I am presenting as part of two panels at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo April 24-27 and I am very excited for both presentations. One of them I have done before as part of a larger panel at a University of Calgary’s Communications and Culture department presentation. I will be talking about the character of Ender as a hero in the Ender’s Game movie (2013) and book (1985). The second presentation is new and is the one I’m interested in talking about right now. My title is “Why girls love the boys who hurt them (on TV)” and is part of a panel on supernatural creatures on contemporary television. I’m specifically talking about the normalization of abusive relationships for teenagers through the use (and excuse) of different supernatural species on two tv shows aimed at teens: The Vampire Diaries (2009 – ) and Teen Wolf (2011 – ). This topic is something I’ve been interested in for a long time. As both an avid reader/watcher (when I have the time) and a student of urban fantasy and paranormal romance I have often struggled with the cognitive dissonance that comes with knowing that the actions of most male characters in the stories are violent and/or abusive while still wanting them to end up with the protagonist. I am speaking only of novels that feature heterosexual relationships here as I just haven’t read as many with any other forms of sexuality. These genres are two of the more popular, particularly among women readers and I know I am not the only person who has ever felt this way. There are threads on nearly every forum or online book discussion that deal with the fact that women readers recognize the danger inherent in these characters yet continue to ship them with a protagonist with whom they identify. For example, Felicia Day runs an online book discussion and monthly hangout where she and three of her friends (Veronica Belmont, Kiala Kazebee, and Bonnie Burton) discuss the monthly book selections of often paranormal romance novels. Often discussions on the GoodReads thread and the actual hangout of this Vaginal Fantasy Book Club turn to discussions of how “rapey” the main love interests appear to be. The question often surfaces because these (women) readers feel concerned that they like this character when they know that they would hate him if he were real. One difference between these characters and reality, in the genres of urban fantasy and paranormal romance anyway, is that they are not human. The male love interests tend to be vampires, werewolves, angels, wizards/warlocks, members of the fae, trolls, dragons, genies, or any other supernatural creature you can imagine. Since these characters are otherwordly, we can often forgive their more violent character traits as specific to their species. In fact, the species designation is regularly used as an excuse for certain behaviours. For example, a love interest that is overly possessive is probably a werewolf because it is in their nature to mate for life and protect all those they consider part of their pack. Vampires are often considered naturally violent predators who can hide or shut off their emotions so female protagonists can expect a certain amount of violence from a distant lover. In my Calgary Expo presentation I talk about these behaviours in the characters of Stefan and Damon from The Vampire Diaries and, to a lesser extent, Scott and Derek in Teen Wolf. The issue here though is that, in discussing these issues, I will be showing a short clip of Stefan acting somewhat violent toward Elena (and her forgiveness of both Stefan and the violence). He never strikes her but it is still a display of violence. As this is a public presentation as opposed to an academic talk, I wonder how much I have to prepare audience members for potential triggers. In this case, the panel description mentions the shows we will be discussing but does not discuss violence as I am the only panelist looking at the creatures in that way. If I feel trigger warnings are necessary, how do I broach the topic? Can I assume that most of the audience will have seen the show already? Does that even matter if I’m drawing attention to something that a long-time viewer might not have noticed before? Regardless what I do in this case, I will have to consider how to include a trigger warning on any future public presentation abstract I submit.

The presentation has been uploaded and my video clip didn’t work anyway. Thanks so much to the other presenters for including me in this panel.