I hate vampires. You might say that’s a natural reaction to the undead. You’re supposed to hate them. But you don’t understand I really really hold a strong hate for the modern day milquetoast vampire.
How did we go from Nosferatu to Edward Cullen?
Give me the ol’ days when the undead preyed on us, saw themselves as enemies of humanity and God. Give me the old days when Van Helsing kept Count Dracula at bay with the Holy Eucharist or a crucifix.
I have no need of agnostic or atheistic vampires. I don’t want my bloodsuckers with existential angst. I want my vampires to acknowledge God and hate His holy guts.
What’s happened to the old time vampire? I think the plight of the vampire mirrors what’s happening in our culture.
LeStat was the brooding vampire of Anne Rice’s famous series who was unsure of his place in the world because he was unsure of the existence of God himself.
I mostly blame Joss Whedon. In the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Whedon introduced us to the vampire with a soul, an unghastly invention. But it was a novel idea and there were still hundreds of vampires still running around trying to suck on necks at every turn so we didn’t see the damage that the character Angel had done to vampires. Eventually other vampires obtained souls and even demons on the show ended up as kindly sidekicks.
And then came Twilight with the James Dean look-alike Edward Cullen with all his 90210 sulkiness as a symptom of our apathetic and agnostic age. As a sidenote, he worries about the state of vampire’s souls. While LeStat was at least unsure and tortured about his soul, for Cullen it seems to be something to think about only as a parenthetical aside.
The HBO show “True Blood” essentially treats vampires as humans who are allergic to garlic and are unfortunately addicted to blood. They’re victims and those who seek their destruction are portrayed as right wing Christian fanatics.
But let’s face it. Crosses haven’t had any effect on vampires for years in mainstream vampire-dom simply because the cross doesn’t have any effect on so many of us. The demise of the vampire mirrors our own cultural demise.
Now we need to be inclusive about the Un-Dead just as we need to be inclusive about all evil. They even go further by saying that good and evil don’t exist. I want good and evil back. I want my old time vampires back.
It used to be our fear that we would be made into vampires but we’ve done far worse we’ve made vampires us. And to me, that’s even scarier.
May 17, 2010 at 4:40 am
You said it!
May 17, 2010 at 5:38 am
As the Talmud says, those who insist on being kind to the cruel will end by being cruel to the kind.
When we call evil good, or blur the lines between good and evil, we empower the victory of evil over decency. This always–always–leads ultimately to the collapse of social order and the oppression and mass deaths of innocent people.
Do not forget that there were plenty of people, back in the day, who pooh-poohed the criticisms of Hitler, and carried on about his "wonderful smile" and his "way with the people."
May 17, 2010 at 5:50 am
I find the Anita Blake series is a very good rendition of vampires… if you pay attention to the metaphysics instead of the story…. (Short version: she is introduced as having left the Catholic Church, because the Church says her magic is corrupting. The last time I looked, she was "with" {in the modern sense} the head vampire, head werewolf and a couple of other characters…and vampires are established daytime-corpses.)
Try ""Sunshine"." Their vampires are a bit more your style.
May 17, 2010 at 6:32 am
Actually, the change probably started back in the 60s with the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows & Barnabas Collins.
May 17, 2010 at 7:20 am
"But let's face it. Crosses haven't had any effect on vampires for years in mainstream vampire-dom simply because the cross doesn't have any effect on so many of us. The demise of the vampire mirrors our own cultural demise.
Very catchy article and I agree totally!! keep writing!
May 17, 2010 at 4:56 pm
You missed a frighteningt part — according to the radio (and if it's on the radio it must be correct, eh?), "Cullen" is the most popular names for boys this year.
Ponder.
And fear.
May 17, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I'm a vampire.
May 17, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Allow me to challenge this article. Aren't fictional characters allowed to have complexity and nuance? I'm not talking about turning demons into angels, but rather I'm talking about depicting human beings as human beings.
May 17, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Ah, but the traditional vampire isn't a human, a moral being, a real person– that's the whole scary thing. By definition, they have no soul (thus the mirror thing) and only have a half-life because they steal the lives of others.
