Tammy Swanson: Parks and Recreation's Sexy Stereotype

A ruthless sex-fiend, Tammy Swanson (Tammy II) from Parks and Recreation is what every “sexy librarian” would be if they couldn’t turn it off in the real world.

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She is a master of sexual seduction that Ron Swanson cannot deny-and she uses his desires to her full advantage. She is as Ron describes, a “manipulative, psychotic, library book peddling, sex crazed, she-demon.” Tammy first appears in "Ron and Tammy", when she lays claims to Lot 48 in order to expand the library to another branch. A bit of trivia: The actress who portrays Tammy 2, Megan Mullally is actually married to Nick Offerman, who portrays Ron Swanson.

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Librarian Stereotypes says, “For women working in the field, the ‘sexy librarian’ is perhaps the most demeaning, infuriating stereotype because it degrades the woman from being a normal person doing their job to a sex object that is there only to look pretty. As such, this stereotype seems to be the one hardest to overcome for me personally, but also for the profession overall.”

I actually disagree with this notion. 

Even though Tammy II is an over-sexualized bitch, she shows that librarians have a wide range of personalities. She is also quite a strong and interesting character that watches out for her own interest and the interests of those who work for her.  Her sexualized stereotype is so over done that it is absurd! It takes the stereotype and does not forward the notion but instead pokes fun at the very idea of the “over-sexed” librarian.

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Paranormal Series: The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Paranormal Series: A series of literature reviews of Young Adult Paranormal Romances. 

Curtsy of Goodreads

Sixteen-year-old Zoe is having a seriously hard time with her life. Her mom is battling cancer in the hospital, and losing. Her father is overwhelmed with the impending death of his wife, and best friend is moving so far away that they will not be able to see each other very often. In the middle of all this torment, Zoe meets Simon. Simon is a vampire seeking revenge for the death of his mother and his own turning against a most unusual antagonist. Together, will they be able to stop this criminal before he leaves a further string of bodies around Zoe’s town?

curtsy of wildisonmyside

In Annette Curtis Klause’s debut novel, she explores grief and the loss of close family in a pretty paranormal romance wrapping. It goes into some pretty hard details of Zoe’s emotional state during all the events of her life. The book is short and easy to read for younger audiences. There is still some violent descriptions, but not near the graphic detail it could have been. The murder, however, is a young child-be warned.

In ending the book, I wondered how this did so well when it did not go by the typical formula. In fact, they DO NOT end up together in the end. He is not a vampire that has chosen her as a mate and stalks her until she loves him back. In the end, he has finally killed his brother (the young child) and has avenged the death of his mother. His soul is able to move on and be at rest, kind of like a ghost more than a vampire. He moves on (hopefully to a better place) while she returns to her father so they can band together in the slow and painful loss of her mother. It was then that I looked at the copyright date. The Silver Kiss was published in 1992, many years before the Twilight novels. Could this have some effect of it? Is the popularity of Twilight affecting the plot choices of present and future paranormal romances?


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