I am not enthralling

I think I have had enough of reading movie plots that get to "enthralled by her beauty".
Partly it's because it's always her, mostly because it's always beauty.
If a monster is enthralled by purity... okay, that too would annoy, because it's usually weird religious definitions to do with sex or lack thereof.
If a monster is enthralled by goodness, sincerity, compassion, honesty, any personal quality at all, that involves someone making choices and doing things and all that. Someone learning from a better example is fine.
But noooooo. It's always the sodding sleeping beauty.
I wouldn't mind if it was a subcategory of their being monstrous. Many of the monsters are walking Things, making a comment on treating people as things, or they're mind controlled like the sleepwalker, which is all about letting some authority dude tell you to do bad things. If the way they treated women, as entrancing objects, was part of that, a way they're a monster, then fair enough. Creeps be creepy.
But still noooooo. I was going to say it's always a first step on their road to redemption, like Angel seeing Buffy in the sunlight being all lollipop, but it's a bit more complicated than that.
A bunch of German movies I just read about in a row go something like: enthralled by her beauty, the monster breaks free of the authority demon dude's control. So it's kind of like freedom, because they're not being controlled into murders any more. But it's kind of about the way sexuality is all out of control. And they don't turn into free yet rational members of society, they do something else that is still all monster.
And next thing you know there's a monkey up a skyscraper or whatever, so it don't work out well for the girl or the monster.

So now we're reading a bunch of movies where 'enthralled by her beauty' is followed by some kind of madness from the girl and the monster both, and then either the monster takes her or she sacrifices herself, and then the monster drops dead. Gothic horror monster movie stuff. Bit of a formula. I've had enough of it.

Buffy did not sacrifice herself to the monster. No, correction, she kind of did one time and it made him powerful and she had to wake up and kick his arse. Stupid gothic movie girls go all faint and swoony and lie back and the monster does stuff and then somehow that magically leads to the end of the monster. And, quite often, the woman. Fail. Double fail, because how is that supposed to be any useful at all? Buffy is double extra win, no swooning and plenty much arse kicking, which you can see being actually any use at all.

If women were being teachers and finding monsters and being all dude, be more chill, then that would be fair enough. Show them the zen. Share some wisdom and compassion around.
That would even work. Especially if she could defend herself with nicely meditative martial arts when the dude was not yet chill.

But they're not. They're not even being a good example. They're just lying there, being enthralling, ripping off the control of the masters and revealing not a freed man but a chaotic beast, now enslaved by his own hormones instead.

I know that's because horror movie, but I'm really really bored.



If we start with 'enthralled by his beauty' then what stories do we get to?
One reason I like slashy vampire movies is it's about getting hung up between wanting and wanting to be, falling for the bad boy and for being the bad boy.
So you can totally do that in reverse. Fall for the beautiful innocent, and get all wistful about having been that once.

You still need actual personality before said beauty can be a useful influence, but, then they can turn out to be good as well as pretty, and be a good example, and someone can switch sides and not be a monster any more.
Though usually the consequences of their earlier actions catch up to them and things end badly anyway. Karma bites.


If you queer the 'enthralled by her beauty' thing a bit you can get the same story, wanting and wanting to be.
That... could get told really, really badly.
I mean, if you start with ugly monkey dude and they decide to wear the pretty dresses now, that's... not going to be a heartbreaking tale of the quest for redemption unless it's done really a lot better than it sounds.
Wanting to be good and decent and compassionate... I can think of stories about a man brought around by the love of a good woman, but they're not the same wanting-to-be angle, they're about wanting to be worthy of her, not wanting to be her.

Buffy is awesome. Well, at her best, I can say quite a lot about how I'm annoyed with her too. But, Buffy is awesome, and kicks a lot of arse, and who wouldn't want to be her?
... aside from about everyone she knows?

Hmmm, now I'm thinking of the Slayer's coat and wanting-to-be. Dark version.



Okay, bunch of thoughts there, but I still haven't finished this stupid chapter about German horror movies, so.