Reblogged
- Is Lestat's relationship to Claudia ever that of an uncle? What other reason might there be for Claudia to call one of the men "Daddy" and the other "Uncle"? Consider the setting.
- Why might the filmmakers have chosen to include references to A Doll's House, Madame Bovary, Marriage In A Free Society by Edward Carpenter, and Pelléas et Mélisande? What themes, if any, do these references reinforce?
- Claudia calls Louis "the housewife" and Louis later describes himself as "ignoring all other duties of the role Claudia had mocked me for... the unhappy housewife." What does this indicate about attitudes towards gender and sexuality in the society in which the characters live? What is the significance of the word "role" here in relation to Lestat's promise in the first episode to free Louis from "all these roles you conform to"?
- When Claudia first introduces the idea of reconceptualizing her relationship to Louis and Lestat as a sister, what does Lestat's reaction suggest about his opinion? In the following episode, when Lestat calls Claudia "sister, daughter, infant death," what is his tone?
- In the context of the story, what is a "maker"? What kind of status in the household does Lestat believe a maker should have?
- Does becoming vampires allow the characters to escape the social structures of the world around them, or do they remain trapped? In what ways, if any, does sociocultural context in regards to gender, race, sexuality, and family influence the characters and their relationships?
- The article "Undoing Feminism: From the Preoedipal to Postfeminism in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles" by Janice Doane and Devon Hodges argues that the novel Interview With The Vampire "depends on an oedipal paradigm" and says that "Rice sees the oedipal moment as beginning with the father's embrace of the girl child in a patriarchal order that so restricts her possibilities for development [...] that she develops murderous rages against the father. Freud calls the oedipal stage 'a haven, a refuge' for the girl; Rice shows it to be a coffin." Do you think AMC's Interview With The Vampire is engaging with this idea? Why or why not?
[bonus point questions]
8. Is Louis compared to cisgendered figures of Black masculinity in the Jim Crow era such as Paul Robeson, Richard Wright’s insert character ‘Bigger Thomas’, Jack Johnson, and social activists like Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. Dubois? If he is not, then why? [Hint: refer to your answers for Q#2 & #3]
9. What is the significance of the Storyville district in historical Black music culture, and why is AMC Louis now positioned here? What law was passed in November 1917 that is directly named in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire 1x03, and what is the significance of that with respect to Louis’s character arc and the introduction of Claudia here?
10. Who else does Claudia refer to as an ‘uncle’ besides Lestat?