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lkh_lashoutsHi 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/
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/
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