“You Smell Like Dinner”…and Sweet White Womanhood: True Blood S4 E2 Roundtable
Latoya: True – he looked almost young for a second
Kendra: re: kept woman… I’m not sure I would completely label her as that yet. She’s always been somewhat self sufficient– always has her man, sure, but she also had a job and a house. I really don’t think she’s going to give up that easily. She’s no Bella.
Latoya: @Kendra – I think she is. Her life is kind of at the whim of other [people's] grace.
Jordan: Eric has become the new Bill… old school paternalistic… I will make the decision and Sookie will come around…
Amber: Making himself right at home.
Latoya: @Jordan – Just like Jacob from Twilight
Amber: @Latoya …and Edward from Twilight. I think they both were pretty paternalistic. Remember when Edward removed Bella’s truck engine? A bit much?
Alea: @Jordan: Exactly.
Latoya: @Amber, yep, same dynamic
Alea: Aaaaaand Tara’s back into caretaking mode.
Jordan: indeed
Latoya: sigh
Alea: Damn.
Latoya: …yep, Sookie is really standing in for the kept woman! Why’d [Pam] have to sell [being possessed by Eric by saying he is] handsome and rich.
Jordan: there is an interesting ownership thread here… curious to see how they resolve it. Will she end up having to be owned to be safe?
Latoya : “He pulls good string?” Did she just infer…
Alea: Yes, she did, LP. Pam, in all her glamorous glory, is almost like a model for what can happen to those Eric takes under his wing.
Kendra: @Jordan/Alea As opposed to Jessica, who seems to be chafing against the housewife/monogamous relationship thread she’s got going with Hoyt
Jordan: indeed… jessica is literally locked in the house all day
Submission Through Virtue and Vice
Latoya: But back to Sookie…Bill is behaving indifferently, Eric is a bit crueler and more to the point about his manipulations…
Latoya: Could a large part of Sookie’s appeal be the fact that she was with another?
Kendra: Wanting what they couldn’t have? hmm.
Amber: Yes, I think so. It’s not just about protecting Sookie’s virtue. It’s also about owning it and being the only one able to access it.
Jordan: @amber yes. Eric is upfront about that… bill isn’t
Alea: Yeah, they’re both attempting to force Sookie’s submission.
Jordan: bill claims her loves her but Eric is clear about the fact he just wants to possess her
Alea: Even though Sookie isn’t pure faerie, she’s enough to be an exotic Other that men want to own.
Latoya Peterson: @Amber – Which, in some ways, ties into that pedestal white women are put upon. It seems like a privileged position, yet it can be yanked away at any moment. If Sookie loses her Fae side, she’s be a “fallen woman” – with all that entails.
Amber: Exactly and Sookie is beginning to realize that, which is why for the first time she’s realizing that she is running out of options. That conversation she had with Pam was a definitely a wake-up call.
Latoya: That goes back to that other thread I noticed – the kept women thing, which again, was a huge part of the Antebellum south
Kendra: @LP, her exotic/otherness might account for Sam’s initial interest in her and his choice in GFs/hookups once he’s done chasing after her. IE– the generally coded ‘exotic’ women of color.
Amber: But can Sookie lose her Fae side?
Latoya: What I’m inferring is that all the blood draining from Bill is pulling her Fae out.
Kendra: Claudine seemed to indicate that it could be taken.
Latoya: @Kendra – Yes. And Sam’s rage at not being able to possess her or compete in that way with the vamps…
Alea: @LP: Regarding, Sookie’s fall, Welter’s “The Cult of True Womanhood” describes the tenets of white womanhood as being purity, piety, domesticity, and submission. If one replaces piety with fealty, Sookie doesn’t really have anything going for her right now.
Amber: Gotcha. She’s “losing her light.”
Alea: Where she is right now reminds me of the desire that wealthy white men had for octoroons back in, like, 19th[?] century Louisiana. Ah, Wikipedia told me that they were called Quadroon Balls.
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