"...all other things being equal -- if Tara were out of the picture and Sookie had just killed Debbie on her own, let's start there -- then you are looking at a particular story, which is that when you choose to deviate from the norm, when you go it alone, or queer, or however you're going to do it, even just unmarried, that decision cuts both ways. Yes, you get to be free and true to yourself, but also, you have opted out of the game and can't expect validation from the game.
As Jessica's learning, you can either be a sex warrior gender revolutionary or a socially validated Good Girl, but you can't have both. And you can't flip back and forth between Sexy Faery You and Nice Christian You, not forever. You have to become something that is both. It is a trade-off. A wonderful, powerful, scary-as-hell trade-off.
"And I think for whatever reason, at this time in our culture, we've fallen into a lazy lull of somehow feeling owed something, in this way. That instead of acknowledging that living by our own lights and being true to ourselves might have a cost, we manage to either conform or do it half-assed and then whine about it later. "All I did was act like a slut and then you called me a slut" is not a well-formed sentence or valid complaint. "All I did was act like a slut, a word with zero meaning or power over me" is a well-formed sentence, and allows at least for the possibility that life is an unfair place for grownups and crybabies alike.
"As I said, it gets twisted by the fact that Tara died in the middle of it, but if you follow just the thread of Mine, His, Hers, it's a pretty complicated idea. "Why can't you both be Mine" is a meaningless question, because "Mine" isn't just about feelings -- it's about facts, and death, and danger. But to rebel against this idea that "You have to be His or you won't be at all," that can't possibly be a bad thing either, right?
"I think this is what it looks like, all this brain matter all over the kitchen. I think if you're willing to risk the danger of the real world, and be a complete person, the first thing that's gotta go is your fear of being the bad guy. Because it's not like Sookie killing a person in self-defense is really all that different from Sookie having one of her boyfriends take care of it for her, which is what you're really saying when you say Mine: Kill those that threaten me, so I don't have to get my hands dirty.
"Our mistake lies in thinking that grace attends any more to purity than to experience. But that's just nostalgia too: Because now is difficult to deal with at any given time, the past was always easier and kinder and clearer and purer. And that is imaginary, and reactionary, and gross, and scary. Especially when you apply it to yourself, which shouldn't be a show for other people anyway. Because the truth is, nobody lives that way.
"Nobody stays clean. We weren't designed for that. When your hands get dirty, all you have to do is wash them."
This is why I read his recaps; I always get things to mull over from his way of saying things that is so different from how I would say them but still meaningful to the things I think about. That dissonance is invigorating and extremely helpful.
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