From there, we've slowly "fixed" it until they're…well…folks who have an urge to drink blood and live a long time.
It's a little like talking about dragons. A lot of folks get upset because they picture the Horrible Embodiment of Sin Destroying (thus the whole eating-virgins thing– works on several levels) instead of the various other versions. Dragons work as the Ultimate Other, even with the metaphor.
Honestly, vampires don't work so well with any metaphor I've seen– the identifying trait is still needing to drink blood, and I haven't really seen anyone work on the symbolism of that. (Compared to dragon= "big reptile," which has a wide range of possible symbols.)
May 17, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Read Astro City: Confession by Kurt Busiek et al.
DM
May 17, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I think there are different ways in which authors can give nuance and complexity, and changing a traditional representation isn't inherently bad, or even including some 'bad things' in a more positive light (just look at the highly jocular Bacchus in Prince Caspian by CS Lewis – nothing like the jerkwad of a pagan god he was mythologically).
But the line has to be drawn before rehabilitating evil things. Lewis' Bacchus is completely subject to Aslan- there is no confusion about who's really God. Vampires are, however, by nature, profane – making them drink animal blood and showing them sympathetically while undercutting the very real moral problems of them and turning traditional allies of hell and destruction into nice but troubled young men is not the same.
Dracula is awesome – you know why? Because the fate of the soul is at its center. And for a modern novel in the same vein, not without flaws but quite good (albeit for older teens/adults) try The Historian. The nice-ification of creatures which are inherently evil is a huge problem.
May 17, 2010 at 9:55 pm
"30 Days of Night" is an interesting take on atheist vampires. The vampires seem filled with despair and emptiness (– when one victim cries, "Oh God!", her vampire menacer sadly replies, "No God."), because they believe that there is no God and yet clearly feel an acute longing for Him. This hunger is expressed in their thirst for blood, which could only ever be sated with the real blood of Christ in the Eucharist.
(SPOILER ALERT) The protagonist, sadly, is also an atheist. Failing to understand and despairing, he commits suicide in order to save his ex-wife and the remaining townspeople, a deeply flawed Christ-figure to the end.
While I agree that the Cullens are a bit of a travesty from an old school vampirism angle, I appreciate that they struggle to overcome their fallen natures and resist sin. Meyer's descriptions of them as beautiful and statuesque call to mind the glorified bodies that believes hope to one day inhabit. I can't help but wonder if the Cullens would find their hunger finally sated for good were they to enter the Church and partake of His body and blood.
May 17, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Vampire: The Masquerade use to allow for Communion to work in place of human blood, depending on your DM.
May 18, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Rent the movie "Dracula 2000". It takes an interesting twist on who Dracula was before he became the undead being that he is. You'd be pleasantly surprised.
May 19, 2010 at 12:41 am
Without going into metaphysics, I liked Angel more than Buffy. With Buffy it was always relationship problems and fornication and emotional stuff. Angel had two objectives: 1.Find Evil 2. Kill Evil
As for vampires in general the thing that makes them so scary is the fact that they can turn you into a soulless monster that is damned yet walks the earth, thirsting for life while being cut off from it. The theological part of the vampire myth is covered very well in previous CMR posts and in articles they link to. Fascinating stuff.
May 19, 2010 at 12:59 am
3) Be EmoPuppy.
4) Have relationship issues with Buffy, his literally psycho ex, female guest stars and Cordelia.
5) Occasionally go psycho due to soul loss, objective #3 or heroic freak-out.
May 19, 2010 at 2:01 am
Edward did not want to change Bella into a vampire because he thought it might result in the loss of her soul for a physical longevity, and that seemed a bad deal to him.
You need to read the books and not just rely on the movie.
Tennwriter
May 19, 2010 at 2:54 am
Sparkly. Vampire.
May 19, 2010 at 5:10 am
That Edward didn't want vampirehood for Bella doesn't change the overall presentation of a traditionally evil and lamentable condition as somehow acceptable and attractive.
May 19, 2010 at 5:49 am
Foxfier: LOL