The Vampire Diaries and Consent

Despite a few exceptional moments, The Vampire Diaries has been fairly disappointing lately. The main bright spot in the last few episodes has been the Christmas ep, when Klaus killed all the hybrids. That was way cool. On the other hand, Caroline is a total jerk, the show still hasn’t resolved any of its race issues (Seriously, how long do we think Bonnie’s dad is going to last? He’s black AND a parental figure—I’m pretty sure he’s doomed.), Stefan’s acting like a spoiled child, and the show is incredibly over-reliant on the idea of compulsion.

If The Vampire Diaries wasn’t such an awesome show, I wouldn’t feel the need to criticize it so heavily. But for several seasons now, it’s been one of the best shows on tv, so when these problems keep cropping up, I can’t help but think that this show should be better than that.

The issue that I’m all up in arms over today is the show’s overuse of compulsion and its seeming lack of self-awareness when it comes to that subject.

In the TVD universe, vampires have the ability to compel—or hypnotize—humans into doing their bidding. They’ve used it in previous seasons to score an easy snack, easy sex, and to modify memories, just as a few examples. A couple of troubling instances from recent seasons include Elena having Jeremy’s memory constantly modified, and Damon using Andie as a sex/chew toy. Both of these examples bring up issues of consent that I don’t think the show has adequately dealt with.

Before Jeremy became a hunter, Elena had his memory modified several times to “save” him from particularly painful memories. In my mind, the show always presented this as an altruistic gesture from Elena, even though Jeremy was never asked if he even wanted these memories removed.

With the Damon/Andie example, I think his compulsion of her was clearly presented as morally wrong, yet none of the other characters ever confronted him about it. Even Elena, who is so concerned with the idea of Damon being “good,” never seemed to be all that upset about it. Which is odd, since Damon tends to be blamed for everything on the show, including things that he isn’t responsible for. He is the Mystic Falls punching bag, and yet no one bothers to stand up for poor Andie.

Yet even as I’m here referring to Andie as a victim, the rules and effects of compulsion are presented very inconsistently on the show. Sometimes the compelled is mindless and happy to be doing the vampire’s bidding, while other times, the compelled person can grumble and disagree and beg for mercy before still doing what he/she is told. The same goes for the ridiculous idea of the “sire bond,” which seems to be very similar to the idea of compulsion in that a vampire must obey everything his/her sire says.

The new conflict this season on The Vampire Diaries is Elena’s newfound vampirism and all that entails. Elena is apparently “sire-bound” to Damon as the show’s big “fuck you” to Damon/Elena fans. Instead of allowing the couple’s relationship to develop on its own, it is apparently the result of a different kind of compulsion.  To his credit, once Damon finds this out, he immediately tries to do right by Elena, albeit taking away her consent in a completely different way—by ordering her to stay away from him. Elena doesn’t get a choice either way.

Another problem is that no one seems to take Elena’s feelings seriously, even though Tyler was very specific that the sire bond only affects your actions, not your feelings and emotions. Elena tells Damon over and over that she loves and wants him, yet no one believes her. In fact, Stefan seems to be living in a permanent state of denial, and only becomes more determined to find the cure for vampirism.

Now that I mention it, can we take a moment to talk about how ridiculous this whole Race for the Cure (yeah, I went there) storyline is??

As soon as Elena became a vampire, everyone freaked out about how she’s not “supposed” to be a vampire. Um, what does that even mean? She is a vampire now. Why is Elena so special that everyone feels the need to save her from this horrible fate? No one threw a fit when Caroline became a vampire!

Anyway, so now that Elena’s a vampire, of course there might be a cure, and our boys will stop at nothing until they find it. And the sire bond just gives Stefan yet another reason to be obsessed with the search—if she’s cured, the sire bond will be broken, and Elena can finally make a choice, even though… she already did? Seriously, this show needs to make up its damn mind as to whether or not the sire bond/ compulsion affects people’s feelings. 

All of these are really interesting issues. The problem is, as much as I love it, I’m not sure the show is sophisticated enough to answer these questions. I get the feeling that, even if the writers recognize these issues of consent that they’re raising, we might not get any satisfying resolutions. And in an era where consent is already such a muddy issue in our culture and legal system, that could present a real problem.

Classic tv: Six Feet Under, Season 5

 I have this horrible habit of buying whole seasons of tv shows I’ve never seen because I don’t want to wait for Netflix to send them one disc at a time (even though I’m actually a really slow tv watcher). So I bought the whole series of Six Feet Under after falling in love with the first few episodes last summer. I found the show, about a family of funeral directors, to be really quite powerful. The Fishers, the show’s central dysfunctional family, should be annoying, but the writing and acting is so deft that I ended up sympathizing with all of them.

But now that I’m in the middle of the fifth season, I’m now facing the fact that once it’s over, I’ll have five seasons worth of DVDs that I’ll never watch again. The downhill slope really started for me sometime around season four, when David was abducted and tortured for a whole episode. I can’t even articulate why, but that particular hour of television almost made me stop watching the show altogether. But I’ve stuck it out and so far continue to be disappointed.

