I found myself sympathizing with Bernando's reaction in OB: we can't "pass" as white. I also know no Spanish (mom moved to WI when she was 3 and was forced to learn English and forget her Spanish), which makes it awkward whenever I visit the family in Texas, or someone here assumes I can speak it. My old boss was Mexican, her son mixed just like me, but if you put the three of us together, everyone mistook me for her daughter, because he's over six feet tall, gangly, and white like his father with pale brown hair. And in our area of rednecks and racists, he's lucky as hell.

The books captured my attention mostly because of her mix (even if she doesn't look like me), but it still bothered me how she highlighted her looks as if she really stands out so much when she's pale, which was always ridiculous. OB was the only book where her racial standing actually truly resonated with me, though it was mostly through sympathy with her disconnection with Mexican culture, however badly done it was.