What is America's obsession with vampires? I'll admit, I've fallen into this obsession. It all started with Buffy , which I only started watching earlier this year, and now I'm into True Blood as well. There's also Twilight , which I have a weird fascination with as I've talked about before . As much as I love these vampire shows (Buffy and True Blood , that is), why is America obsessed with them? And why am I obsessed with them? (My obsession might have something to do with my obsession with pop culture and TV shows in general, but maybe it's something more too since America seems obsessed with them as well.)
I loved Buffy because the character was a strong woman who saved the world on numerous occasions which is such a rare occurrence in media today. Even though Buffy had the help of many strong men, she was the one in charge and the one who ultimately would save the day. True Blood centers around a strong female character, Sookie Stackhouse, and her relationship with a vampire, Bill. While Sookie often needs rescuing, she can stand up for herself. My weird obsession with Twilight has more to do with my lack of understanding for the obsession with the phenomenon. Bella is not strong, cannot stand up for herself, and constantly needs to be saved by Edward. And Edward is basically a creepy stalker. I prefer Buffy and True Blood because of the strong female characters, where as Twilight is a feminist nightmare. But why does America like vampires?
In the New York Times article "A Trend With Teeth ," Ruth La Ferla examines the appeal of vampires. She states,
Dodai from Jezebel wrote a similar, yet feminist, article titled "Women Play Mostly Supporting Role Within Male-Dominated "Trend"" . To explain America's fascination with vampires, she proposes,
So, if vampires are all about sex, it's no surprise that America has an obsession with them. Especially with the 'abstinence porn' that is Twilight . This series is all about sexual control, in a very sexualized way.
But why do we always see male vampires? Buffy had Angel and Spike. Twilight has Edward. True Blood has Bill and Eric. One of the few exceptions is the newly made vampire Jessica in True Blood , who is a whiny teenager who is still learning to control her impulses. There is also Drusilla in Buffy who is very mentally disturbed.
Why is it always the men that embody sex, dominate women, and possess others? Why can't women be in these powerful roles? And why is it that when women are vampires, as in Jessica and Drusilla, they are in some way less than the male vampires, whether through age and experience or mental capability?
"Bloodsucking is a boys world," according to the Jezebel article. It then goes on to describe the online phenomenon that was the video of Buffy 'dusting' Edward .
I guess that what we need to combat the male domination of the vampire world is digitally created video of two different shows mashed together.
I wonder if a show or movie centering around a female vampire will ever be as popular as Buffy, Twilight, or True Blood ? Sure there are powerful female characters in two out of three of those, but they are not vampires. When will women be able to embody sex and sexuality like men as vampires?
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I really enjoyed reading this, as yet another Buffy. One question: what about Darla? She was a powerful female vampire.
The idea of the modern, sexualized vampire was popularized almost entirely by Anne Rice. Vampires weren't a symbol of sexuality before that, and Rice made Lestat with the intention of appealing to women. I don't really "get" the appeal, but there's an archetypal sexualized male vampire that appeals really strongly to a lot of women, and it's very locked into our ideas about gender roles. It's essentially the "women like bad boys, men like nice girls" idea writ large.
As a side note: you may want to check out Hellsing for a Japanese version of the vampire obsession, if you're into that sort of thing.
The idea of the modern, sexualized vampire was popularized almost entirely by Anne Rice. Vampires weren't a symbol of sexuality before that
John Polidori's The Vampyre came out in 1819, featuring a very sexy bad-boy vampire. He wasn't seen as sympathetic, though. J. Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, from 1872, is about the effect a very sexual female vampire has on the young girl who catches her eye. There was a great deal of sexual imagery in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), most of it oral.
and Rice made Lestat with the intention of appealing to women.
Lestat also seemed to be Rice's gay alter ego, so I wouldn't say she intended Lestat to only appeal to straight women. :-)
Yep, Rice definitely didn't invent it, but she did popularize it, which is why her vision of romantic vampires is the most common now.
Dracula is definitely sexual, but in a very different way than Lestat or Edward. He's not "sexy," he's animalistic and ugly.
