Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [10]
But here’s a dire thought. While vampires are destined to live forever, more and more films are asking us just how much longer humanity can keep “sucking” itself dry. If humans have long perished, and with the fictional advent of synthetic blood, courtesy of Charlaine Harris, vampires would truly outlive us all. What would that world look like? And what would it look like without a synthetic replacement? Would it be similar to the scenario in the 2010 film Daybreakers, where vampires rule the world and humans are nothing more than living blood banks? What measures would vampires take to sustain themselves?
To those who think now that vampires have (literally) had their day in the sun and perhaps it’s time they should retire, I say you may be speaking too soon. I sense a mythical rebirth on the horizon, sunny or otherwise, that echoes a fear far greater than our individual mortality, but something closer to a collective paranoia. Until then, let’s enjoy the vampire while it lasts.
The Vampire Touch
Suave Seducer or Sexual Predator?
“In the collective consciousness, over the years, [vampires] have morphed into these really sexy rock stars: dangerous and incredibly hot creatures.”
— Alan Ball
This is one of Alan Ball’s responses to the oft-asked question regarding the ongoing appeal of vampires. Indeed, with the likes of Eric Northman, Bill Compton, Edward Cullen, Lestat de Lioncourt, Spike, Angel, and Damon Salvatore, one could easily fill a calendar of undead hotties.
I contacted an author, an academic, and a vampire to ask them for their take on Ball’s comment. Are vampires inherently sexy, or have we perverted their natures to suit our own desires? Here’s what they had to say:
Joe Laycock (academic and author of Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampirism)
The vampire has always been sexual, but not necessarily sexy. Stories of nocturnal visits from vampires and demons have been linked to a medical phenomenon called sleep paralysis. It’s one thing to wake up in the middle of the night unable to move and feel that you are being violated by a dark, unseen presence. It’s quite another to have a crush on Bill Compton or Edward Cullen. But I don’t think the vampire changed so much as we did.
In 1819, when John Polidori wrote The Vampyre, his villain, Lord Ruthven, was rich and seductive but still unrepentantly evil. It was not until 1967 that we got our first sympathetic vampire: Barnabas Collins from the soap opera Dark Shadows. Anne Rice’s reluctant vampires, as well as Nick Knight, Angel, Edward Cullen, and Bill Compton are all descended from Barnabas Collins.
What is interesting is that Barnabas was supposed to get staked after a few episodes. But the vampire saved the show’s ratings, forcing the writers to turn him from a villain into a hero. I believe this sympathy for the vampire reflects profound social changes: in ancient times the vampire was often a scapegoat that villagers could blame for any number of problems. Exhuming and burning corpses may have actually brought communities closer together. But in the modern world, we have a much stronger sense of individualism. We now sympathize with the vampire because we too feel alienated. Anne Rice was the first to realize that we now view vampires much as we do rock stars. We know that every rock star from Elvis to Kurt Cobain suffered drug-abuse, heartache, and loneliness, but we want to be them anyway.
Nigel Suckling (author of many books on myths and legends, including Book of the Vampire)
Yes, it’s curious how sexy vampires have become. General interest in them began in the 18th century when there was a well documented plague of vampirism in Eastern Europe, with the dead apparently rising from their tombs in hordes to attack and infect the living. Vampirism was treated as a very real phenomenon and in fact it still is taken very seriously in rural parts of Greece and the Balkans, but the vampires in question