Analyzing urban fantasy: Sex, violence and the supernatural
by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said
Until I cracked my first urban fantasy book a couple years ago, I would have guessed that the genre was some sort of kinky Zane meets “The Lord of the Rings” thing. Not so.
Urban fantasy is a subset of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times or contain supernatural elements. Wikipedia…
The genre is also sometimes dubbed “supernatural romance.” At any rate: Fantasy…romance…those books are not generally my bag. But when the first season of HBO’s “True Blood” wrapped, I was jonesing for more sex, intrigue, female heroes and monsters, so I tucked into Charlaine Harris’ series that spawned the popular show. After quickly dispensing with every book in the Sookieverse, where a telepathic waitress and her neighbors in fictional Bon Temps, La., deal with the “coming out” of the world’s supernatural population, I moved on to Kim Harrison’s “The Hollows” series. Harrison’s world centers around a red-headed, leather-clad half-witch half-demon and her partners, a foul-mouthed pixie and a surly, bisexual vampire. Harrison’s nine volumes consumed, I sampled one Laurell K. Hamilton Anita Blake book before finishing the whole of her Merry Gentry series, which follows the exploits of a fae princess and her multi-hued band of lovers. (No, not black, white and brown–more like green, lavender and rainbow with the errant pointy ear or tentacle.)
I’ve developed a fondness for the urban fantasy genre. The books make fast, fun reads. But for me, someone who is drawn to issues of race and gender, even trashy, literary confections represent an opportunity for social analysis. As you may have guessed by the descriptions of some of the more popular urban fantasy series, the genre is all about creating new worlds with new societal norms. In urban fantasy, werewolves walk among us, Elvis really is alive (or undead) and the American Vampire League fights for the rights of marginalized former people. What I find curious, is that though their chosen genre frees them from the replicating the hierarchies of the real world, most authors of urban fantasy still manage to re-create common biases surrounding race, gender and sexuality.
For instance, the aforementioned series feint at subverting mainstream beauty standards–heroines may be ginger-haired, rather than blonde, short rather than statuesque, and much is made of their supposed physical “imperfections” (Rachel Morgan’s curly hair and freckles, Merry Gentry’s large breasts). But important female characters are generally white (or white identified in the case of Anita Blake), slim and young. And paragraphs are spent on the description and worship of their pale skin and its beauty. (The villains in Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series delight at threatening to mar the heroine’s pure, white skin.) Whiteness becomes fetish. Darkness is often equated with menace.
People of color are rare in the urban fantasy worlds I have explored. When present, they are one dimensional, sometimes stereotypical, and they often embody the “magical __________” archetype. (Think Keasley, Rachel Morgan’s elderly black neighbor) Women of color are even more rare than men, and they never, ever exist on an equal plane with the books’ white heroines.
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