Total Number of Ratings: 13
Vampires: It's a Bit More Complicated Than That
First Published: Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:48 PM
Last Saved: Friday, October 16, 2009 12:04 AM
Vampires are everywhere these days, and it's not just because Halloween is right around the corner. It's tough to say exactly what started this surge in popularity. I discovered Anne Rice in early 90's, but only within the past few years have I found myself with a large enough quantity of vampire-based novels and series that I can afford to be picky and still get my fang fix. Twilight may seem like the obvious fad-starting choice, but would any publisher have given the teen novels a second glance if the fad didn't already have some solid roots? Several "romantic" vampire series were raking in the cash long before Stephanie Meyer turned up with her fresh take on blood suckers. Buffy had come and gone and between Blade and Underworld, they weren't exactly out of the motion picture lime light. 
Recently, Stephen March (or is it Marche?) published an article at Esquire.com suggesting that young women are crushing on vampires because they remind them of the unrequited crushes they have on their out-or-not gay male friends. March isn't exactly wrong, and he wisely makes a clear distinction between how vampires have been used in the past and how these more-or-less defanged creatures are being used in the CW's The Vampire Diaries and Meyer's Twilight Series. He gives a shout-out to all the Gay Pride lingo that True Blood borrows, but even he can't say that Bill and Eric are anything like Stefan and Edward. March chooses to focus on the teen versions of this fad. It can't be about blood and sex from the get-go because you're dealing with minors. The MPAA and the FCC won't allow it.
He's on the right path, though. What is it that makes vampires so attractive? 
The romantic vampire pulls from a wide variety of female fantasies. He's the bad-boy looking for salvation. He's the all-consuming lover who sees to her every need. He is rich and can show her a lifestyle beyond her imagination. He'll give her the greatest orgasm ever, or something even greater than orgasm. He is tough and powerful while still being regularly fragile and helpless. He is sensitive and emotional unlike any of his modern competition because he's spent centuries learning what a woman truly wants in a man. He is obsessed. He is dangerous. He is the embodiment of death.
It's hard to identify one of those elements that i don't enjoy on some level, but for me, it's ultimately about the the Darcy factor. 
Give me a hero who is intelligent and aloof, with impeccable manners and a worldly air who fights his attraction to an out-spoken, non-traditional heroine who isn't properly appreciated by anyone else in her life. I will be sitting with baited breath waiting for the moment when his veneer cracks and he can't help but give in to his passion. It doesn't matter if he choses to profess his undying devotion on bended knee, by thoroughly ravishing her against a wall, or by sinking his fangs into her neck. That moment where he breaks is what I'm after, and vampire stories are full of those moments.
I'll confess before someone calls me on it. Self-aware as I am, it's not even that simple for me. It's the Darcy factor now, and today's vampires are certainly playing that up (possibly the only thing Bill Compton and Edward Cullen have in common are their Darcy-roots), but that's not why I got started. I was a bit emo back in the day and long before it was cool. Since "the day" was also during my painfully-chaste high school days, the sexual-but-not nature of the Anne Rice vampires with all their beauty and darkness and danger was just about perfect for me.
I don't think vampires were the gay best friends I never had, but I wasn't reading about sparkly "vegetarian" vampires who went to my school, either. Regardless, I don't think the romantic vampire is leaving us any time soon. He'll continue to be slightly re-imagined to illuminate whatever facet is most attractive to the largest audience.
I've been mulling over this article and the comments (mostly because I'd rather think about this than work) and hereâ??s what I came up with:
this comes down to wanting whatâ??s forbidden/what you canâ??t have.
the exciting a different thing plays into this, itâ??s definitely part of what drives the lust. but itâ??s also the wonderful feeling of being the one person that can make this vamp want to feel human (or in the case of Darcy, marry someone outside of his â??classâ??). I mean, thatâ??s a super boost to your ego right there. it's a very compelling fantasy.
but the whole thing is doomed. thereâ??s usually a reason itâ??s â??forbiddenâ?? in the first place. I mean, you canâ??t have a meaningful relationship with a blood sucking monster (even if he is Edward Cullen); even if you can change them into your ideal of what a partner should be, theyâ??ll lose what was exciting about them in the first place; or the whole thing was just about the chase and now that youâ??ve caught each other, youâ??re bored. which is why the story usually ends with the â??happily ever after'. I get the whole fantasy part of this, I really do. maybe Iâ??ve just become jaded in my old age.
