In the first episode of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series the principal of the Sunnydale High School is interviewing Buffy as a new student who is enrolling in the school. We can’t believe that all the stuff in her old school record is Buffy’s fault since she is portrayed as a heroine who was chosen against her will by fate to struggle against the forces of evil. Nonetheless, the adults consider her heroic struggles to be nothing more than a childish acting out ploy to gain attention.
Somehow we get the impression that Buffy, like the anorexic, is being used as a scapegoat by the authorities because the disturbances that she gets caught up in appear to be the result of having been chosen by fate to deal with the demons (in ordinary language: modern cultural influences) that have infested her school and community.
During the past year or so, there have been numerous reports on the Internet about an alarming increase in incidences of anorexia nervosa in younger children. It should be self-evident that there is some disturbing factor in modern culture that is causing this phenomenon. The authorities keep blaming the fashion industry for the problem, but the people who work in the fashion industry are being inspired by the same factors that can give rise to anorectic thinking.
The Queen of Wonderland project explores the factors that can give rise to an obsession with a thin image. This project is the result of many years of research, so it is not going to be just another book of anorectic trivia or psychobabble. The Queen of Wonderland project is going to analyse the psychodynamics behind modern Gothic fantasy stories because the authors of the most popular Gothic stories have been inspired by an unconscious factor to metaphorically portray the cultural factors behind this modern mania of self-harming behaviour in their stories. This is done unconsciously in a hidden symbolic fashion that even the produces of the fantasies are unaware of. In other words, anorexics, fashion designers and Buffy’s producers are being influenced by a unconscious factor to become obsessed by the mythology surrounding the theme of a heroine’s descent into the underworld which also involves the theme of reduction to essence. The theme of the reduction to essence can take different forms depending on the nature of the fantasy.
It is very interesting to note that some universities have been moved by the huge popularity of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series and the Twilight series to hold seminars on these Gothic fantasy series in an attempt to try to understand what this phenomenon is all about. But all their efforts amount to nothing more than a collection of trivia that is going to become obsolete once The Queen of Wonderland is published.
