You know, the first thing that comes to mind is that I would think that the Lestat musical could have been (and maybe the producers originally wanted it to be) as glamorous, heartbreaking, dramatic, and beautiful as the Hedwig stage production! But for many reasons, it wasn’t :-
I’ve seen the Hedwig movie several times and I love it, I also saw the stage production when the original Hedwig actor,John Cameron Mitchell, came back to do it again (2015, I think?). It was updated with more current references (Grindr or Tinder were mentioned), it was hilarious and angsty and Lestat would have loved to see it, if not be in it! ;D
But I also feel that there are many sensitive topics here. A major one being the gender issues, a very big element in Hedwig, and as I am not well-informed on the subject, I don’t feel that it’s appropriate for me to address it too much, but I’ll open this to anyone in the comments/reblogs on that.
As characters, yes, a lot of parallels can be drawn between Hedwig and Lestat, an essay could be written about that, I’ll open this to anyone in the comments/reblogs on that, too.
TL;DR: As this is a fandom blog for entertainment I’ll just say thatLestat’s an actor at heart and I think the role of Hedwig would be a challenge he’d love to tackle, for all the sensitive topics and for how much he would
probably relate to Hedwig’s story.
Sooo many good quotes that I think Lestat would find relatable:
Love the front of me, honey! – bc it’s Hedwig’s damage in the front. Lestat would be talking about his own damage (in the varying ways it manifests depending on your headcanon).
Eve just wanted to know shit.
The road is my home, and my home, the road. And when I think of all the people I have come upon in my travels, I cannot help but think of the people who have come upon me. Tommy, can you hear me? From this milkless tit you have sucked the very business we call show!
I have been having the most wonderful time with – do you remember that 45-year-old divorcee with the hair and the mean look? She came up to me after the show and I thought, “This lady wants a piece of me.” So I didn’t know what to do. I was alone, I had nothing in my hand, I was going to go for the eyes. She came at me from both sides, somehow, and she just gave me a fucking hug. She gave me a fucking hug. Can you figure? Can you fucking beat that? She gave me – also got a few drinks from it, as well.
I think the Origin of Love song works for both of them, too…
This is a tough question for many reasons. It’s hard to know what speaks to you about Vampire Fiction, it may be something different than what speaks to me. I think you should watch the movie again and choose a scene that you love!
As far as the “how that fiction portraits male and/or female characteristics,” I’m not sure what your professor is specifically looking for in that regard. Many of the VC vampires do not necessarily conform to gender stereotypes in the way that they act or present themselves. In the real world, gender presentation can vary widely historically and geographically.*
One example that comes to mind, for me, is Lestat’s turning of Claudia.
Lestat says in the book: “I am like a mother… I want a child!”Are men not equally capable of having that desire? Is it a female characteristic specifically? I don’t know the answer. But this is an example of a scene in which using the book would be better than the movie, because this line was not in the movie.
BTW, this line comes at the end of the often-quoted “Evil is a point of view” monologue, where Lestat talks about the vampires being like God. God creates life, and Lestat wants to do so, too. Is God necessarily female in this regard? I don’t know that either.
In the movie, Louis only tries to stop Lestat in one small, feeble attempt, by catching his hand before it starts, and Lestat places some of the blame on Louis by asking him, “Do you want her to die, then?” Movie!Louis seems to accept some of the blame by allowing Lestat to proceed in ‘giving Claudia another life,’ and we see Louis watch like a nervous father might watch his wife giving birth, with equal parts wonder and horror at the obvious pain involved.
In the movie, his wife had died in childbirth, was he present for that?
Does that then give Louis the male characteristics? This scene happened in a slightly different (but significantly so) way in the book, which I’m not going into since this is already a longish post.
Another example is when Louis carries Yvette out of the plantation house.
^In this scene, it’s evocative of the traditional image of a man carrying his wife across the threshold, away from her friends and/or family, into the home they will share together. Louis is doing it in reverse. He’s carrying her out of the house, bc he has killed her, and is now returning her to her friends and/or family. Later in the movie, Santiago tries to convince a mortal woman to become Death’s Bride. Yvette was one, for sure.
So I would say that Louis has the traditionally male characteristics here.
There is so much more to both of these scenes, in my opinion, but I think I’ll stop here bc I don’t know if you are also supposed to do analysis and I wouldn’t want to do your analysis for you! I hope that’s okay with you, and I hope this answer helped inspire you to choose a scene that speaks to you.
