Ladies, gentlemen, not-so gentle men, ladies who look like
men, men who look like ladies, ladies who look like ladies but feel like men,
those undecided on their genders and those who’ve read so much Judith Butler
that they no longer believe in genders; it has recently come to my attention
that vampires are fucking everywhere.
Allow me to explain: I’m not proposing that the hemoglobin-infatuated hellspawn are literally fornicating the world over. No, that would just be silly.
What I mean to imply is that the horny blighters appear to have entered into
every facet of our culture!
 |
| The last thing you want to see you daughter (or boy, as we must be tolerant) playing with: a pony that could KILL YOU! |
From Twilight and Tru Blood to Vampire Diaries and the
newly-released My Nosferatu Pony, one can’t deny that fangs have overtaken Apple as the world’s biggest brand; and with Steve Jobs; current 'state', it
won’t be long until even Apple succumbs to the undead bandwagon.
“Yeah, you may metaphorically suck the life blood from third
world countries Bill, but I literally drain the living of their life giving
juices! Jobs one- Gates nil. Even death can’t stop you, when you own an apple.
Our virus support is just that good!”
 |
| Yeah, you may metaphorically suck the life-force from third world countries, Bill... but I literally drain the living of their life-giving juices! |
Jobs 1 - Gates nil. Even death can't stop you, when you own an Apple. Their virus support is just that good!
So, how is it exactly that our culture has become so
infatuated with the Vampiric? It’s actually quite simple - all one has to do is
go back to where it all began: in the fires of Mount Doom - cough, cough - sorry, I really must fight the urge to reference
popular culture. As I was saying: sit back, pop the kettle on and settle down
for a little bit of story time...
'3 May. Bistritz. – Left
Munich at 8.35pm on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next
morning […]'
Oh, sorry, I appear to have chosen the wrong vampire-related story. Let’s
try this again shall we?
'My mother drove me to
the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in
Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favourite shirt –
sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My
carry-on item was a parka […]'
No, wait, still the wrong story. What is this
trash? 'My carry-on item was a parka' - what’s next? Sparkling vampires falling in love
with a poorly rounded narrator? Not on my watch! Enough of these shenanigans
and back to the point at hand!
'The time is now.
We are in a small room
with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks—as he pours out the hypnotic,
shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of the first two thousand
years of the living dead […]'
Much better…
“Well you see, in the
beginning… we weren’t what you see today. Nowadays you see Colin Farrell
topless doing battle with Doctor Who, or you see some actress with the
charisma of Keanu Reeves crying to this prick:
 |
| Oh my God, this picture balances his good and bad aspects so amazingly! So immensely artistic! |
The Vampire has turned
away, tears streaming from his face; a brief shower to wash away the dirt-ridden entrails of his past. Sorrowful he makes for the door, grimacing at the
picture in the hall. Now angered by the image of some sea-born vessel he’s fled
in a fit of rage, his hands across his rear in defiance of what had been.'
Well… that explained... nothing… yeah.
Sorry about that. I have no excuse for what you just read.
MY BAD! So, where were we…? Ah, yes, where did our culture’s affinity to the
elongated canine begin? When was society first taken ill with Sanguinare
Vampiris? Well, it may or may not surprise many of you that the Vampire is far
older than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In
fact, myths speaking of Vampiric beings have been told around the
entirety of the planet for thousands of years. Some have even argued that the
vampire myth may stretch back to prehistoric times.* It wasn’t until the early
eighteenth century, however, that the concept of vampirism really hit the mainstream.
This was due to the rising number of vampire legends in the Balkans and Eastern
Europe. Vampire superstitions got so bad in Europe, in fact, that they grew into
a hysteria with numerous stakings across the period. So, if you ever travel
back to the eighteenth century… don’t sleep in a coffin: it’s not advisable.
It wasn’t until 1819, however, that literature was allowed to
bare its fangs. The first published story about the blood suckers was John
Polidori’s novella The Vampyre. It
was this work that transformed the vampire from an abhorred, undead beastie into
the charismatic aristocrat we see in Dracula.
Polidori tells the story of Aubrey – a young Englishman – following the
mysterious Lord Ruthven – wonder who the vampire is – on his travels about
Europe. The story itself was highly successful and lead to numerous tales of
Vampiric intrigue being published from this moment on; one such work being the
somewhat confused penny-dreadful Varney
the Vampire (1845). Woe and behold, this told the story of an aristocratic vampire
named… any guesses? I’ll give you a clue: it rhymes with (but isn’t) 'Barney'.
There were no giant purple dinosaurs in this story, children… sorry, maybe next
time.
We’re not there yet, folks. Many more tales of the Nosferatu
were published before Stoker made the term popular in Dracula; one such story being Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 tale
of a lesbian Vampire, Carmilla. This
itself helped in starting off the long-lasting partnership between homosexuality
and Vampirism. Come on, you can’t say you’ve never noticed it… even Dracula’s a closet gay…
It was not, in fact, until 1897 that Bram Stoker published his
stand-out novel (which also happens to be the only one he wrote still in print), Dracula. So, as you
can see, Stoker in no way created the Vampire. He didn’t even sculpt the
archetypal aristocratic beastie we all know and love. Far from it: he is in
fact just another stepping stone in the trail of Vampires across history. What Stoker did do, however, is bring Vampires
to the novel form. He took them from the realm of penny-dreadfuls and short
stories into the newly-erected Kingdom of the Gothic Novel!
So, as you can see, Vampires are not merely some modern
outbreak. They’re not like foot and mouth or bird flu, a recent phenomenon and
passing trend. No, they’re far more. Vampires have been around as long as
language. They’re a mythology that’s lived alongside mankind since the
beginning.
In many ways, this is the magnificent thing about Vampires.
Not only have they always been there within our culture, but they’re constantly
changing, innovated by the world around them. For example, in 1895 there was the
first cinema screening ever and it only took until 1913 for The Vampire to reach the big screen, a
film shortly followed by F. W. Murnau’s masterpiece, Nosferatu, the first true Vampire movie and one to be followed by thousands
more. By 2005, for example, Count Dracula had
been the subject of more films than any other fictional character - if you’re to
count the vampire itself and not just Stoker’s reincarnation, there’s many,
many more...
With this in mind, is it any great surprise that Vampires
are everywhere in our culture today? They have always been at the fore of
cultural innovation and now in a world built around film, television and the
internet the vampire myth is able to thrive even more so as the vampire brand. So
when one argues that Vampires have taken over the last few years it’s not
actually true. They’ve always been here: it’s society that’s changed. Now
they’re not only confined to mythology or stories, but are able to thrive
within a world of images. They’ve always been at the door: we’ve merely invited them in.
Now please enjoy some images of the Vampire's evolution over the years: thanks for reading.
Wow... Talk about devolving...
Shaun Beale
*Found in one of the many histories of the period.
Excellent! A really comprehensive look at the history of the genre, and a few nicely placed digs at twilight. Only thing negative is I preferred the 'Leech' pun in the original title!
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