The Return of the Vampire
One can’t help but notice the growing prevalence of the vampire archetype in contemporary fiction and film, corresponding to the popular fascination with the Titanic story. The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations.
Regarding the Titanic, poet Robyn Sarah speculates that the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster “struck a chord with the popular psyche as we steamed towards a new millennium” because it “bowls us over that what seemed so substantial — the multi-storied castle of lit ballrooms, grand staircases, fine furnishings, a self-sufficient man-made world of beauty and luxury — could slip so swiftly into oblivion.” In other words, people have identified psychologically, culturally, and civically with the fate of the great liner, intuiting that our Western way of life, “first-class tickets for all, lifeboats for none,” as Sarah writes, is no longer sustainable.
Analogously, since Anne Rice’s 1976 Interview with the Vampire became a bestseller, the vampire myth has taken wing, so to speak, giving new life to Bram Stoker’s chiropteran seigneur. Its exemplars are to be found wherever we look: in novels, movies, video games, and TV serials. Even the famed critic and cultural maven Harold Bloom reportedly takes in every vampire movie that hits the marquees. Often the vampire is portrayed sympathetically, as a suffering and misunderstood creature resisting the curse he (or she) bears and seeking redemption for his predatory impulses. But the rehabilitation of the vampire does not change the fact that the vampire remains a vampire, subject to cravings that augur poorly for the larger population upon whose vulnerability he preys. The vampire’s thirst, as Byron wrote in his poem “The Giaour,” is “unquenched, unquenchable.”
What is more interesting than charting a mere literary phenomenon, however, is asking ourselves why this particular legend or superstition has acquired such prominence among us today, preying in its own way upon the modern sensibility. As with the Titanic mystique, it may develop as a trope or representation of a profound cultural malaise, a sense that under the surface of daily life destructive forces prowl. As a character in Robert Walser’s surrealistic 1909 novel Jakob Von Gunten says, adjusting for the historical calendar, “Concerts and theatres are going down and down, the standpoint sinks lower and lower. There is, to be sure, still something like society to set the tone but it no longer has the capacity for striking the notes of dignity and subtlety of mind.” Nor, for that matter, the note of assurance.
The premonition that something is awfully wrong haunts the imagination, although much of the time we cannot isolate precisely what it is that lurks in the shadows of our doubts and misgivings. Terrorism and a revived Islam, for example, clearly stalk the collective psyche. According to ancient lore, the vampire must first be invited into the premises he subsequently terrorizes, and this is certainly the case with the Islamic demographic. At the same time, all too many of us refuse to consciously acknowledge the threat and strive instead to prettify the image of Islam as a “religion of peace” — just as the modern vampire tends to be nipped and tucked into a cosmetic semblance of nobility and innocence.
As Toby Lichtig writes in the TLS, reviewing a shelf of new publications on the subject, the vampire persists as a vehicle of universal fears, “of life being sapped by death, of health by disease, of the deserving by the selfish,” which explains why it remains “such a powerful metaphor, whether in terms of economics…racial chauvinism, politics, science or domestic relationships.” And indeed, the vampire is no longer the esoteric personage he once was, plying his mischief in the remote fastnesses of Transylvania or the fog of 19th century London, but is now just as likely to make his home “in the Sunnydale of Buffy.” The vampire is ubiquitous.
Which brings us to the immediate circumstances. Perhaps the specter that most keenly taxes the confidence of many Americans is the suspicion of impending cataclysm. Its sepulchral origin may escape the majority of those who are distressed by the prospect of a coming debacle, but it is embodied in a pervasive and commanding presence. The determined scavenger crouching beneath the casements of the national edifice should not be hard to identify, for it too has been invited past the threshold and treated by many as an honored guest. As Byron described the fiend’s lurid passage, “His floating robe around him folding/Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle.”
Whether through inertia, ignorance, or moral blindness, we are the frequent victims of our own fearful unwillingness to acknowledge the obvious. What flits through our anxieties and forebodings is staring us straight in the face, if we would only look. For despite the mists of inscrutability that surround the bearer of a sinister mission and the reluctance of many to see through its blandishments, its real nature can be readily perceived — assuming, of course, that we struggle to stay vigilant. But not enough of us do. The deluded among us continue to be captivated by the peregrinations of the vampire through the Imaginary of the culture and yet are incapable of recognizing its manifestation before our very eyes. One thinks of John Polidori’s unsuspected “vampyre” in his 1819 novella The Vampyre: A Tale, the undulant Lord Ruthven strutting about like a depraved grandee “remarkable for his singularities,” whose “peculiarities caused him to be invited to every house.” Only this vampire is no metaphor. “It’s too bad,” says David Wiedemer in Aftershock, analyzing yet another and complementary aspect of the marauding force at work, “that it’s not just a story.”