This interaction is one of the MANY reasons why I love this (Asta Nielsen’s) version of Hamlet.
So yes, that is Hamlet (left) and Horatio (right), and in this version, Hamlet is secretly a woman who was raised as a man to protect the royal family’s legacy.
The movie, in a vain and desperate attempt to avoid any implications of homosexuality, goes w the idea that Hamlet was secretly in love w Horatio (which…yea), and only pretended to love Ophelia for the sake of appearances.
And that would be all well and heterosexual, but Nielsen’s performance isn’t really that of woman pretending to be a man.
Honestly, this Hamlet feels way more gender fluid than *just* male, or *just* female. There’s flashes of both femininity and masculinity in the performance, making the whole thing waaaaay unintentionally gayer (always fun).
So, in this version, we actually get to SEE Hamlet and Horatio meet at Wittenberg.
Like, they get this whole little meet-cute scene where Horatio drops his quill and they both go to pick it up and their heads bump together, like in a romcom (I swear I’m not making this up, you can watch it on YouTube if you don’t believe me), which then leads to the part your seeing above this, where Hamlet basically just eye fucks Horatio for an entire scene.
What a piece of work is man, indeed.
(Reminder: I am/was not a gender studies major, nor a student of fandom. This is just an entertainment blog and all that follows is my opinion only.)
This is a highly sensitive topic that people study academically for many fandoms, and I will hardly do it justice here. But I felt it was important to share what I can, anyway. Some links are under the cut for further reading about this topic, even though they do not apply to VC fandom specifically.
The short answer is that, from my experience, yes, most ppl in the VC fandom seem to be women. This is based on the past 20 years of AR’s booksignings I’ve attended, online communities, interviews/articles over the years, AR’s FB (her own posts + comments from her People of the Page), and AR’s Twitter. However, I would add that she absolutely does have fans who are men, NB, agender, genderqueer, transgender, etc. It would be difficult to do a thorough demographic study of all of her fans (current/past/specific time period(s)/etc.), so I wouldn’t know what portion of the fanbase is made up of women.
^What is superfan thinking? Does she think Santiago is a REAL VAMPIRE? Does she want to die? … or, is she simply a groupie of that media and enjoying it as a fantasy situation? We don’t get her backstory in the movie, so we may never know.
^Santiago has had to deal with hecklers and admirers for years so he’s not really fazed by her disrupting his show, and when he shuts her offer down, it draws a laugh from the audience. Laugh at the fan who confessed her love for the fantasy of it all and offered herself as tribute.
Before we specify why women are in VC fandom, one thing to consider is What is fandom?In my opinion, it’s a group of people who are drawn to a shared space bc of a shared interest in specific media. Within that, you still have to reach out to individuals in order to become friends. You don’t necessarily have to agree on every aspect of the media you each enjoy, but having chemistry certainly helps. Participating in fandom can also mean creating/consuming fanworks without having any personal connection with other fans. Sometimes it’s just in posting fic and/or leaving kudos. Some join a skype chat group so that they focus primarily on their personal connections with other fans. It’s a wide spectrum and there are different ways to engage with other fans within a fandom.
Why VC fandom?We all have our reasons for being in VC fandom. I would prefer not to speak for other fans as to their reasons, but everyone is welcome to respond in the comments/reblogs of this post, or message me on/off anon, and I might gather up those responses and add them to this post.
Why I was drawn to VC:
Personally, I’m a woman, and I’m in this fandom bc the canon/fanon is intellectually stimulating to me. I’ve made some of my best friends here. We share a love for these characters and we discuss them at length. This does not mean we 100% support everything the characters do in canon. We enjoy them as fictional characters, not necessarily as role models.
Secondly… I had posted a personal account about my reasons for being into VC canon, but later deleted that post bc I was informed that my reasons weren’t acceptable. That VC was not for straight women. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ll briefly tell you my reasons for being attached to VC, under the cut.
Brief historical context:
These books are/were written by a straight white woman, and she’s always advised her fans to “write the book you want to read.” She currently writes for herself, presumably, as she does not use an editor in the traditional sense. She began VC in the early 1970s with the short story, “The Master of Rampling Gate” (which eventually became the full novel IWTV). The short story was published in Redbook magazine at the time, which is/was a magazine for women, and the short story was written in the vein (pun intended!) of the older gothic romance novels that were extremely popular in the ‘60s.
^In fact, this edition of IWTV is straight-baiting, as the only female love interest that Louis might have gotten into that physical position with would be Babette, and that… definitely doesn’t happen.