Now that the show is almost done, all of those incredibly flawed but still well-rounded and sympathetic characters are now downright unlikable. In season one, the only characters I downright disliked were Brenda and Keith. Now, everyone has done a 180. Keith and Brenda are fine, but everyone else (with the exception of David—who is forever awesome) is completely awful—I’m looking at you, Claire, Ruth, Rico, and Nate.

I’m all for complex, dynamic characters, but when most of your cast loses everything that makes them human or relatable, your show has a real problem. And it’s pretty sad to think that I’m actually relieved to be nearing the end of what was once a really great show—and the prospect of getting rid of all those damn discs.

Happiness is... a good cup of coffee.

So I recently bought a French press, and it's really brought my coffee addiction to a whole new level. Is there anything better than a warm, aromatic, sweet cup of coffee?

Doctors have all sorts of opinions over whether coffee is actually good for you, but really, who cares? When something so simple can make your day so much easier to endure, I say it's worth it.

Happiness is... videos of adorable animals.

I'm not sure why, but this makes me laugh and laugh. Happy Halloween!

Happiness is... mocking ridiculous things

I think part of being happy is just making sure to live mindfully and actually notice the good things. That's why I'd like to start a series of posts just about things that make me happy.

The first is Ellen's endorsement of Bic For Her pens. How did we live for so long using man-pens?

Depression hurts

I had a student once who came to me with the idea of writing a paper over how she doesn't believe in anti-depressants. Upon talking to her further, it became clear that she actually didn't have much of a clue as to what she was talking about, but it's attitudes like hers that may have kept me from the help I needed for so long.

I've suffered from depression for well over a decade, but have only taken medicine for a couple of years. I was depressed, but I was really good at hiding it, and my parents apparently explained what they did see away as normal teenage angst. So I never got help, and somehow I convinced myself that I could think my way out of it-- if I just got really into religion, if I started meditating, if I had a different personality-- I wouldn't be depressed anymore.

Everything came to a head about 3 years ago, though. I had just gotten my M.A. and didn't have a job, so I moved back in with my parents, which was... an adventure. I love my mother dearly, but she also has her share of crazy, and her crazy and mine don't mix very well. Plus, I was substitute teaching and working a night job, and basically hated life. My symptoms also got a lot worse. I would fly into rages at the least provocation, start crying for no reason, and try to make a martyr of myself. It was past time to see a doctor.

And the truth is, life is much better now. The pills didn't turn me into some zombie; I'm still myself. I still feel sad, but I'm better able to deal with it now. My dog has finally gotten to a point where he doesn't automatically hide when I start to cry for some reason. I still sometimes feel guilty about trying to manage my feelings with chemicals, but I'm still so fucked up in other ways that life seems a bit more manageable now.

How not to be an asshole on social media

I know it's the "in" thing right now to take social media fasts, and I definitely understand the impulse. The trouble is, for many people, social media is the best, or only, way to keep track of friends and family who live all over the world. For example, I live in the-middle-of-nowhere, Texas, and Facebook is sometimes the only contact I have with people I actually like.

I think the problem many people have with social media is the fact that people are assholes. And no, I'm not new to the Internet. I've always known this. Many people are assholes just for the sake of being assholes, and the Internet just makes it easier for them. But I think some people genuinely don't understand that their behavior is shitty, and they need someone to call them out on it.

In my mind, and YMMV, but I feel like Facebook is a place for people to post things that interest them, things they're doing, and things that make them happy-- to benefit themselves and so that their friends can get to know just who you are. I may not be into everything my friends post, and I may not agree with them all the time, and if that's the case, I have several options: I can ignore that particular post, I can unfriend or unsubscribe to that person, or I can humbly argue with them. In my mind, arguments aren't forbidden on Facebook, as long as they're mature and respectful, and the arguer understands that the OP should get the last word (because after all, you're posting on their wall).

Sometimes, you have to be firm and unfriend those who don't follow these rules. I knew friending my mom on Facebook would be a problem from the start, and I was confirmed in that belief a few weeks ago when I posted something in support of gay marriage on my wall. My mom responded by posting a bunch of Bible verses, which is fine, but the argument eventually became hurtful when she called and asked me to unfriend everyone who had anything to do with my parents' church-- because I was making them look bad.

I think Pinterest is also really interesting territory, because you don't really have any control over who follows you. I really enjoy Pinterest because it's a really convenient place to keep internet sites and pictures that make you happy. The problem, however, lies with the ability to comment on other people's pins. Actually, I wish that wasn't even a feature. In my opinion, the saying "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" should be true. If a person posts something that they enjoy, don't shit all over it in the comments.

I especially see this basically every time someone posts a picture of President Obama. For every picture, 5000 people take it upon themselves to comment that they hate him. If you hate President Obama that much, leave the people that like him alone and post anti-Obama crap on your own boards. Similarly, if you wouldn't personally get the tattoo that someone likes, who gives a fuck? I don't need to know about that.

So if you expect to have any facebook friends or Pinterest followers in the future, do us all a favor: don't be an asshole.