Who or what is the vampire? It seems to have more than one name, though Nosferatu serves as a convenient tag. It has a complex and exotic family history though its full biography remains a Carpathian enigma and its behavior and intentions are shrouded in a false identity. It presents itself as a composite figure — a political party, an ostensibly liberal bringer of gifts and cachet, a potent ideology that strives to transform the world, a utopian philosophy that promises bliss upon conversion to its purposes but leads only to a society of the locavore undead. Its acolytes and minions swarm through the world infecting the gullible with the serum of its malignity.
Thus, it proceeds systematically to undermine the strength of those among whom it freely moves, surviving by transfusions of the energy and substance of others who remain unaware that they are the quarry and not the beneficiaries. It redistributes the lifeblood of nations throughout its own body and the collective body of its adherents. It offers ease, comfort, and security, but at the insidious expense of vitality and freedom — and ultimately of the very ease, comfort, and security it has guaranteed. Its manner can be suave and polished though often enough a rough impatience pokes through its carefully constructed veneer. It responds to challenges with aristocratic haughtiness and gutter ruthlessness. It is clever and unscrupulous. It is a purveyor of lies and deceptions. It loves the accoutrements of power and the grand architecture of its residence. It embraces what appear to be noble causes the better to hide its appetite for dominion. It is both furtive and conspicuous. And the irony is that eventually it must run out of blood, to everyone’s cost, even the vampire’s.
The vampire is real and its voracity unbounded. There are only two things that can frustrate its designs, namely, Walser’s “dignity and subtlety of mind.” Or alternately, the symbols of faith and the light of reason, both, unfortunately, in free fall. Absent their belated revival, the vampire is sure to triumph.
“Often the vampire is portrayed sympathetically, as a suffering and misunderstood creature resisting the curse he (or she) bears and seeking redemption for his predatory impulses. But the rehabilitation of the vampire does not change the fact that the vampire remains a vampire, subject to cravings that augur poorly for the larger population upon whose vulnerability he preys. The vampire’s thirst, as Byron wrote in his poem “The Giaour,” is “unquenched, unquenchable.”
Sort of like the Federal Government. Although it feels badly about taking all of your money and it says it really does want to “change,” it never really does and it goes right back to sucking the life’s blood out of your pocket, your money. And no matter what happy face the government wants to put on its spending, it still spends more and more. Why? Because, like the vampire, it will not change. Because the Federal Government is the Federal Government and it has grown so big and so arrogant that it feels that it was created to just waste and spend all of your money. Does anyone have a the political nerve to drive a stake into the heart of this monster and stop it from growing even bigger, before we all go broke? 2012 will tell the tale.
Or you could take a look at the great “blood sucking vampire squid” that is the banking industry. You know, the people who seem to be doing quite fine right now with over $2.2 Trillion dollars that they earned in the past five years while the rest of us didn’t do quite so well.
Over the years we’ve handed over the reigns of the economy allowing the institutions to do pretty much whatever they want. What we have created is a caste of people who are insulated from the market forces and institution that bear no corporate responsibility for their actions.
It’s been the equivalent of handing over your checkbook to a well-heeled tout who plays long-shot horses and expects you to eat any losses but won’t share any winnings because they’re the product of his “esteemed acumen”.
Well, Lefty, one supposes that you can take some comfort from the fact that our bloated and flailing government is suing several U.S. banks as we chat here so amicably. Why? Because the banks gave in to pressure from good folks like Dodd and Frank and lent a lot of mortgages out to people who were unqualified to receive them.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/02/140155542/federal-government-sues-big-banks-over-risky-mortgage-securities
I can’t wait for the trial.
Fred, the lengths to which people go to excuse the actions of mortgage lenders defies logic. Doesn’t matter that 60% of these loans had nothing to do with any kind of government regulation whatsoever.
I’ll grant you that there were borrowers who fraudulently listed their incomes etc. but the sheer amount of evidence is that the culture of Countrywide, Ameriquest etc. was to give loans to anyone with a pulse and push the paper through to make a commission.
Moreover, the kind of paper that was to become so volatile was rife with “innovations”. From simple ARM loans to teaser rates, interest-only loans these were loans which only made sense in a bubble.