IWTV is a dissection of Louis’ feelings, and Louis was a stand-in for Anne herself. VC in general has a lot of emotion, both in the dialogue, and the introspection woven into the narrative itself. The fact that these books are mostly written from the 1st person perspective is a very intimate means of communication to the reader, and makes the novels that much more emotionally rich. Some might say that such emotional writing tends to appeal to women.
The books are intimate. There is a constant thread of intimacy throughout which seems to appeal to women of all sexual orientations, in my opinion. I started the series with IWTV when I was 11 yrs old and I’ve heard from other fans of other genders that they also started VC when they were young, even around the age that I did. Being right before puberty, maybe that adds some extra addictive quality to it, that it explores a kind of intimacy when we’re in the phase of life where we’re just becoming interested in sexuality. I remember mooning over pics of Brad Pitt in my table group at lunch, and we would talk about him, but I doubt any of us would have wanted to actually kiss him at the time, we just wanted to speculate about dating and romance!
After the first book, the intimacy continues with TVL, where we get Lestat’s backstory, and as the series progresses, it just keeps going. Whichever book new VC fans enter the series, they’re going to hit that vein, more or less. It’s not as strong in the most current books, but it’s still there. I would say that AR found that the way she wrote the first 2 books was so well-received that she felt validated in her style of writing, that it was appealing to her readers, and continued to produce it.
There’s also quite a lot of wealthporn, where the characters describe their expensive clothes, jewelry, or lavish surroundings, none of them have to hold a dayjob or anything menial like that. Since many of us do not currently enjoy such luxuries of material goods and/or freedom of leisure time, it’s another element that might make it appealing to certain demographics. There’s a ton of wish fulfillment in the books.
Hit the jump for a little more.
My reasons for being into VC
Basically, I was bullied when I was 11 (for having a bad fashion sense and bad teeth), which is right around the time that someone gave me a copy of IWTV. I had always loved horror novels and scary stories as a way to study monsters and see if I could unpack them and better understand them. I drew inspiration from the way the VC characters handled their own obstacles, I loved getting Lestat’s backstory, he was not just a colorful antagonist, he had his own reasons for acting the way he did. Reasons are not EXCUSES, but in understanding monstrous behavior, we can equip ourselves to weather it when we see it in real life. Eventually, I got braces, grew out of my 90′s grunge phase, and while the bullies changed form over time, I learned how to deal with them.
Could I have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/music? Yes! And I did. But VC, for the intimacy of the stories, for the vibrancy of the characters, for so many reasons that I can’t go into on a post I’m trying to keep brief… this is a piece of media that I’ve held onto over the years. Not the only one, but certainly the main one, for me.
A few good posts to check out re: women in fandom:
And I don’t mean to attack you, Anon, but these posts are written with a tone because there is so much criticism of what women in fandom are not allowed to enjoy. Please read at your own risk, but they have some very good points about why women might be into certain things in fandom.
Hello! This question, actually, is much deeper than it appears.
I’ve addressed it physiologically before, and originally, I was going to link you to that privately, but then I remembered a tattoo from years back (under the cut bc it was under a cut on the person’s blog), and it inspired me to make further considerations, more in the context of the purpose of a tattoo. In that secondary but equally meaningful aspect, I haven’t addressed what the tattoos represent to the ones who wear them, and why the erasing of a tattoo could be devastating to a fledgling vampire. (As always, this response is only about Ricean vampires.)
I’m answering this with good intentions, just the exploration of this deeper question and context. I’m not trained in the issues that I will touch on, but these are just my thoughts on the topic at hand, and not meant to be authoritative in any way, shape, or form. I invite anyone who has gotten tattoos or is thinking about getting them to share your thoughts on this, to get some more perspective.
PART I: The physical aspect:
I don’t remember any tattooed Ricean vampires in canon, so I can’t say definitively whether the tattoo ink would remain or not :- This may be a question for the author. For our purposes:
On the one hand, as @thebibliosphere added to one of my posts: “I treat vampires as just very long living humans, which means even tattoos fade over time as the skin cells regenerate.” [X] I’m inclined to agree. I also think a tattoo could be removed from vampire flesh “by scraping/cutting/etc. off the tattooed skin and letting it regenerate to its natural state).” as @skeletalroses put it [X].
HOWEVER! On the other hand, the ink could be flushed out along with anything else on the body that is incompatible* to the vampiric parasite at the time that the vampire is turned (*“incompatible” meaning “unnecessary,” like the bodily organs for solid food breakdown or whatever else that are flushed out). Is a tattoo, or the ink thereof, an “imperfection” also an “incompatible” thing? I don’t know. So would the vampiric blood erase a tattoo? It’s possible!
