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auburnflight · 3 years

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VnC 47: Jeanne’s Fantasy

I'm really intrigued by this page of Jeanne reading one of Luca’s books in VnC chapter 47:

From the previous page, we can tell that it's a traditional fairy tale--to be exact, Sleeping Beauty (In French, La Belle au bois dormant).

What stood out to me about it is that, as she reads, Jeanne envisions herself in the conventionally male role—fighting the monster, saving Sleeping Beauty (who is actually Vanitas), and carrying her (him) to safety. I wanted to address a few meanings that this seemingly innocuous page could have for the story: added complexity to Vanitas and Jeanne's relationship, potential foreshadowing, as well as a queer reading.

Up until now, Vanitas and Jeanne's relationship has followed a heteronormative type of the controlling man and the more submissive woman, almost to the point that it's humorous. Jeanne, introduced initially as fierce and intimidating yet strikingly beautiful, is taken in by Vanitas, who manipulates her into being dependent on him (for example, making her drink only his blood and promising to kill her if she goes mad). In short, she turns out to be, in the words of the other characters, "kind of a pushover."

IMO, this characterization does not leave a positive first impression. I was excited by the image of Jeanne as a feared fighter (which, admittedly she still holds somewhat, though the story of the hellfire witch has been put on the back burner for now), and I felt that she immediately lost a lot of that "coolness potential" when that image got buried in Jeanne's romantic entanglement with Vanitas. But I do feel that this image of Jeanne's fantasy introduced in chapter 47 adds a level of intentional irony and textual self-awareness to Jeanne and Vanitas's romance. It juuust begins to undermine heteronormative ideas about gender roles, instead of blindly following them.

In actuality, the crafty Vanitas has the surprisingly innocent Jeanne under his control, and Jeanne loses much of her say in her own narrative. But in her fantasy, Jeanne maintains agency over her own story. Perhaps, due to her inexperience, she fails to see the strategies that Vanitas has used to establish his position of control over her. But she desires to some extent to lead her story in its own direction. Through the inclusion of this brief yet important fantasy, Jun Mochizuki may be acknowledging that their relationship is more complex than it appears on the surface (as Mochijun’s stories so often are!).

...Ooor it could be just wishful thinking, but I’m really hoping that it’s not.

Whether or not Jeanne will be able to regain agency remains to be seen. In this sense, this image of her fantasizing could be read as foreshadowing—there's a discrepancy between her ideal romance and the actual nature of the one she's in, so maybe she won't get the "happy end" that she envisions in the fairy tale.

I'd also like to posit the interpretation of this page as a queer reading of the text. Obviously we've seen queercoding elsewhere in Vanitas in numerous places. Notably, though, Jeanne's fantasy comes explicitly and intentionally from within her—this is not just the characters or the text hinting to something, but something Jeanne actively (even if subconsciously) wants for herself. This is stood out to me as a lesbian reading the text—it's a direct glimpse into an awareness of or desire to reach outside the prescribed notions of heteronormative relationships.

Again, how exactly this becomes significant to Jeanne's character arc remains to be seen. However, as a reader whose "queer awakening" began with that first realization that I wanted to completely upend masculine and feminine sterotypes in relationships, I definitely feel a little more complexity hiding under the surface for Jeanne, and I look forward to seeing how this vision of herself is built upon further as the series progresses.

Of course, this is just one page in the midst of a chapter that's overall dedicated more to Misha. However, considering the implications that Jeanne and Vanitas's relationship have already had and will continue to have for plot events, I think it's worth noting this page and particularly the middle panel as a glimpse into Jeanne's perspective. And, saving and being saved, as is happening in the fairy tale, is a theme at the core of Vanitas as a whole. We have already seen that Vanitas has promised to "save" Jeanne and heard Noe’s hypothesis that Vanitas even wants to be saved himself. So, both on a surface level and in numerous more subtle ways, this panel is actually deeply entwined with the messages that Vanitas conveys. In particular, I look forward to seeing how the complexities of Jeanne, both as an individual and in terms of her relationship with Vanitas, continue to be revealed!

Fun fact to end the post: The thorns and briars are a significant symbol in Sleeping Beauty, which is also known by the title "Little Briar Rose." We've already seen "shadow briars” in our encounter with Amelia/Eglantine earlier in the series. I wonder if these are connected somehow...?

#vnc #vanitas no carte #the case study of vanitas #vanitas no shuki #literary analysis #aki likes analyzing things

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robbyrobinson · 4 years

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Villain Review: Art the Clown From: Terrifier franchise Portrayed by: David Howard Thornton

Who is he?

First appearing in The 9th Circle, Art the Clown sits in a train station with a woman named Casey and starts doing annoying gimmicks much to her ire. He then hands her some plastic flowers as if to apologize for his behavior which she begrudgingly accepts. This however proves to be a trick: Art injects her with some substance and whisks her away to some underground chasm where there are more chained women. After she attempts to escape, she is confronted by demons with the lead figure being implied to be the Big D himself. After a pregnant woman gets her womb ripped open, it is heavily implied that Casey gets...violated by the figure.

In the third segment, Art gets kicked out of a gas station for...rubbing his feces all over the walls among other things. This leads to Art gruesomely murdering the gas station attendant and then going after the costume designer. This leads to more bloodshed until Art inevitably captures her and slices off her limbs and the sick clown had slashed derogatory terms into her body. So after this, the babysitter who was supposed to be watching both kids runs upstairs and sees that Art had murdered both children. The film ends with the implication that she will be accused of the murders.

Terrifier, more or less the same. Two young women leave a Halloween party hammered where they have an unfortunate run-in with Art who was now preparing to do his typical chaos, black bag in hand. Art takes a liking to one of them and then gets kicked out of the pizza restaurant for defiling the establishment. Then more gruesome kills, Art eating another woman's face before shooting himself only to come back. Rinse and repeat.

Appearance

He dresses in a pantomime-inspired black and white costume. His face is painted white with his eyes, mouth, and eyebrows being black. In addition, he has a bald cap and small black hat.

Personality

Okay. Art doesn't speak. With that aside, he does very clearly have a personality: he is a violent, psychotic homicidal maniac who has a penchant for gruesomely mutilating and killing all in his path. He has a wicked sense of humor which he demonstrates by cackling silently. He has a general hatred for everything and while his creator states he isn't a misogynist...I don't see how he's not. Given that he writes derogatory terms into that costume designer's body and then...sawing a woman in half from pelvis down...not winning any favors.

I guess I like the character of Art because he does call back to old slashers...but the films he appears in lack much development. Terrifier lacks much in room for characterization and is paper-thin. The main lead are not interesting and are only there to be killed by Art. The scene where he saws one of them in half still rubs me the wrong way. It was disgusting in and of itself. I mean while I do watch horror films where there are grandiose amounts of blood and gore, there was some underlying distaste I had for the scene that took me out of the movie. To be honest...it barely qualifies as a movie IMO. While it has a plot, it is severely underdeveloped and borders on torture porn.

From what I have heard the sequel in development does suggest that more will be known about Art so if it means more plot, then by all means, I'll retract what I said.

Abilities and Powers

So he apparently has a form of immortality and other supernatural feats (even though Terrifier didn't have much implication that he wasn't human). But in particular, he has his arsenal of weaponry ranging from whips, hacksaws, scalpels, etc. Again, I kind of would've liked more circus-themed weaponry in Art's arsenal to have a uniqueness to his kills, but I digress. As a final note, there were some instances of controversy where Art "broke" the Slasher code by using a gun to kill one of his targets.

Verdict

6/10

#art the clown #terrifier #all hallows eve #clown #monster clown #evil clown

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