What these loans enabled were “get rich quick” schemes pedaled on TV shows and in magazines. Real Estate speculation was taken for granted as a viable and easy way to make money for anyone. Just buy as much property as possible, slap a coat of paint on it and put it out on the market again.
The larger the price of the underlying asset, the more you leverage yourself, the greater your profits. Until prices stop going up.
Yet you all believe that this was collectively organized by the government. Everyone wants to point their fingers at the poor and say, “It’s your fault”. As if no one in the private sector is at all culpable.
That’s just sad and pathetic and doesn’t even begin to explain what happened.
“Yet you all believe that this was collectively organized by the government. Everyone wants to point their fingers at the poor and say, “It’s your fault”. As if no one in the private sector is at all culpable.”????
It seems to me, Lefty, that the positions you attribute to Fred come out of some sort of bigotry in your mind. Where, exactly, did Fred suggest that he believed that this crisis was “collectively organized” by the government?
Where, exactly, did Fred point his fingers at the poor and say that it was their fault? Your statement is just bizarre.
You don’t find any humor at all in the government suing the banks it recently bailed out — in behalf of the odious Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/21/video-fannie-mae-countrywides-mutual-backscratching/
As Mark Steyn reminds us: “Fannie and Freddie are two of the largest businesses in America, but they’re exempt from SEC disclosure rules and Sarbanes-Oxley “corporate governance” burdens” Why?
These “public/private partnerships”, mostly cooked up by ivy League types in both the public and private sectors, seem to go awry rather easily. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/books/review/book-review-reckless-endangerment-by-gretchen-morgenson-and-joshua-rosner.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Lefty: “Yet you all believe that this was collectively organized by the government.”
Who do you include in “you all”? And what do you include in the meaning of the word “this”?
I said the government put pressure on banks to have them lend money to unqualified buyers. Ask Paul Krugman, former Board Director of Enron, he’ll tell you.
Sorry, that was no Aanonymoses, that was just me.
That’s one way to look at the vampire’s popularity – but does not explain the desire of many to BE a vampire. I would postulate, rather, that vampires are popular because they are immortal and have no incentive whatsoever to adhere to societal norms. In other words, they represent modern teens’ ideal life (and possibly the ideal situation for liberals? there is a strong element of godlessness as well.) Make them sexy and wealthy as well, and you have a guaranteed bestseller – Twinkies for the brain.
Van Helsing comes in the form of the Tea Party.
Today’s Van Helsing comes in the form of the Tea Party. Funny how today’s “vampires” have the same reaction to the Tea Party as Christopher Lee (Dracula in the British Hammer movies) did to a cross or sunlight. Maxine Waters and Jimmy Hoffa come to mind.
Putting on my SciFan/reader cap here (knowing that I mortally offend James May in doing so…)
The popularity of Cameron’s “Titanic” was based on three things; its “blockbuster” status, its special effects, and the “romance” between Leonardo DiCaprio’s and Kate Winslet’s characters.
The movie was a reasonably accurate portrayal of the sinking, but that was pretty much lost on the audience, who came (a) because it was a “James Cameron movie” (which automatically elevated it to “blockbuster” status- along with the size of its budget), (b) for the spectacle of the effects, and (c) in the case of many on the distaff side, to lose themselves in the DiCaprio/Winslet story. That alone accounted for much of the repeat business, and for the film’s elevated status at the time. It has not stood the test of time; it is not a big seller on home video, for one thing. In short, it was a flash in the pan.
(The best comment I know was on a T-shirt current at the time of the mania about the film; it said, THE SHIP SANK- DEAL WITH IT.)
As for vampyrs (correct spelling), the reality of the myth is best illustrated by F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu the Vampire” made in 1921. His story was a highly unauthorized adaptation of (Abraham) Stoker’s novel “Dracula”- “unauthorized” because Stoker’s widow refused to sell Murnau the film rights. Murnau just changed the names of the characters- “Dracula” became “Count Orlock”, etc. He also simply “made stuff up”, that became “canon” in the vampyr myths afterward- see below. That said, Max Schreck’s portrayal of “Orlock”, including his makeup, was taken basically unchanged from the book. Which sort of knocks the idea of the “romantic vampyr” being Stoker’s idea in the head.
The real source of the modern day “vampyr as good-looking Byronic hero” meme was the 1931 film version of “Dracula”, directed by Tod Browning, starring Bela Lugosi, and based on a stage play written by John Balderston with additional material for the film by Hamilton Deane. Balderston and Deane “adapted” the Stoker novel by jettisoning almost everything except the characters’ names and a few incidents, and totally changed the main character, making him a tragic anti-hero. Their version of Dracula owed much more to Polidori’s Lord Ruthven than to Stoker’s conception. All later portrayals of vampyrs that don’t follow the Murnau version owe at least something to the Balderston/Deane storyline, and thus to Polidori’s aristocratic parasite.