– PART II –
People get tattoos for a wide variety of reasons, here’s just a few (and the first three I’m asterisking & bolding bc I feel like those are the reasons that I didn’t address properly before, and I want to try do so, albeit in a limited way, further down).
*To change something about themselves bc they are unable to change a larger aspect of their lives, possibly they want to transition from one gender to another, and are not financially able to do so,
*They are in the process of changing
a larger aspect of their lives, maybe they are gathering more information about the processes in order to make informed decisions about transitioning, or are taking HRT and gradually seeing the changes, or they have a specific quote/motto that is helping them through the change,
*To show that they have MADE a change about themselves and want to commemorate/celebrate that change, maybe they transitioned genders, or accomplished a life-long goal,
For protection/good fortune/etc., – my cousin has a viking rune of protection
To be part of a group – symbols that indicate allegiance to a group or religion,
To advertise one’s interests – like getting a Superman logo might draw other fans of the character to you and strike up a friendship or more,
(Some ppl do get tatts purely bc they’re aesthetically pleasing)
Etc….
Those first three are my focus right now, and I have not undergone a life change of that magnitude so I do not wish to offend anyone by presenting any misinformation.
But I can speculate that it is a deeply meaningful body modification. In some cases, it’s the only body modification that can be made and it has tremendous value to the person who chooses to have it. On a related note, when ppl ask about vampires and hair dye, I think this may be a similar kind of body modification, something that one can do if they are unable to do the larger desired change.
>>So a mortal gets a tattoo, or several, that help them feel like they’ve made at least that change to their bodies, and it helps them, whether it’s for a change desired, a change accomplished, or a change-in-progress.
If that mark is erased when they become a vampire, what does that mean about the change that the tattoo was about?
Is it erasing the change
desired/accomplished/-in-progress?
If that mark is erased, is being a vampire a sufficient replacement?
What are the consequences of erasing that mark as it pertains to the change desired/accomplished/-in-progress?
What emotional impact would it have on the vampire that that mark was erased?
So when this question is asked, it’s also about the fact that when someone chooses to get a tattoo for the sake of representing CHANGE, will that representation of change last into eternity? Would the mortal WANT it to? Would they be devastated that it was gone? These are all considerations and I don’t have the answers.
On the other hand, and on a lighter note,
Does this mortal really want that conversation-starter of a Superman logo on their thigh for ETERNITY?
How frustrating would that be to be stuck with something they’ve decided they DON’T like and/or support anymore, and keep getting asked about it repeatedly??
It could make for some intriguing vampire emotional exploration. #NO REGERTS indeed.
Again, a tattoo that I remembered from years back, which inspired me to make these considerations, is under the cut bc it was under a cut on the person’s blog originally.
“A long-term study of children
raised by lesbians found that these children were less likely
to suffer from physical and sexual abuse than were their peers
who were raised by heterosexuals. This is thought to be due to
the absence of adult heterosexual men in the households (Gartrell,
Bos, & Goldberg, 2010). Girls raised by
lesbians tend to have higher self-esteem, show more maturity
and tolerance than their peers, and are older when they have
their first heterosexual contact (Gartrell et al., 2005, 2010). Children
raised by same-sex parents seem to be less constrained by
traditional gender roles; boys are less aggressive, and girls are
more inclined to consider nontraditional careers, such as doctor,
lawyer, or engineer (Gartrell et al., 2005; Stacey & Biblarz,
2001). Over the course of more than 20 years, scientists studied
the psychological adjustment of 78 teenagers who were raised by lesbian mothers. Compared to age-matched counterparts raised
by heterosexual parents, these adolescents were rated higher
in social, academic, and total competence, and lower in social
problems, rule-breaking, aggression, and externalizing problem
behavior (Gartrell & Bos, 2010).
There are fewer studies of children raised by two men, but gay
fathers are more likely than straight fathers to put their children
before their career, to make big changes in their lives to accommodate
a child, and to strengthen bonds with their extended families
after becoming fathers (Bergman, Rubio, Green, & Padrone,
2010).” ~ Martha Rosenthal, Human Sexuality: From Cells to Society, p.247.
That sounds like a great idea to me! I bet AR would be down, too, as much as she loves Shakespeare, the way his plays do that. As you say, it’s been done for a long time. Or a transman. I wouldn’t require the actor to be cismale.
