Sleeping with a Vampire

The research explores the narrative frames of recent vampire TV and cinematic stories with a special focus on the construction of gender relations and female agency in order to determine whether these narratives conjure up any liberating or empowering potential for their audience. The most significant elements of vampire fiction are taken into account: the central position of the heroine, power relations, love triangles, and the objectification of male characters. The identified common patterns both reflect and generate a crucial shift in Western sexual politics; at the same time, they address the burning concerns this shift has aroused, invoking the anthropological concept of “reflexivity.” The analysis is further couched in the debate on female empowerment and post-feminist gender representations in popular culture, including the idea of sexual subjectivity and a diagnosis of post-feminism as “double entanglement.” The described changes within the contemporary vampire narratives should not be, however, simplified as new forms of sexist discourse.     

That Teenage Feeling

This article deconstructs news media representations of two custody abductions that took place in Aotearoa New Zealand in the mid-2000s. In the first case, the father abducted his five-month-old daughter; in the second case, the mother was held responsible for the abduction of her six-year-old son even though he was in the presence of his maternal grandfather. The analysis demonstrates that the media's pejorative construction of the mothers at the center of both cases was facilitated by a number of significant gaps and silences in the narration of the abductions. These silences, in lending support to a fathers' rights construction of custody disputes in which mothers are to blame for dispossessing fathers of their children, reveal the media's reliance on pro-father discourses, particularly fathers' rights discourse.     

植根文化沃土的战栗与惊悚——论西方哥特式恐怖片

哥特式恐怖片属于哥特电影和恐怖电影交集的范畴.对哥特式恐怖片进行单独研究,有助于深化对西方恐怖片的认识和理解.对哥特式恐怖片进行整体研究,将其放在哥特文化艺术发展的背景下进行考察,描述其作为类型的产生:哥特式恐怖片秉承哥特文化标志极端感情、超自然力量、非理性状态、与主流文化疏离的特质,并从哥特式建筑、绘画、装饰、音乐、小说中汲取营养,形成独特的恐怖片类型.主题上,体现为社会批判、文化反思、人性探索的意义指向;语言上,色彩、光影、场景等方面都体现出独特的影像风格.哥特式恐怖片是具有独特美学风格和深刻文化内涵的恐怖片创作,并因植根深厚的文化土壤而产生强劲的生命力与艺术创造力.其对中国恐怖电影类型发展不无启示意义.     

“The Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb”

Although many scholars have written about vampire fiction, few have discussed gender and gender violence in this genre. Further, none has addressed the romanticized and eroticized violence in contemporary vampire fiction. Given the popularity of the series The Vampire Diaries and Twilight with a highly impressionable teen audience, it is important to examine their portrayal of gender roles and gender violence. This paper uses research in cultivation theory to highlight the potential impact of messages conveyed in contemporary vampire fiction—focusing on the stereotypical portrayal of men and women, the romanticizing of characteristics predictive of partner abuse, and the link between sex and violence.