“Underworld” and its sequels are my favorite vampyr movies, because of the way they “mix and match” the two versions of the myth (pre- and post- Balderston/Deane). Selene (who I must admit is my favorite vampyr of all time) is the heir to Lugosi’s version, but her enemies have a lot more to do with Schreck’s portrayal of the Stoker/Murnau original.
The original myths described vampyrs as cadaverous (well, naturally, being undead and all), ugly, feral, and animalistically-nearly-unintelligent creatures who preyed on the living by methods reminiscent of wolves with rabies. The whole “bat” thing, by the way, is not part of the original myth, as the myth predates Columbus, and the vampire bat is a New World rodent. If “traditional” vampyrs changed into anything at all, it was a wolf. (This at least avoids the problem of a radical reduction in volume, and doesn’t require an explanation of the mass density change that would require.) As for the whole “can’t go out in sunlight/holy objects” thing, sorry again, that was Stoker’s and Murnau’s invention, not part of the myth. The idea being to make the vampyr a bit more “beatable” by the heroes.
The word “nosferatu” doesn’t occur in the original myths, either; it’s actually a corruption of the Greek “nosophoros”, meaning “plague carrier”, which itself dates back no further than the Black Death of the 16th and 17th Centuries AD. It certainly was never used in the Balkans- wrong language. The best guess is that Stoker invented it himself, as it is in the novel, and he did speak Greek, but not any of the Balkan tongues (Serbo-Croatian, etc.).
By the way, Stoker was never in the Balkans, either. His knowledge of the region, and its myths, came solely from reading travelers’ accounts. Not surprisingly, a lot of what you read in his novel is inaccurate, because those accounts weren’t all that accurate.
And as for the idea that he based Dracula on “Vlad the Impaler”- that’s more-or-less true. But in Romania even today, Vlad Dracul(a) (“Vlad, Son of the Dragon”) is considered a national hero of the struggle against the Turks (whom he learned the fine art of “impaling” from to begin with). So even allowing for the tourist industry, Stoker’s version isn’t exactly well-regarded in those parts.
It’s all well and good to use “vampires” and the Titanic as metaphors for the antics of those who rule the rest of us, for their own edification and with no noticeable processes remotely resembling actual thinking. Just remember that those metaphors are largely the stuff of Hollywood, which means they were mostly created by the sort of “enlightened” types who you’re now applying them to.
Myself, I prefer H.Beam Piper’s “The Last Enemy” and “Day of the Moron”- you can find them at Project Gutenberg.
(Vampyr material courtesy of “V is For Vampire” by David J. Skal, and “The Vampire Book; The Encyclopedia of the Undead” by J. Gordon Melton.)
cheers
eon
I believe you are downplaying the archetypal images and ideas that seem to exist in the minds of all men that make certain stories and memes resonate for us all over the ages.
Interesting summary of the vampire legend, ancient and modern. Not sure I agree with the author’s contention that the current vampire craze has something to do with a feeling of impending doom sweeping through society. I think it’s more about teenagers and sex. Jamie W’s comment about freedom/power fantasies is also accurate. I don’t think anybody really feels vampires are a metaphor for big government.
If you want a real symbol for our fear of imminent disaster, look to AGW. Science aside, the global warming issue has an apocalyptic feel about it. There have always been a few oddballs telling us “The End Is Near.” Now they have “experts” to back up their assertion. Same as the old-timers (and some recent believers) found scriptural “evidence” that the end of everything was about to happen, a lot of AGW proponents believe their data foretells the planet’s immediate death. I think this, more than any other cultural phenomenon, demonstrates our deep-seated case of the jitters regarding the annihilation of our species.
We love Doomsday even more than we love vampires. Speaking of Doomsday, it might be useful to ask about the whole “how to survive the zombie apocalypse” meme that’s been floating around.
These kinds of analyses are always rather bizarre to die hard fans. I think everyone over analyzes far too much. It’s just simply a topic some people will like, regardless of the social conditions. Those of us who are fans of monster stories generally – and I was big into vampires as a teen in the 80s – are because we like folklore and fantasy/horror. That doesn’t change when you age or because of who the president is, the latest blockbuster, or anything else. We like it because it is scary and interesting, really nothing more than that. People make way too much of it, all the flack about the Twilight series and how popular it is. Why does it always have to mean something deep and dangerous?
