At 7:26 AM 7/18/97, Erik Tsao wrote:
>Given the reactions I've read to Poppy Z. Brite's work I get the sense that
>people on this list don't like her as a writer. Contemporary horror
>fiction has been traditionally a male-dominated genre.
To dislike a particular writer is not to dismiss an entire genre (not that I'm
any great fan of horror.) And, there is a long, though possibly rather
neglected, tradition of women's horror writing (going back to the ghost
stories of the C19th): in fact, a case could be made that it's been one of
those fields which women created, and men then moved in on and made their own.
(e.g agriculture (joke?))
and S M Charnas replied [selected text]
>I don't like to see a woman writer criticized for "just doing what the boys
>do" as if she had no *right* to do it (and make a mint doing it) if she
>wants to.
>Of course on this list we are talking about something else: doing what >the
boys do in order to get the exact same woman-disdaining effect that >powers so
much of the boys' horror, as if sanctioning that nasty >misogyny (which maybe
she intends to do -- a sort of "I'm
>not a feminist AND I write whatever pernicious crap I damned please"
>attitude -- and maybe not).
And maybe she thinks it's everso feminist (or post-feminist) to be
transgressive: I remember reading an essay (? some years ago in, I think, SF
Eye) in which the (female) author was arguing that we had to get away from the
goody-goody heroine archetype: however, she seemed to be arguing that we
should just go for its reverse, as it were Kali instead of the Virgin Mary.
Which to me was just buying into a sets of stereotypes with a long long
history, not particularly liberatory/empowering to women, and not as
creatively productive as depicting women as interesting human beings with both
strengths and flaws.
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@msn.com
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