Thanks for your further thoughts. I agree with you to some extent but also have a different take in some ways.
Race was never an issue in the books. It would not have made sense in the first books because of the setting.
Do you mean it wasn't an issue for the POV characters because they came from a position of white privilege and didn't see it as a (big) issue? In terms of the external world, I'd say race is definitely an issue in a story where the lead is white slaveholder in a system of racialized slavery. I agree that in the 1970s interview, two white guys from America would not likely have been talking about race with any more insight than they actually show in the novel (i.e. almost none).
The vampires were never prejudiced. They were all beautiful to them. Same with genders.
I agree with this to an extent, especially the part about everyone being beautiful. One thing Rice is very clear about is that being vampire changes one's sense of aesthetics, desire, and value. Suddenly, everyone can be desirable and beautiful, regardless of race, sex, age (kids to the very elderly), health, wellness, morality, etc. She writes that very consistently and well, and I agree the show misses it with its "gay is gay" discourse.
I do think Rice's vampires are prejudiced though. One her themes is that you're always somewhat shaped by the world you grew up in. Marius will always be somewhat like a Roman. Khayman (sp?) will always have some predispositions from ancient Kemet. To be culturally affiliated is to be prejudiced to some degree. For example, the vampires we meet hang out very predominantly in the Western world and/or within Westernized spheres of cultural influence because they are predominantly from the West. Consider the amount is discourse Lestat puts into Christianity vs. Hinduism: that's a definite cultural bias based on his having grown up/lived with Christianity.
I think that carries over into gender too. I do think most of the vampires we meet are patriarchal in their basic assumptions because their home cultures were. (Maharet and Mekare seem the "out-group" here.) For example, when Marius and Pandora were a couple in their early vampire days, he definitely expected a certain degree of "good wife" subordination from her, which is one of the things that pushed her to strike out on her own, I think.
But I agree with you that becoming a vampire radically changes one's relationship with gender. It physically equalizes men and women in one fell swoop. That change is effectively instantaneous. The longer you live as a vampire, I expect, the more you internalize the idea that gender difference isn't highly significant because it isn't to your daily experience with other vampires/human victims. So while old assumptions die hard, I do think they become rapidly attenuated, the result being that throughout most of history, vampires are less sexist than humans. (Ditto less racist.)
I agree with you that the show misses this by a mile. Possibly its single biggest fail, even by the standards of the contemporary progressive work it's striving to do, is reinstating human sexual difference and using that as an excuse (spoilers) to rape Claudia, as a vampire. (Phenomenal that a show that clearly wants to be socially progressive manages to take a book with no literal rapes and generate a story with one rape victim and one attempted rape victim, both women. Wow.)
Their ways are not human ways.
Well said. I wish the show got that more. (It does sometimes, which is nice.)
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Race was never an issue in the books. It would not have made sense in the first books because of the setting.
Do you mean it wasn't an issue for the POV characters because they came from a position of white privilege and didn't see it as a (big) issue? In terms of the external world, I'd say race is definitely an issue in a story where the lead is white slaveholder in a system of racialized slavery. I agree that in the 1970s interview, two white guys from America would not likely have been talking about race with any more insight than they actually show in the novel (i.e. almost none).
The vampires were never prejudiced. They were all beautiful to them.
Same with genders.
I agree with this to an extent, especially the part about everyone being beautiful. One thing Rice is very clear about is that being vampire changes one's sense of aesthetics, desire, and value. Suddenly, everyone can be desirable and beautiful, regardless of race, sex, age (kids to the very elderly), health, wellness, morality, etc. She writes that very consistently and well, and I agree the show misses it with its "gay is gay" discourse.
I do think Rice's vampires are prejudiced though. One her themes is that you're always somewhat shaped by the world you grew up in. Marius will always be somewhat like a Roman. Khayman (sp?) will always have some predispositions from ancient Kemet. To be culturally affiliated is to be prejudiced to some degree. For example, the vampires we meet hang out very predominantly in the Western world and/or within Westernized spheres of cultural influence because they are predominantly from the West. Consider the amount is discourse Lestat puts into Christianity vs. Hinduism: that's a definite cultural bias based on his having grown up/lived with Christianity.
I think that carries over into gender too. I do think most of the vampires we meet are patriarchal in their basic assumptions because their home cultures were. (Maharet and Mekare seem the "out-group" here.) For example, when Marius and Pandora were a couple in their early vampire days, he definitely expected a certain degree of "good wife" subordination from her, which is one of the things that pushed her to strike out on her own, I think.
But I agree with you that becoming a vampire radically changes one's relationship with gender. It physically equalizes men and women in one fell swoop. That change is effectively instantaneous. The longer you live as a vampire, I expect, the more you internalize the idea that gender difference isn't highly significant because it isn't to your daily experience with other vampires/human victims. So while old assumptions die hard, I do think they become rapidly attenuated, the result being that throughout most of history, vampires are less sexist than humans. (Ditto less racist.)
I agree with you that the show misses this by a mile. Possibly its single biggest fail, even by the standards of the contemporary progressive work it's striving to do, is reinstating human sexual difference and using that as an excuse (spoilers) to rape Claudia, as a vampire. (Phenomenal that a show that clearly wants to be socially progressive manages to take a book with no literal rapes and generate a story with one rape victim and one attempted rape victim, both women. Wow.)
Their ways are not human ways.
Well said. I wish the show got that more. (It does sometimes, which is nice.)