Furthermore, the average person doesn’t love/watch/read slice of life realistic stories then suddenly feel an urge for a horror or fantasy flick because things are bad in society. In fact, most of the people I know who like art films and the like wouldn’t be caught dead enjoying anything about vampires.
The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations.
You must have a lot of daughters Mr. Solway.
Titanic became a hit because it was seen multiple of times by tweenage girls.
It does not resonate culturally with the impact of Star Wars, Harry Potter or even Scarface.
Or Terminator if you want to stick with James Cameron.
With regard to monsters the in-thing is zombies.
Except among tweenage girls and their Twilight stuff.
What you have described is the classic definition of the devil.
For me, the vampire is a symbol of “the Jew”. I attempted a summary of the many sources of antisemitism here: http://clarespark.com/2010/11/14/the-abcs-of-antisemitism/. If RussellB sees the devil in Solway’s essay, then it is no accident to see the vampire as the demonic Jew. Joshua Trachtenberg wrote such a book in 1943, and Edgar Rosenberg dealt with Stoker in his excellent book on the Jew in English literature.
If Titanic resonates with anything, it is the demise of the unregulated Guilded Age. So, I suppose that makes the iceberg…socialism.
As for cultural fascination, what do you suppose was the fascination of late Seventeenth Century American colonists with witches?
Now Dwight, have you been reading Arthur Miller again…on labor Day? Witches have been reported and persecuted in many countries about the world at various times. This activity is hardly exclusive to Colonial America, wouldn’t you agree?
Of course they have, but the author’s theme was that such manifestations reflect a particular cultural phenomenon of a given period. Fascination with vampires vs hanging witches; the latter seems a bit more obsessed, wouldn’t you say? Possibly, they had been freaked out by the bloody King Phillip’s War or the restoration of the monarchy in England. People in my neck of the woods signed a statement expressing their concerns about the restoration of the monarchy, which sounded a lot like their concerns 100 years later, which led to the Revolution.
Thanks for your concurrence, but wasn’t there more witch burning than hanging? But perhaps you are referring to one specific instance?
I know of no burning of witches during the Salem witch trials.
Hi D-White.
Aren’t you one of the Gelded Tweed Faculty Lounge Lizards of E. Longmeadow?
Is that why that Pick It Fence you perch on is so tolerable? Oh!!!!
Come to the Faire this weekend and do readings from your personally streaked Federalist Paper Roll. Modern Liberals are fascinated by “found art”. There will be vampires and socialists there too and some good Tweed. I’ll dedicate a solo version of A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall to you.
Nope, E. Longmeadow, which is supposed to be a good school, is about 100 miles away. It sounds as if you have picked the right song, but the only Faire I know of is King Richard’s Faire. Break a leg.
Well written description of what befalls us. Similar to destructive creation at the bottom of a business cycle, the myth of The Fall recycles in human events ad infinitum.
You describe Satan and his work quite well, David.
Next article,please take on his minions and the Antichrist.
It’s time they were called out for who they are.
Marcus T. Cicero:Redundant but cogent.
A nation can survoce its fools and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within.
An enemy at the gates is less formidable for he is known
and carries his banner openly.
But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely
His sly whispers rustling through all the alleys,
Heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor.
He speaks in accents familiar to his victims.
And he wears their face and their arguments.
He appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts
of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation.
He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine
the pillars of the city.
He infects the body politic so that it can no longer
resist.
A murderer is less to fear.
The TRAITOR is the plague.
Books and movies about sexy, “misunderstood” vampires = mainstreaming of Satanism. Period.
It’s the same thing kids are told when they get suckered into Satanic groups: “No one understands us. They’re not enlightened like we are. We’re cool and intimidating. The so-called ‘good’ people are just hypocrites. We’re part of an ages-old underground secret and you’re one of us now; that’s a great honor.”
I would like to respectfully disagree. Sometimes, a story really is just a story. As a fantasy fiction writer (including vampires among my menagerie of monsters) I would say that, while disgustingly over-sympathized these days, the prevalence of vampires in stories isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like any other monster, they can be utilized by a good writer for a number of things. The difficulty is that, no matter what the writer does, the reader will interpret it how they like . . . and the fact is that a lot of kids just want to be sexy/mysterious/special.
I don’t buy the “it’s just a story” defense. There’s something deeper at work here.