also, the Buffy/Spike relationship never sat well with me. granted there are huge gaps in my Buffy watching, but didnâ??t Spike try to, like, assault Buffy at one point? I remember him forcing himself on her in one episode. am I wrong? I know there are a lot of Buffy/Spike fans and I feel like I somehow missed the boat there.
he did. there's an episode in season 6 (after they start shagging) where she cuts him off and he goes crazy obsessed with her. for whatever reason she's been weakened and he finds her and decides they need to have sex so he can get her out of his mind (or something) and she's unable to fight him off. i can't remember if he ends up raping her or if he comes to his senses just before.
it's pretty rough, and tainted his character for a long time for me. i took my spike action figures down and never put them back up. the show drove home the point that buffy and spike's relationship was really unhealthy over and over, though. which made the end of the series a bit out of sync.
excellent point about the lure of the forbidden. it's a key aspect of the vamp fantasy and it goes both ways. the heroine is the forbidden object (thou shalt not bite), and also in the super fun forbidden relationship.
Well, not *that* out of sync -- he had to get his soul replaced and he still didn't end up with Buffy.
Buffy was able to fight Spike off before he raped her but it messed them both up a bit and sent Spike off on his soul quest.
When they got back together at the end of season 7 it was after they'd both worked through their season 6 issues and had come out of it better people (or part demons things if you want to be canonical).
I was always firmly Angel/Buffy so I never liked Spike/Buffy anyway.
Great point about the forbidden aspect too. Vampires are like the ultimate bad boy. You do not want him to meet your parents.
The soul's pretty important. He spends the whole season working through it and reconciling his life back when he was a killer. Not that it excuses the assault, but the show did acknowledge it and treat it as a problem. It's not as though it's one of those stories where the guy abuses the girl and she takes him back like nothing happened.
Though I still know more people who think Buffy abused Spike than the other way around. (As I alluded earlier, I think those people were crazy -- but there was plenty of physical violence both ways over the course of the relationship).
I've been pondering this since that Esquire article hit; you're definitely right that it's oversimplified, and I think you've hit on something that the vampire archetype and the Darcy archetype have in common. That's the idea that this guy who's mysterious and unknown and part of a different world than [presumptive overidentifying female fan], and either potentially (because unknown) or actually (because a vampire) dangerous, really is secretly carrying a torch for [female lead and presumptive overidentifying female fan]. The unknown is actually safe/desirable because Darcy is actually a good guy/vampire dude is really dangerous but will make an exception for the love of his life because she's *special*.
What any of this has to do with wanting to sleep with gay friends is a little beyond my depth.
Now here's a potential can of worms -- most Darcy-lovers that I am familiar with tend to like/identify with Elizabeth. But it's my impression (and any Twilighties out there feel free to correct me) that Bella is generally regarded as insipid. And I know that many/most of the Spike fans I've encountered thought that Buffy was lame/not good enough for him -- but still wanted them to get together because Spike should get what he wanted. (I'm a Spike/Buffy fan myself and don't agree with that position at all, but it often seemed to be the prevailing view). Is it fair to say that *many* of today's sparkly-vamp lovers would like to have the girl out of the way and get the guy from themselves, or am I reading this totally wrong?
that's a serious can.
i don't know how you could enjoy twilight without wanting to "do it better" than Bella, unless you identified with her so much that you didn't notice how passive and insipid she is.
i'm a spike fan when he's being puck-ish and not so much when he's being mooney. I liked season 2 spike, and the episode where he teaches buffy about the slayers and a couple others where he got to relish being the bad boy.
the uber-sparkly vamps who need to grow a pair (edward, even bill) are not my cup of tea. i prefer them with just a bit more arrogance and evil.
Yeah, I have trouble getting into a story where I don't like the heroine; on the other hand, I tend to cut heroines a lot of slack. I actually thought Bella had a pretty compelling voice in the 2-3 pages of TWILIGHT I read, but I've been assured from many sides that I'd get sick of her fast.