^In Shakespeare in Love (1998), Gwyneth Paltrow played Viola De Lesseps, passing as male actor Thomas Kent. In this screencap, I think “Thomas” is about to kiss a male actor who is playing a female role, another thing Shakespeare would do.
^She still looked like a woman to me, but it didn’t matter, bc the other characters saw her as male, they believed it, so I could suspend disbelief. That was probably part of the cheeky quality of that film, that we as viewers still saw her as female, but everyone else seemed so easily fooled, like Clark Kent w/ glasses is so obviously NOT Superman! Pfffft.
But yeah, the idea of casting a woman or another gender to play a youthful male character like Armand? VERY COOL SIGN ME TF UP.*
*I mean, not suggesting casting me specifically bc I don’t think there’s enough movie magic to transform me into a male character, but conceptually, I support this 😉
(1) First of all, I would encourage you to post your own interpretations, share with us how you see these characters, we have an insatiable hunger for more fanart ;]
If your headcanon is different, that’s great! Variety is the spice of life.
(2) In my experience, having been in VC fandom for 20+ years and on tumblr for about 3.5 yrs, yes, I’ve seen a lot of IWTV-era fanart depicting the male characters with feminine features, you may be right about that. But not all of it is.
[^X Louis, Claudia and Lestat, IWTV-era, by @superhiki, who often uses Daniel Tighe as a reference for Louis, and fandom favorite Danila Kovalev for Lestat (and, not pictured here but worth mentioning, Hiki uses fandom favorite Bjorn Andresen for Armand)]
(3) I get the impression from your message that you consider that “fanart of IWTV makes the boys look like girls” is bad/wrong/incorrect. If that’s not your point, I apologize, and you can skip to (4), but if it is your point, please see this post about fandom policing, here’s an excerpt from @spiderladyceo:
“And no matter how well-meaning you are, you don’t get to tell other fans what they can and cannot write, or draw, or enjoy.
When you start telling people what they can create or enjoy, you invalidate the purpose of fandom, and create a situation where instead of free exploration, we have something similar to mainstream media in which certain tropes or topics are not allowed. This limits the free expression, exploration and innovation so highly prized in fandom.
…You don’t get to tell fans how to enjoy fandom. You mind your own path, your write your own fic, you write meta on why x trope is offensive/problematic/bad but you do not tell other fans how to enjoy fandom.”
(4) I don’t quite understand your distinction between “feminine” and *female* features, except that I consider “female features” specifically to mean female genitalia and secondary sex characteristics (breasts). So I’m only going to address “feminine” features.
On that point, “smaller jaws, bigger eyes, softer features, bigger lips, small/arched eyebrows” are not exclusive to female characters. Jason Momoa is a man with
BIG EYES, thick lashes, arched brows, big lips, soft jaw, round face,… and I think he is a cis man.
(5) I don’t speak for all the fanartists, but I sent your ask out privately to several fanartists, fic writers, etc., and the general consensus was that if you want to know why a fanartist or writer has made certain artistic choices, you should ask them directly about it and they will answer if they choose to do so.
Some reasons they gave for drawing characters the way they do:
Some fanartists have a different idea of what is “masculine” than you do. It just varies, even in people who express their assigned gender, features differ wildly.
Anne Rice often describes the characters in feminine and androgynous ways.
Many of her vampires were turned young,before developing your idea of “masculine” features, or they never did. Armand was “perhaps seventeen” (TVA) when he was turned and had stopped growing, had not developed masculine features by that time. “My hands are as delicate as those of a young woman, and I was beardless,” (TVA)
It was more fashionable for men during the IWTV-era to be fashionable and cultured, the style of which might be considered a little more feminine by today’s standards. See Dandy.
Their own aesthetic taste may be inspired by anime/manga. One example is Dany&Dany.
Fanartists often use models and actors as references. Many male models and actors have feminine features. One of them, Andreja Pejić, was a fan favorite as Lestat for many years, and she transitioned MTF in 2013.
[X] this picture of Andreja Pejic (left) and Erika Linder (right).
Fanartists may have been inspired by movie!IWTV. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt already had somewhat feminine features in the early 90′s, which were enhanced in movie!IWTV. This is one of my fave fanarts of Lestat, and it’s based on Tom’s Lestat:
^X Lestat by *HRFleur is so lovely. And someone commented on it that they think he is handsome w/o looking feminine.