Why is it no liberal would EVER read and enjoy a story where the protagonist was a pro-life Republican (and, likewise, a conservative couldn’t enjoy a book if the hero was a Bill Ayers sort). So why is it people can read about loveable cannibals? Do they hate thei rpolitical opponents more than they hate cannibals? I was once cornered by a writer who told me how much he loved Hannibal Lechter, because “the people trying to catch Hannibal are all hypocrites.” Yeah. Right. Better to be an honest cannibal than a virtuous person with a few failings. (Sarcasm off.)
There’s something wrong with humanity that they delight in things that would repulse them in real life. My nephew plays ghastly video games, and explains them by saying, “You get to kill such and such characters.” “You GET to kill…”? That’s pretty sick. Gee, sorry civilization holds you back and stifles you from following your true calling.
There are people looking for the rules to fall. They break windows when it looks like they can get away with it. “Hey! A riot! Just what I’ve always waited for!” Personally, I have no desire to shatter glass. I don’t care what’s going on. I won’t do it. I don’t like living in the same world as people who are irritated by good behavior.
I want clean heroes, and people who don’t want that sicken and worry me.
Nothing is “just a story.” What attracts us says something about us.
Personally, I never cared for the “sympathetic vampire” films/stories. Sorry, vampires are the way they are because they are evil. My I am old fashioned, I grew up watching christopher Lee in the movies and Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Frances Ledeler etc on TV.
Depends on the mythos. Yes, most Western stories have vampires being occult in origin, but not all vampires have this background. Trinity Blood, for example, portrays vampires sympathetically because they are humans modified by a nanomachine/virus that increases their ability to regenerate at the price of occasionally attacking their red blood cells, causing them to crave human blood to replenish their own (as well as causing them to be poisoned by silver and ultraviolet radiation). Most importantly, they are not immortal and their transformation was generally not their fault. They live for centuries and can survive injuries an ordinary human cannot, but they will eventually die of natural causes. Krusniks, from the same series, actually are immortal, or at least nearly indistinguishable (such as featuring the ability to regenerate from being burned to ashes, taking 900 years to do so), but they feed on vampires, and they too are humans modified by nanomachines.
Rosario+Vampire classifies vampires as a type of monster, differing physiologically, but not morally, from the other monsters in the series. It also explicitly notes that monsters operate on a different moral code than humans, with the universal law that monsters and humans must never interact, lest it start a war. Naturally, the series is about a human who gets mixed up in monster world affairs and winds up with an unwanted harem of monsters and a witch.
Look into the origins of the legend; Transylvania and Vlad Dracul, prince of Walachia in the 14th century. He was holding back an invasion from the south and used spectacular means to do so. In holding the line against that invasion with disturbing tactics he earned his fame. Do we remember who was invading the balkans then?
Is the vampire a predator or a parasite?
This I think, is the real distinction between the two depictions. A predator stalks his prey for sustenance. Predators are often noble (lions etc.) while parasites are degenerated organisms that can only survive through their unique host dependence. Interestingly, predators kill their prey outright while the most effective parasites have co-evolved with their host to keep them alive while feeding off of them, sapping their strength for their benefit. Both have been used extensively as metaphors for the aristocracy (lots of kings are compared to Eagles, lions etc, while the original blood-sucking Dracula was a Count). In our time, bankers, politicians, lawyers, talent agents etc. have all been depicted as parasites or sharks – clearly a predator, but a particularly nasty one..).
All in good fun I say, but I don’t think it should be taken too seriously.
The shark is set apart among predators because many of them are both extreme omnivores and cannibals. Tiger sharks have no qualms about eating other tiger sharks who are injured in a frenzy for tearing apart prey, and how many times have sharks been gutted to discover garbage inside them?
It’s nothing more than a seduction of the dark side. A perfect fetish for a society that has rejected God and goodness. The idea with all evil is that it must present itself as attractive, for the doer of evil mist always consider themselves as doing good.(Hitler was saving Germany -abortionists are reliving their patient of an inconvenience calling it choice makes it a good thing) That is what the innocent maidens have to fight -the attraction to abject evil in the form of a mysterious man.
And that is why one of the questions for one of the versions of baptismal examination is “Do you reject the glamor of evil?”
The Titanic sttory was the ushering in the age of modern man -the main method of travel was to be from now on, without risk -the ship was unsinkable. God and that stuff was about to be replaced with science and industrial creativity of man. Freedom was theirs (a very superstitious age this was) The ship sank, as has our economy and faith in government with the same results -disaster!
Records Show Obama Administration Began to Implement Provisions of the DREAM Act Rejected by Congress; DHS Official: “And we wonder why ppl [people] FOIA us.”