Bella is equal parts heroine and damsel and I'm not sure the balance is handled very well in the books.
maybe bella grows a pair in the last two novels to balance out how "damsel" she is in the first two.
i feel the need to confess (again?) that i stopped reading the twilight series after new moon. toward the end the horror aspects and even the romance seemed to take a back seat to the writer's mormon soap box and i lost interest. i decided to let my friend wikipedia tell me how the last two novels went down. i was glad i didn't spend more than a few more minutes and no money to confirm my suspicions.
I'm sure one needs to confess to NOT reading all the Twilight books.
Bella is utterly infuriating in the third book (Eclipse) but I found the story about the American vampire wars to be fascinating. As for the fourth book (Breaking Dawn), well that had it's own issues. God help them when they come to film the scene on the island because parts of that was messed up.
She certainly becomes less of a victim as the series progresses.
I was talking to my friends about this. The consensus seems to believe that men like vampires for the blood and violence while women are drawn to passion, romance, and seduction.
As for me, I prefer horror in the form of leprechauns.
Great article, Kelly!
I'm actually not so big on zombies or the gore aspect. I like vampires because they're smart and sophisticated and romantic, which is scarier than a monster that drags its feet. I also like girls. So it's more than a simple gender/sexual preference divide.
Yay! I was hoping you'd do this! Now I can bombard friends with links.
I wonder whether there is a female archetype that attract man in a similar way. If we expand the thesis to pop culture and films especially, I think the contemporary equivalent might be the detached yet irresistible indie Music/Art girl/ Geek Girl With her Converse All stars acoustic guitars, sass, Brain, impassioned social agenda, and chronically scorned, but undeniably foxy figure. See Ellen Page, Zoey Deschanel, Away we Go, Once, Charlie Bartlett, etc.
When you said this, I thought of Natalie Portman's character in 'Garden State.' Which may not be exactly what you're talking about, but might be the female equivalent of a sparkly-vampire in the sense of looking like a bad idea, but still having an undeniable appeal.
it's almost the same thing, isn't it? that aloof, interesting person who wouldn't possibly be interested in you, but somehow is.
I've always thought of more as discovering a secretly fantastic person. A person, who, once unveiled, makes all other potential romances seem shallow in comparison. Think Marian the Librarian. It's about (for lack of a more creative terminology) uncovering the fantastic which underlies the outwardly frumpy.
If I remember Twilight correctly, Edward was overlooked for a few decades until Bella, right?
So yes, it is almost the same thing.
But I suppose I place more emphasis on the discovery of the attractive person as a oppressed to the impossibility of that person's interest in the the person who adores her or in this case, him (Edward). And Bella sure as hell pursues him.
It's similar, but the girls I'm thinking about aren't aloof in the same way as the boys -- in fact, they're often over-sharey/ getting intimate *too* quickly. This might have to do with a 'dangerous' partner coding differently for men than for women (in heterosexual relationships, I mean at the moment). To generalize broadly (but hey, Esquire started it), the idea of risk/danger for a man in a relationship with a woman tends to be emotional, and for a woman in a relationship with a man tends to be physical. Not that all women are afraid of all men but we're taught from the time we're young that all men COULD be dangerous. I'm thinking about mandatory sexual assault awareness seminars freshman year of college, which have probably been expanded to high school by now. As they should be -- I'm *glad* that we have awareness (thinking of that girl on 'Mad Men' a few weeks ago, who probably didn't realize she had a right to say no). But the Esquire guy seems to want to say that vampires are popular because we view sex as being TOO safe, when to me it suggests the opposite. Faced with so much awareness of danger, I can see the attraction of guys who we know are dangerous but won't hurt *us*.
I mean, I miss the days when Lloyd Dobler was the perfect man, but I guess I kind of get it.
I agree with Paul re: Zoey in 500.
A mint could be made from T-Shirts which say "I miss the days when Lloyd Dobler was the perfect man". I would buy 6
i had to look up who lloyd dobler was. i'm not sure i've ever seen say anything. ;)
@ohcaroline i think you're onto something with the increase in awareness of real-world violence leading to a passive breed of vampires.
it's ironic though. there's not only no guarantee that the vamp won't hurt you, but when he does hurt you, it's worse than sexual assault.
