Enter Tom Cruise as a vampire; enter Twilight. I’m probably missing a wide range of other examples because I never really fell into the vampire thing. Enter the vampire as something lustful, something taboo but just so forbidden that you can’t stop wanting it. Rickels points out the common thread that began with Stoker’s novel, “the vampire can enter a home or household by invitation only. No vampirism without the desire to be vampirized” (19).
This desire must be what made the switch from ugly vampire to ridiculously good-looking vampire so natural. If you have to invite him in anyway… well, who would invite Nosferatu into their home? He might as well be hot.
The thing is that the blood-sucking has become so sexualized that what we’re drawn to aren’t really vampires. They’re just hot guys with sharp teeth and a blood fetish, which is of course always practiced through lusty neck-biting (or vicious hickey). Rickels mentions there are numerous places on the body where blood could be sucked; historically it was often through the ear, if you can imagine such a thing. But I don’t think they’d want Edward Cullen sucking Bella’s brain out through her ear canal. Unless ear fetishes are the new “in” thing.
Something happened that made that change. We talked in class about how things can be so ugly that they’re cute again. That we exercise this power over things we hate or fear, turning them into something to admire. Maybe so we don’t all feel so small and insignificant.
Then there’s Rickels’ quotation of Barber, on page 2 of The Vampire Lectures. It explains that the people likely to return as vampires are “different, unpopular or great sinners”. I’ve been watching the Canadian sci-fi series Sanctuary on Netflix, and in the middle of the first season we are introduced to our first vampiric character: Nikola Tesla (of Tesla coil fame). Although Tesla made great contributions to electrical and mechanical development, he allegedly had a very eccentric personality and a tendency to exaggerate or make weighty claims, which eventually distanced him from the scientific community. He and Edison butted heads in their community constantly. Tesla was dIfferent; unpopular. Good choice for a vampire, Sanctuary.
And what of a Christian reaction to this vampire culture of sinners and rejects? Well, I read through several Christian blogs commenting on Twilight, and it seemed that the problems weren’t with the unholiness of the idea of a vampire. The bigger problems were the moral implications of Bella and Edward’s love. To me that seems to show a greater acceptance of the culture, even when the bloggers are disapproving, because the Harry Potter scandal seemed to be all about how wizardry is ungodly. Here, the reaction is: “okay, he’s a vampire, whatever, that’s fine because his Dad’s a Christian in the movie and they have good intentions, but BELLA IS A WHORE!” Feminism, meet Christianity. Shake hands.
Maybe the lack of Christian (or at least Catholic) opposition to portrayals of vampirism has something to do with communion…? I mean, objectively, the ultimate form of blood-sucking is drinking the blood of Jesus Christ, now, isn’t it? There is “no vampirism without the desire to be vampirized” (Rickels 19). That has so many implications that I don’t think I can even get into it here. People might send mobs with torches to my apartment.
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