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2011/sep/jw-unc…
“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” George Washington
I have never understood the allure of vampires. They are just parasitic monsters. You kill monsters, then step over their bodies proceed onward. I have never viewed them as anything but monsters, no matter how sympathetically they are dressed up.
I have the same response to the monsters of our own society. They are merely hideous monsters, nothing else. It does not matter how “nobly” one dresses them up. I am not seduced by hideous.
Vampires are monsters who take the blood of the living for their own existence; if they so choose, they can transform their victims into vampires, spreading the plague of darkness.
The Space Vampires, which was loosely adapted into the 1985 film, Lifeforce, also comes to mind where the alien vampires absorb the life force of their victims for sustenance.
I really don’t care for the vampire as the sensual lover from beyond though; their original incarnation–before Dracula–was a living dead corpse feasting on the blood of the living a la Noseferatu.
In the same vein it is interesting to note this year’s reprinting of Lord of the Flies.
Vampires? Does anyone here have any clue as to modern culture?
Old school vampires like Stoker’s have not been popular since the 90′s. The 1890′s. Vampires are totally a creature now that caters to women’s worst instincts. The desire to be young, pretty, powerful over men, forever, and have at one’s control a monster of a man, but one who is also young, pretty, physically dominating, powerful, and scary. Forever.
The first to really hit this was Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series (Buffy has sex with two hunky, violent, dangerous, brooding vampires, one of whom rapes her but that is presented as “all her fault” — and the female fans loved it!) Roughly at the same time the Sookie Stackhouse novels, which form the basis of Tru Blood, and the Anita Blake series (by author Laurel K. Hamilton) which had a vampire bad boy / werewolf good-guy triangle with a human woman that Stephanie Meyer basically ripped off for Twilight.
Enthusiasm for vampires is the confirmation of all the worst parts of women unchecked by social pressure (i.e. older female relatives): a deep fantasy that women can be young, beautiful, desired, pursued, by dangerous outsider men who make them in essence the “Queen” of ordinary life and apart from it, above it. Vampires are popular, because most women find most of their male peers profoundly unsexy, and don’t care about anything else BUT sex appeal. After all, who needs a steady husband, father, or what-not when there’s a government check, a fabulous career in say fashion or Public Relations or other trivia, and cosmetics, surgery, and other lying nonsense falsely but believably promise ultimate sexiness forever! As much as slacker guys are derided, most (not all but most) Women pretend they can be 16 and have guys fighting over them forever.
If you want to see the decline of the West, look no further than the Twilight Moms. Unrestrained, unfettered, un-moderated female sexuality is just as dangerous and destructive as that of male sexuality. All of the really bad things: female hypergamy, resulting disconnect and lack of shared investment with male peers (through monogamous marriage and child-rearing), single motherhood, hyper-sexuality (basically a female-driven phenomena, not a male one, expressing female power through sex appeal), and so on including Big Man worship (Scarlett Letter’s Rev. Dimmsdale, Roman Polanski, Barack Obama about whom NYT married female writers wrote lengthy fan-fic/vampire style sexual fantasies) come from a lack of control over half the population’s sexual desires. That people want and need sex is no problem — that it is not controlled, channeled, guided giving the most freedom possible without social destructiveness IS a major if not the major source of the collapse of the West.
Vampires are a female fantasy. An open rejection of ordinary life with ordinary men and mortality, aging, and (worst for most women in the West, loss of attractiveness). Jane Fonda’s biggest regret was not having sex with Che Guevara, so she tells us. That fits right in with Anita Blake, Buffy, Sookie Stackhouse, Bella from Twilight, and all the rest. A fantasy as profoundly stupid and destructive as expecting most all women to be Megan Fox in Transformers — a hot chick in a pair of mini-shorts into giant fighting robots and stuff blowing up, real good.
Basically most of today’s Western women are saying that the men around them being their equal are about as sexy as a bowl of cold oatmeal, and they’d rather have a fantasy of Edward Cullen, or Angel, or Spike (from Buffy), or Bill (from Tru Blood) or that vampire from the Anita Blake novels. It’s the ultimate bad boy addiction and the West is likely to end up like Amy Winehouse after her bad boy ex-hubby Blake.
But aren’t we talking about fantasies here, more than their real lives?
Excellent post!
Unfettered sexual indulgence is going to doom us a lot more assuredly than poor economics will.
The lesson of Sodom & Gommorah is that it’s a lie when they say, “Everyone does whatever they want to do.” Nope. The orgy WILL INDEED come to your door and demand you join in.
