Mood:
caffeinatedI don't understand vampires.
That is, I understand the stories and legends. I just don't get the ongoing mass pop culture craze. Vampires seem to be a perennial bestseller. People go gaga for Anne Rice novels and Buffy and Van Helsing and Twilight. Females are the biggest audience - they seem to have a particular jones for tall, dark, handsome bloodsuckers. Really, I don't get the erotic appeal of having your neck punctured by a fanged Lothario, and your crimson life fluids drained off. It's like being sexually attracted to piranhas. Or phlebotomists. Sure, vampires are dapper and look great in a tuxedo, but what's with the razor-sharp canines? Am I missing some essential part of the female brain that thrills to the prospect of bat creatures flapping in through the window and siphoning off a couple gallons of hemoglobin? Is this abnormal?
A few evenings ago I was hanging out at Elrond Swooner's house (my friend who loves Hugo Weaving, and also vampires...if Hugo Weaving were ever to play a vampire, she would totally plotz). We were watching Twilight, based on the series by Stephenie Meyer, which has 13-year-olds everywhere in a neck-baring snit. Not just 13-year-olds, but otherwise perfectly sensible adult women, including half of my female friends, co-workers, and neighbors. All around here, they're dropping like flies. Elrond Swooner has also fallen under the spell, ruefully admitting to having a "huge crush" on Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward, the film's teenaged vampire protagonist. "Team Edward" T-shirts have been flying off the shelves at Hot Topic, and Elrond Swooner has actually been tempted to buy one. That's how bad it is. (My favorite vampire-related bumper sticker: "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the ---- AAAAAAAAH!" -- Vampire Theater)
Twilight's take on vampires differs remarkably from Steven Sommers' interpretation. Twilight vampires sparkle, brood, and play baseball. They also stroll around in the daytime, so long as it's overcast, making them not so much Creatures of the Night as Creatures of the Avoid Direct Sunlight. Van Helsing vampires are more traditionally scary, with an aristocratic manner (in the case of Richard Roxborough) and huge fangs and eagle claws (in the case of the brides). They're predatory and evil and conform to standard vampire taxonomy. (Although the part about laying eggs was a little much...I wasn't bothered so much by the reptilian implications, but by the discrepancy between the size of those eggs and Dracula's brides. Let's hope Dr. Frankenstein was able to conjure up some powerful undead epidurals from his lab, because ow.) On the whole, I could sort of relate to the Van Helsing vampires, because they were scary, rather than misunderstood.
With Twilight, I tried mightily, I yearned to understand, but I just couldn't get past the obvious artifice, and that made it impossible to suspend disbelief and get swept up by the film and by Robert Pattinson's bouffant hairdo. It's so perfectly calculated to appeal to young teenage girls: the klutzy, awkward Mary Sue character who miraculously commands the attention of every male in the vicinity, the gorgeous heartthrob bad boy who in reality is about as dangerous as an angel food cake (Brett Sprague would drop Edward Cullen like third-period French. Even Carl could beat him up, for that matter. Wuss.) Naturally, this supernaturally strong, fast, smart, century-old dreamboat becomes obsessed with the awkward Mary Sue character, and can't leave her alone. Edward flies into her bedroom and spies on her while she's sleeping (which is supposed to be romantic, but comes across as creepy). He interrogates her about her taste in music, like a Quizilla meme - "I must know everything about you!" - even though real 17 year old boys couldn't care less. Let's face it, we gals are the ones who obsess over the inner life of our early male crushes, not the other way around. (Ever notice how teen magazines aimed at girls devote endless ink to the favorite foods, books, and colors of this month's heartthrob, whereas Sports Illustrated provides minimal information on its swimsuit models, because to the average Joe ogling the photographs, who cares? Ah, would that it were otherwise...)
In the book, Edward is condescending and overbearing, constantly rescuing and protecting Bella, who is passive and has no personality of her own. At least they improved on that for the movie, and gave Bella a little bit of spunk. But I still would have preferred more three-dimensional characters. Edward just seems too perfect to actually be a threat to Bella, and the force that keeps them apart is mostly internal, not external. The stakes aren't high enough. For truly tragic, star-crossed romance, I'll take Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights, or Tristan & Isolde any day of the week.
So now I've watched Van Helsing, I've watched Twilight, I've watched the Count on Sesame Street, and I still don't understand vampires. It's like being color-blind.
I also don't understand chaps (shouldn't they protect the inside of the cowboy's leg?) but that's a topic for another post.
