The world of the Zodiac has no room for you!…or me or anyone who strays from white heteronormativity

by Naamenblog

Hello Everyone! New blogger here with my first entry in the FeministSF Blog. Let me know what you think!

I’m writing about a series of books I had the dubious privilege of reading a few months ago. The Scent of Shadows & The Taste of Night, the first two books in the Zodiac series by Vicki Pettersson. I personally love mind candy F/SF, the ones that aren’t necessarily doing anything revolutionary (not to say I don’t love the revolutionary F/SF works as well) but are just a fun romp through a new world. So when someone at my local F/SF/H store pointed me at the series I quickly picked up both released books. So here’s the thing, even mind candy F/SF has to make sense!

I’m not even going to discuss the ill-conceived identity theft /hiding, the never really defined powers of the main character (Joanna) and her people, the personalized weapons that make so little sense or the bioluminescence (that’s right I said bioluminescence!, their chests glow with their zodiac symbol when in proximity of their enemies). There was a lot of other stuff that stretched my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point but I’m going to concentrate on a few things in the series that really bothered me from a feminist standpoint.

WARNING: Contains Spoilers and May Be Triggering in Regards to Discussion of Sexual Assault.

- First of all the whole series is set in the city of Las Vegas, a large metropolitan city with many tourists coming in and out every day, yet there seem to be no People of Color, People of Alternative Sexualities or anything at all not white and heteronormative. There is a character introduced named Vanessa who I believe we are supposed to read as a PoC but the way she is described is as someone who can pass for many different ethnicities therefore robbing her of one particular identity. She is not allowed to claim any specific culture and therefore takes the role of the any Other that may be required. As for any hint of GLBT presence, there’s a quick mention in the 2nd book that queer people are dying just like straight people. So in death we have a hint of equality, dying together but obviously queer characters don’t rate a place in the book…or a name.

- Then there is the rape that Joanna endured at age 15. Now I firmly believe that if you wish to discuss rape, in a respectful and sensitive way that is your right. There should never be a silence around this subject. However the multitude of reiterations of how brutal and deadly the rape was. The constant repetition of the fact that Joanna could not have survived had she not been 1/2 Tulpa (don’t ask) pissed me the fuck off. It seemed to be walking the line between condemning and almost glorifying, especially the repeated elaborate threats of another rape whenever Joanna runs into her rapist.

There’s also the fact that the rape and the search for her rapist is one of her main reasons for becoming a “hero”. I’m all for revenge as a motivator (in fact it’s one of my favorite storylines) but using rape as a motivator for a female hero is beyond a trope. Using rape as instant backstory is lazy. It’s used in comics almost every day as a way to make a story “gritty” and “more real” and to give a female character a reason to fight. ‘Cause y’know women don’t just want to save the world because it’s right. If you want to discuss rape in fiction I think it should be more than using a devastating act as a way to give your character instant depth.

- The surgery while not sexual rape it is still a physical assault. Joanna has just seen her sister (whom she loves very much) die and has consequently killed her sisters murderer. The Team Leader of the Las Vegas Light Zodiac Squad tells her she has 24 hours to decide whether to join his team. When she returns to him with an affirmative her new teammates promptly knock her unconscious. When she wakes up and looks in the mirror she sees they have performed extensive unauthorized surgery on her. She is no longer the whipthin, muscled, brunette we know, now she is buxom, curvaceous and blond. She is in fact the twin of her dead sister Olivia (who was a socialite who had just posed for Playboy).

Her initial anger (all 1/2 page of it) is not that these two men have violated her body without her permission but that they’ve turned her into a “bimbo”. I could go into Joanna reinforcing thepatriarchal values of traditionally beautiful=dumb but that might make this post way too long so I’ll save it for another day.

She never brings up the idea that they could have asked her, that it’s her body, that there might be trust issues because of this. She simply goes on her merry way having occasional emo moments because she looks like her dead sister. These men went into her body without her permission, cut her open, changed her appearance, changed her whole life (though theoretically they could alter her back I suppose) and two pages later she’s just joking around with the one who performed the surgery!

This one comes with a lot of intertextuality behind it. The knowledge of how women are treated by the medical community in real life definitely informs my intense hatred of this scene. *deep breath*

- Next is the utter westernization and colonial aspect of the work. One of the main ideas in the series is that every city has it’s own opposing troops, the Light Zodiac & the Shadow Zodiac. They each have, you guessed it, twelve members (when they have a full roster) each named after a sign of the Western Zodiac. Having already discussed the lack of PoC we now have a total disavow of their systems of belief. The whole world does not follow the Western Zodiac and simply ignoring that fact is not only angering but sloppy world-building.

What is done when a major city in China or Benin or any other country that either has its own Zodiac or does not follow a Zodiac at all needs a team? Is one flown in from the U.S. in the grand tradition of colonialism? Do they train people from that city to belief their particular way? Or did the author just think that those places didn’t have enough value to think about? I’m leaning towards number 3.

- My last problem (but certainly not least) with this series is the treatment of Chandra. At their very first meeting Joanna mistakes Chandra for a man. We’re given no real reason for this, Chandra is simply described as short and dark. When Joanna’s mistake is pointed out to her she is instantly remorseful but makes no move to apologize.

Chandra was supposed to have Joanna’s seat (Sagittarius) on the Light Zodiac Squad but Joanna has a stronger claim and is given the seat. This makes Chandra a rogue, rogues in this world are basically treated like shit by the people on Squads. Therefore there is an understandable amount of animosity on Chandra’s part. Whenever the two get into a fight Joanna makes a point of, mentally and most often verbally attacking Chandra’s gender representation. She refers to her as “this angry little hermaphrodite”, “‘Someone as handsome as you perhaps?’” (which is treated like an insult by all within the book) & “‘Scary stuff, She-Man.”

Besides the fact that heading right for insults that have nothing to do with argument makes Joanna seem childish these blatant attacks on Chandra are not without connections to the other problems listed. Chandra is seen as stepping out of the societal expectation of female looks. She is a threat to the white heteronormativity that the book supports. Having Joanna, who now looks like the normative standard of beauty (blond, blue eyes, buxom) deliver these repeated insults is another way of emphasizing the way women are supposed to look. The way Joanna now looks after an unwanted surgery. Stepping out of approved societal roles/stereotypes is not tolerated, and that actually makes me relieved that there are no PoC or queers.

- More blogging by Naamenblog at http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/

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