Blood lust
There’s a fine, fine line between pain and pleasure.
It seems these days that the world has caught a case of blood lust. Vampires have long been part of pop culture, through the Victorian era until now, but even before then they were legends. And what draws us to vampires, of all mythical creatures?
Sex.
Vampires and sex are synonymous. There is no such thing as a chaste vampire. And more importantly for us mortals, there is no such thing as an ugly vampire. You’d think something that had been dead for centuries would be less than appealing. After all, vampires are monsters, wild. And all other mythical monsters - werewolves, cyclopses, harpies - are scary. Vampires are scary in a sexy way. Nevermind scaring your socks off, they seem to jump straight to the pants.
In Interview with a Vampire we lusted after Lestat and Louis. In Buffy, teens all around the world dreamt about Angel and Spike. And now, with Twilight-mania, a new generation is literally asking for Edward to bite them.
I’ll admit, I read Twilight. In fact, I read all four. And I saw the movie twice in theatres. Why? Because vampires are hot.
And finally, last September, HBO gave us True Blood: a show chalk full of sex, drugs, blood and most importantly - vampires. But True Blood wasn’t jumping on the bandwagon (or careening race car) of Twilight, as it may have seemed. True Blood is based on books by Charlaine Harris, the first, Dead Until Dark, published in 2001. Which bears remarkable similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, published years later. Sookie Stackhouse is a mind reader, drawn to vampire Bill Compton because she can’t read his thoughts. Edward Cullen is a mind reading vampire, drawn to Bella Swan because he can’t read her thoughts. Edward is a “vegetarian” vampire. Bill is “mainstreaming” after the release of synthetic blood.
You see, this is a key factor to the sexy vampire stories. We don’t want a monster story, we want a story of redemption. Angel is “cursed” with a soul, and so we (and Buffy) fall in love with his tortured past. Edward wonders if he has a soul, and wants desperately to be a decent person, a normal high school student. Bill moves to a small town in the American south in an attempt to rejoin society. Louis is the sympathetic character, who feels guilt at the deaths he has caused. Lestat is the monster.
Last weekend I read Charlaine Harris’ Dead Until Dark, and it was everything I hoped it would be - a grown up version of Twilight. Without the sexual frustration, but in the same fluffy first person style. A romance novel, almost, with vampires and murder mysteries.
Yesterday, I watched the first episode of the second season of True Blood. The show is a lot “classier” than the books - Allan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under) adds a level of sophistication and danger to the books to make it into this enticing, sexy show. In true HBO grandeur.
Vampires are sexy, folks. And they’re also really popular right now. And if you have a problem with that, you can bite me.