“I don’t think he looks like Tom Cruise. I think he looks better! it’s as if you took the essence of Lestat from Tom and pulled the real Lestat out. He looks as though he’s about to say something sarcastic or perhaps become peevish over something. I like that you made him handsome without looking feminine.”
Feminine Jesus Christ:
The idea of drawing men with female or feminine features predates fanart. People depict Jesus Christ with feminine features when there is plenty of controversy about what he actually might have looked like:
^Not my comparison pic, I took it from Janet Carr @ THIS BUG’S LIFE’s post about the Jesus depiction issue. Carr writes that the more feminine Jesus depictions are “actually pictures of Cesare Borgia, son of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, and brother of Lucrezia Borgia… Pope Alexander VI had all previous depictions of Jesus destroyed in about 1492, and replaced with images of his son. Henceforth, these have been the images used to depict Christ.”
^Here’s our feminized Jesus and early 90′s Brad Pitt, for comparison. I remember Brad being criticized
in the early 90′s
by men for looking too feminine. The pic above is from a magazine, the Italian caption is “Blond, blue eyes, beautiful in spite of himself, and with a smile <<capable of reversing feminism 25 years>>.”
//end. Sorry for the long post, everyone.
I didn’t put any of that under a cut bc I spent a lot of time on this response and I have found that people will reblog, trying to make a post into a discussion, without reading what’s under the cut. People may still want to try to do that, as this is a social network that encourages discussion, but I’m probably not going to engage any further in this topic. I think I’ve made my point, which is that fanartists draw what they want to draw.
The author reinforce this by adding that, when they adopted Claudia, Louis took the maternal role. What do you think? ( Pt 2/2 )
It’s not a groundbreaking concept, we often talk of mommy!Louis in fandom. If there were a “mom” in that relationship, Louis would be more of that than Lestat was! ❤
#don’t you love the way Claudia snuggles in there #tucks herself in #like she’s actually Louis’ doll? #she is 80% made of that dress and those curls #how he places that little kiss on top of her head right before he shuts the lid #Right before theyll be in total darkness #just to reassure her #He is such a good mom
^my tags on that gif, bc I do love mommy!Louis ❤
(Lestat was actually Claudia’s biological maker, it’s his blood that turns her; she is technically Lestat’s fledgling, which actually makes Louis her “brother”!)
Louis was based on Anne Rice herself; Lestat was based on her husband, Stan; and Claudia on her own daughter, Michele, so you could say Louis was the “mom” bc of who he was based on. IWTV was partly about AR investigating the tragic loss of her own daughter through these characters. Louis’ separation from Claudia was not his choice; neither was AR’s from her own daughter ;A;
When you’re a Ricean vampire, gender doesn’t really matter, it definitely doesn’t matter physically in making new vampires, which is how they procreate. Post-IWTV!Lestat is much more into fashion, jewelry, and other typically “feminine-specific” stuff/activities that Louis has little or no tolerance for. Lestat is also one of the most prolific makers we know of in the series. The act of making fledglings could be compared to pregnancy, and he loves doing it, so that could make him more “feminine” than Louis, who has only made two fledglings (but both were made under duress, not 100% his choice).
Lestat and Louis both parented her in their own ways. Lestat took Claudia out and taught her to hunt, and all this other stuff he shared with her that Louis couldn’t. Hunting can be considered more “masculine.” You could label more domestic things like literature “feminine,” I guess, and that’s what Louis offered her. IWTV!Lestat was just more interested in action and less interested in introspection. Your author says that one of Louis’ feminine traits is “speaking about his feelings,” Lestat does TONS of that in later books. So if you only read IWTV, you miss out on that.
The other thing is that IWTV is Louis’ account, so yes, it paints Lestat a certain way, when Lestat was frustrated that he couldn’t reveal so many secrets that it drove a wedge between them. I feel like most of Lestat’s “masculine” behavior is just about that frustration, at having to keep his history a secret because of Marius’s threats.
As Lestat puts it in TVL, Louis’ account is somewhat accurate:
“…which for all its contradictions and terrible
misunderstandings manages to capture the atmosphere in which Claudia and Louis and I came together and stayed together for sixty-five
years…
But he adds this about Louis as a narrator:
“[Louis’] blindness to
the motives or the suffering of others was as much a part of his charm
as his soft unkempt black hair or the eternally troubled expression in
his green eyes.
So I wouldn’t say you can totally define Lestat and Louis’ gender roles in their relationship based solely on reading IWTV. But many of us, myself included, enjoy daydreaming about mommy!Louis ❤
I-want-my-IWTV 