Monday, April 11, 2011

Regina H Jeong (4th)

 

Christopher Moore, uses for his humor stereotypes of male and female behavior, please explain.

 

Moore, American writer and known for the witted satirist, writes novels that are not only brilliant, but fun to read as well. In his novel, You Suck, Moore writes the old clichés (sex and vampire story) with ingenious, satirical, and hilarious sensibility. He characterized Jody and Tommy by their typical thinking and behaviors which can be considered as sexual stereotypes. A stereotype is standardized conceptions of groups or types of individuals. The stereotypes in 'You Suck' are represented as Tommy's childish, sex-driven behaviors and Jody's controlling actions in their relationship.

 

Tommy, nineteen-year old, had awakened one day as a vampire. The problem is when he got changed he had dragged all of his teenage insecurities and incessant horniness with him. He accused Jody, a few months old vampire, "You bitch, you killed me! You shouldn't just kill a guy without asking. It's inconsiderate." However, it is not true. He had morbid interests in necrophilia and cheerleader thing which made him run experiments on unconscious Jody's body, including clothing cheerleader outfits and personal lubricants. For these reasons, he allowed Jody drank his blood. However, Tommy insists, "I was just being friendly… It was because you needed me." By the time when Tommy found out his body will be the same forever, he blamed Jody for loosing his future possibilities: "I was going to be buff and be an awesome hunk of muscular man-meat." It is, yet, turned out to be wrong accusation again by Jody, "No, you weren't. You wanted to be a writer." He even put up stubbornness to Jody's food caution which lead disastrous result for him to puke burrito all over the way.

 

In the meantime, Jody stayed cool and kept steering Tommy toward the bright side which came from her own judgments. "I wanted us to be together. We're fucked. Together. Like Romeo and Juliet." She once sniffled, completely for effect, and conveniently slipped the fact what eternal frozen mean to Tommy. "Will I get any smarter, or is that stuck in time, too?" "Well, yeah, but that's because you're a man, not because you're a vampire." As a matter of fact, being frozen gave Jody both blessing and horror at the same time: she would never get a chance to lose her weight forever. Nevertheless, owing to her persistent reasoning, Tommy got back to face the reality and Jody was pleased for taking the reins in their relationship again. Before they went out to hunt for food, Tommy was freaked out at his vampirized-penis. He kept checking whether Jody found it creepy or not and even wanted her to caress his. Again, she gently coaxed him to pull himself together: "Tommy, calm down. It's just your foreskin….You're fine." The truth is that Jody is not fine at all. All she wanted was a companion who could understand what she was and felt in vampire world, which means, in her world. She did not want to have a crybaby, stuck to be nineteen forever. Thus, she even considered that she might end up having to kill him if things are out of control. I believe both Tommy and Jody's actions can be generalized in the real world as the gender stereotypes: male's immature behavior, lust for sex and female's manipulations in relationship.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Sincerely,

Regina

 

 

 

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