In Defense of Poppery, IV

Pop example: Vampire genre fiction

Note: I've decided to take "Defense of Poppery" to the next level and defend an entire genre this time, instead of one particular example of it. Any future suggestions for songs, books, TV shows, etc. that could use an apologetic, may be submitted to me via email or comments.

What redeems it: Beyond Stephenie Meyer's recent success and "Trevor the vampire" Strongbad email, beyond even the many, many remakes of Dracula/Nosferatu, vampire genre fiction has been around since villagers strung the first cloves of garlic around their necks.

And I think that's okay.

Setting aside the Freudian overtones -- but actually, let's not. The Freudian overtones are, after all, the whole point of vampire literature.

Male vampires are, as a rule, dangerously and hypnotically seductive, and heterosexual. The best way to test the rule is to imagine an alternative -- like a football player (not hypnotically seductive at all, though aggressively hetero -- right?) attacking a teammate's neck on the field after the requisite congratulatory ass-slap, for instance.

Female vampires are femme fatales, and though they may branch out from heteronormative behavior, that can almost certainly be ascribed to the idea that it's "sexy" for an attractive female to be bicurious -- and the point of being a femme fatale is overwhelming sex appeal.

There are exceptions to these rules out there: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance, is about a teen girl who stakes vamps without breaking a sweat, reversing the typical Freudian who-stabs-who scenario. On the other hand, she does get involved with a dangerous and hypnotically seductive male vampire...twice.

But my perspective on these stereotypical gender relations -- I'd usually be against 'em -- is tempered by the fact of its genre.

Science fiction -- or in many vampire genre examples, fantasy -- has an excuse for being so archetypal. It exists completely in the world of the mind.

Of course, all fiction exists completely in the mind; otherwise, it would be nonfiction.

Science fiction, though, admits that it's not real. It doesn't try to tromp l'oeil us into thinking we're reading about real people -- it convinces us instead that we're reading about real emotions or internal experiences.

Vampires are obviously metaphorically male, though in a twist, they steal something instead of expelling -- in that way, as well as in practical terms, they also represent death.

There's no way to read a novel about death. There are only novels about other people's reactions to death. Vampires personify not only Eros, with a vampiric attack an obvious metaphor for sex, but also Thanatos, allowing readers (or viewers -- a stipulation that goes for all instances of "reader" or "novel/book/literature") to deal with fears or fascination with sex and death more directly.

And isn't that what literature is supposed to do? Why would we bother arranging scenarios and creating characters and settings exactly like the lives that we already lead?

Don't we already experience fears related to Eros or Thanatos indirectly, in terms of the circumstances of our everyday lives?

Rather than being escape literature, then, my position is that vampire genre fiction deals more directly with the archetypes and psychoanalytic issues in our lives than other literature. Yes, putting those fears into monster form is a kind of repression of emotion -- but it's the kind of repression that allows us to get perspective, to step back and deal with things on a manageable level.

And then, also, see my post about repression being sexier.