Nature Journal of Science, ranked as the world’s most cited scientific periodical, has just published the definitive study on Global Warming that proves the dominant controller of temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere is due to galactic cosmic rays and the sun, rather than by man. One of the report’s authors, Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, summed up his conclusions regarding the potential for man-made Global Warming: “I think it is such a blatant falsification.”
Am I to take it you’re blaming the Global Warming hoax on vampires?
(from the article): Often the vampire is portrayed sympathetically, as a suffering and misunderstood creature resisting the curse he (or she) bears and seeking redemption for his predatory impulses.
That was the theme of the 1990s TV series Forever Knight. It airs occasionally on the SyFy or Chiller cable channels.
Regarding the “Muslims as vampires” theme: Well, they do tend to react to a crucifix the same way Dracula did. Has anyone recorded their reaction to mirrors, garlic or wolfsbane?
@Dwight (#8): No, the Titanic resonates because it was that era’s greatest example of hubris — the notion that “God himself could not sink this ship,” as one passenger supposedly said. That makes the iceberg Nemesis — God saying “Oh, yes I can.” The fact that it sank on its maiden voyage, and regulations at the time didn’t require sufficient lifeboats for all hands, only compounds the lesson.
Blame the paperback publishing industry. When romance novels started losing readers, the authors revamped them, literally, by turning them into vampire (and werewolf) romance and erotica novels. Same stupid stories, same impossible sex scenes, same fanciful chick-narratives, all potentially computer-generated. It’s the new face of crap.
Compare “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” one of the best-written television series of all time, to any of these vampire/werewolf romance novels, and the utter trashiness and idiocy of the latter leap off the pages. There are no hidden meanings or archetypes. These are just bottom-of-the-pot re-heatings of Barbara Cartland’s nauseating swill.
How sad. So many words expended by a confused poet in order to arrive at the wrong conclusions.
The Vampire is a hoary Western Christian creation. Its roots lie in the fear and hatred of the ancient by a new and shallowly rooted religion crudely constructed of half-digested borrowings from the Jews and the Greeks. The religion of a new and sympathetic god, fathered by a god and a virgin born in the Greek manner, to replace the old angry and vengeful Creator of the Jews. Jew-Zeus.
The new religion detests the ancient. It condemns the classical Greeks and Romans for “Pagans.” It condemns the Jews for Christ-killers spawned by the Devil. It perverts the Jewish Passover Kiddush into a ghoulish cannibal “Communion” with the god and virgin born Jew-Zeus.
Nosferatu is a blood drinking cannibal just like every good Catholic. The myth of his existence evolved from the same confused and malevolent impulses that underlie the myth of Jews mixing the blood of Christian children into their Passover matzoh which was the original Host of the Last Supper.
Stop wasting words on fanciful nonsense, David.
Sorry. Forgot to include my name above.
No David, Jews mixing the blood of Christian children into their matzoh was not the original blood libel. The original blood libel is the one you just repeated- that Christians are cannibals. It’s a lie that is mostly pagan in origin, though you illustrate quite clearly that many Jews bought into it as well. Honestly, how can you accuse us of cannibalism when we believe in the resurrection of the dead? Our faith in the resurrection means we believe we will also be called to account for our actions in this life, and also that human remains deserve respectful burial, because that body will one day rise again.
You just aren’t a good Catholic, myth promoter. To a good Catholic, the wine is His blood and the wafer (Matzoh) is His flesh. Called Transubstantiation and it is core Catholic belief. Whether you believe in it or not is beside the point.
You need to learn respect for your betters, MB.
The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations.
This is precisely what I was thinking, but I could never articulate it as clearly as this writer has done. Very well-said.
I was introduced to the vampire classic “Interview with a Vampire”, by Anne Rice in Fort Lauderdale Florida back in 1978. The gay community in Ft. Liqourdale was enthralled with the book and was equating much of the artistic and poetic symbolism of vampire lore as sympathetic to their personal plight (outsider, outlaw, creature of the night). Also tragically they were searching for name for the “gay plague” at that point in time, unnamed, but soon to be called AIDS. Vampire settings are typically dystopian. Ft. Lauderdale and Miami would seem far fetched to be described as such. But hanging out in the Grove, the Copacabana on A1A or South Beach at 3 or 4AM the gay youth that ruled the night in the 70′s in South Fla. surely conjured a Lord Byronesque miasmic moon over Miami. Imagine, like vampires, this choice in theme will never grow old.