In Regards to pages 48 through 86 of
Linda Jaivin's Rock 'n' Roll Babes from Outer Space
2 March 1999
It is an unfortunate thing about this book that the humour grows stale. While I began this book optimistically, the author shows little versitility. She relies on the same formulas of perverted alien sex and allusions to popular sci-fi culture. It seems to be a matter of cheap thrills and coat tails all the way. She should have cut the novel down to a short story; then the humour may have worked for the duration.
This book shows humans, especially male humans, as being incompetant, as epitimized by Jake and the twins who were drug abusing slackers. The alien babes were shown as being super-competant, able to do anything and carry it off without the least hardship, such as seducing any person they wish and forming a rock band overnight. The rest of the aliens were just to silly and pathetic to even take any serious note of.
I wouldn't call the Babes "meta-Monicas" since I don't see Monika Lewinsky as being anyone special. Monica had sexual relations with one man and she tried to keep it quiet. The Babes were extremely promiscuous and open about it. Monica was dragged into the limelight by others; the Babes put themselves there. Most commentators feel Monica was not very attractive; the Babes were the most beautiful women anyone ever set eyes on.
Can we really say this novel is about woman's empowerment? These were aliens with superhuman abilities. That's like saying "Superman is an icon reinforcing male empowerment" just because superman is male. But how many people can look to this fictional characters as role models and thereby improve the quality of their life expecting to be just like them? You could make a better counter-argument saying that because Jaivin needed to make her female characters alien in order to make them powerful, it is a sign of female human frailty.
Actually, that's a curious point about female humans in the novel. The only semi-significant female humans in the novel are Saturna and Skye who seem to have no roll other than to be a lesbian couple who has sex with Iggy and Doll; their presence and their sexuality is entirely gratuitous to the plot.
I didn't think anything of the bodily reality Jaivin presents on page 62. Why is mastrubation taboo when bestiality, homosexuality, and sex with aliens is not? This seems absurd. But then, the Kama Sutra also enforces this view point.
As for ET being real, this doesn't seem so innovative. There have been people arguing that Sci-Fi aliens are based on reality for a long time. Jaivin also adopted Klingons from Star Trek and I think Alpha Centurians I think came from Doctor Who. Cherumbim obviously came from the Bible. It shouldn't suprize me to learn that probably the Sirians and possibly even the Nufonians were borrowed from another work.
I'm still not clear what you are trying to argue has never been done before. It seems that your whole point is that Jaivin, the author, is female. But this is a book and I don't see how that's really relevant. It might have some relevance if she was a comedian on stage, though it shouldn't. But why is that relevant here? Is it empowering a woman writer when we hold her to a lower standard? What are really doing for literature as a whole when we give driving licenses to retarts who are less capable at a lower standard because we feel sorry for them.