Good point -- casting "vegetarian vampires" as love interests is both exaggerating the dangers of sex and neutralizing them at the same time. And I hadn't considered it before, but Meyer's Mormon (and presumably pro-abstinence-til-marriage) background probably has an effect on this; though pro-abstince education is widespread enough that teens wouldn't have to come from a similarly strict religious background to have absorbed the messages about danger.
All my musing here mostly applies to why this archetype would appeal to naive teens; the appeal to grownups/those who have navigated the waters of grownup relationships and survived is presumably different -- maybe *that*'s where the Darcy love comes in. I just find the Esquire thesis that the teen fanbase consists shy plain awkward f** h**s in training to be on the contemptuous side. I'd like to believe that the teenagers are making a legitimate -- if immature -- response to real external messages.
Or, as Elizabeth would put it -- I give the world's lovestruck teenagers leave to like Edward Cullen; they've liked many a sillier person. But I do hope it's not too long before we see a blockbuster teen series where the female lead is the main appeal.
Personally, I'm not a big fan of the romantic vampires. I like them evil and unremorseful, like when Angel was Angelus or David from Lost Boys. I prefer them to be monsters with very little humanity left.
I do love Mr. Darcy, but for reasons that have nothing to do with him doing something like sucking blood out of my neck. I think the Edward Cullen and Bill Compton types are trying to play off the Darcy appeal, but I don't think they pull it off very well.
i think when vamps are all soft and emotional and don't have that "i'm mostly a predatory animal/demon" edge, they're pretty boring. if the dangerous side isn't on display at least some of the time, then what's the point of being a vampire in the first place?
I definitely prefer angelus to angel (especially to post-angelus-angel). he's evil and unremorseful, yes, but still passionate and obsessed with his heroine of choice. to me that's just a different side of romantic. (and one that's best left to mythical creatures in stories ;)
Deny it if you must, but Darcy has ruined the chances of any guy who wants to win the heart of a bookworm.
Step by step Darcy guide. (1) Obtain ten thousand a year (adjusted to 2008 currency, that's apparently over 300,000 pounds/500,000 dollars -- I love the Internet.) (2) Look like Colin Firth, or at least Matthew McFadyen. (3) Be rude to the girl, and also her family; use devious means to break up her perfectly nice sister's relationship with your best friend; sit quietly while your relatives are rude to her. (4) Continue to be rude when you propose marriage to her; listen indignantly as she dresses you down. (5) Write a long letter explaining a family feud that goes back decades in exhaustive detail, and also explain why you had a really really good reason for being rude to her and her family. (6) Stew for a while. (7) Arrange for her to visit your gorgeous country house "by accident". (8) Be less rude. Introduce her to your sister.
(9) Discover a family scandal involving her sister (not the perfectly nice one); use devious means to cover it up -- throw money around if necessary. (10) Arrange to have one of your relatives come by and tell her NOT to marry you. (11) Show up at the moment when she's most grateful for (9) and indignant about (10). (12) Propose. (13) Live happily ever after.
Yup, not hard at all!
hrm....and suddenly i feel a novel coming on. "The Darcy Manual" where a young man uses P&P as a guide to wooing the lower-class girl who just happens to work at the book shop in the small town his family "owns."
What am I to make of the centuries-old men dating high school girls? Or continuing to attend high school?? I wouldn't have made it a fifth year. At what age do they all just essentially become pedos?
They're all timeless individuals. It adds to their charm and mystique.
I hear you about high school though. Why they can't just say that they're home-schooled is beyond me. We'll store it under "contrived story element".
I am unashamedly enamoured with vampires. I'm firmly pro-Angel and Team Edward. Bill from True Blood hasn't grabbed me yet (in a manner of speaking) but that might be just because Eric is so damned incredible.
Reading over that last sentence you might be surprised to learn that I'm a heterosexual male in my late 20's.
From a non-traditional guy perspective I can fully understand where this passion comes from. I like to think of myself as a romantic man and as such these vampires speak to me because they are at once romantic and masculine. Too often today we see the two as being mutually exclusive but in characters like Angel and Bill we see strong and powerful men with very real and intense feelings.
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i always prefer zombies myself ;)