Be wary of vampires. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Like many fans of fiction, I have occasionally encountered the trope of the vampire in all its glory and shame. Seeing as Halloween is fast approaching, itโll be more likely to be the latter than the former. The vampire, a long-time former figure of terror inspired by the fears of society, has degenerated into an almost happy figure. And I canโt say Iโm impressed.
One of the vampireโs first appearances in fiction was Heinrich August Ossenfelderโs Der Vampir (1748). Blood-sucking and pale and especially considered a threat to Christianity, the vampire was rarely a positive figure in fiction. Over 150 years later, Bram Stokerโs Dracula (1897) set the tone for most literature involving vampires: blood, sex, death, and the disease of vampirism. The Victorians loved it and itโs only been successively more popular throughout the twentieth-century.
Enter the 21st century, when paranormal romance is a thingโyou canโt have a heroine without her having sex with the antagonist in one way or another. (Sometimes heโs actually not the villain, shocker!) Suddenly, there are women cozying up to vampires hoping theyโre not killed in the processโthough, of course, some of them actually want to be killed. I canโt even begin to get into the social psychology of stories that portray love affairs with societyโs leeches, but just think about it for a bit and youโll be just as disturbed as I am.
The 21st century wasnโt alive and kicking for long before Stephenie Meyer published Twilight, possibly the most popular drivel published in recent cultural memory. ย Her depictions of vampires destroyed a 250-year history. Thatโs 250 years of classic authors, science fiction, fantasy, literature, gothic horrorโall down the drain. Because some woman with a social agenda decided that โvegetarianโ vampires who act more like blood-sucking fairies (they sparkle, what can I say?) would be great role models for kids.
Since then, thereโs been a significant drop in the intelligence of young adult fiction and any depiction of the vampire in literature. Now itโs the vampire-best-friend trope, the vampire-lover trope (not the same as earlier vampire fiction, which usually involved the rape and subsequent death of the protagonist), the vampire-hero trope. The vampire used to be a foil to our culture, our religions, even a depiction of corporate entities who bleed us dry. Now, the vampire is some sort of superhero who stares hungrily at the necks of young girls (Iโm seeing an argument for pedophilia here and not liking it in the least)โand instead of eating them, heโs fucking them. And of course, heโs always male.
Weโve absorbed the vampire and all thatโs negative about him into our culture. Everything he used to represent is now okay, because Stephenie Meyer (and a lot of other paranormal romance writers) said so. By painting their fairly benign โblood-sucking fairiesโ with the same brush as Jim Butcherโs vampiresโwhich are truly horrifying entitiesโweโve reformed the trope so that even its reprehensible attributes are acceptable, because itโs now the popular depiction for them to be as palatable and un-horrifying as a cat video on the Internet. But by mediating this violent image of the vampire, I have to ask, have we also mediated these violent aspects of society? If so, thank Stephenie Meyer and her ilk.
So please, do us all a favour. Donโt dress up as a vampire for Halloween unless you intend to commit to it old schoolโ(fake) blood, creepy demeanor and all that. And please, stop buying into the tripe published by authors trying to coast on Meyerโs success.