"His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils . . . and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive . . . the mouth . . . was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth . . . His ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong . . . Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm."
One good comparison I heard (although I forgot where) is that whereas Lestat is a seducer, Dracula is a rapist.
Lestat also seemed to be Rice's gay alter ego, so I wouldn't say she intended Lestat to only appeal to straight women. :-)
No he wasn't.
She states in one of the forewords to her books that Lestat is, for all intents and purposes, Stan Rice, her husband. His looks, his attitude, his manner of speech, are all directly based on her late husband Stan.
We're both right. :-) I've added the quotes so that it doesn't look I am disagreeing with you for disagreement's sake.
"Yes, he was based on my husband Stan -- on Stan’s vigor and beauty, on Stan’s will and Stan’s courage. And my son, Christopher, has grown up to be Lestat, and that’s a puzzle that commands respect.
Yet Lestat is my alter ego, lover, muse and the unabashed hero of my crippled, genderless soul. I’m in love with the guy. I prowl the world looking through his eyes from time to time. For decades, there was nothing I couldn’t express through Lestat’s voice."
http://www.annerice.com/Lestat-TheMusical.html
Caller: Uh, yes. Uh, have-. Where did Lestat, where did you come up with Lestat? I'm just curious? Is he like your alter ego or-?
A.R.: Yeah, he's he's like my bad self and my heroic self and my questing self. I tend to be very indecisive and brooding and full of despair and anxiety and angst and, and constant worry and he is the character that goes out and refuses to be knocked down by all of that, you know. He's me going forth and, and acting and doing things.
L.K.: Where did you come up with his name?
A.R.: Made it up. Made a mistake. You really want to know? There's an old Louisiana name, Lestin, and I misspelled it Lestat. And I think it was because my husbands name is Stan, and Lestat was based on my husband Stan. So I misspelled. Freudian slip?
http://www.empirezine.com/spotlight/rice/rice-larry-king-interview.txt
In all honesty, I can't see any good coming of your idea.
Basically because I can immediately see the backlash if this were the reverse. This site would blow up with articles written complaining about women (vampires) being sexualized and objectified, and complaints that it's never ever men that are sexualized, just women.
Basically the way the complaints are levied against ads and the like that sexualize women.
Usually, when that discussion comes up, women here ask why aren't men ever sexualized in such ways. When men finally ARE sexualized in such a way...the complaint is women want to be sexualized too (even more)?
I don't think the vampires in Buffy/Angel are such huge sex symbols. Yes, I know Angel is a love interest, but it doesn't have the same feel as the other shows/books/movies.
In other news, if you like vampire stuff, read the first three Anne Rice novels--Interview with A Vampire, the Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned. Particularly in the last one, if you like some strong women. Not saying they are better as far as sexism goes. They are just classics. I'm shocked there was a post on vampires without mentioning them. (And without mentioning Dracula?)
Ever seen Bloodrayne? The vampire is a woman who is *highly* sexualized. One of those powerful-woman-who-is-titillating movies. It's really quite awful in my opinion*, but from what I remember, she does kick butt. Just in a way that appeals to the male gaze.
*I wasn't a feminist when I saw this, so I was unaware of the male gaze. It was just bad to me as a run-of-the-mill teenager.
The "male gaze"?
Besides which, Bloodrayne is a terrible movie because it was made by a terrible director who makes terrible movies based on video games.
That said, why doesn't anyone say anything about the "female gaze"?
It always seems on this site that if a female does it, it's legitimate, and if a male does it, it's deviant and bad.
The "male gaze"?
You may learn more here: FAQ: What is the “male gaze”?
That said, why doesn't anyone say anything about the "female gaze"?
We do when it's relevant. This does not appear to be the case at the moment, though. For example, if we were discussing just the Twilight movie, it would make sense to discuss the female gaze in that context. We would be dealing with a woman directing a film based on a book by a woman, both of which are aimed primarily at other women. There's less of a question that the female gaze is sought, so the concept of a female gaze can be discussed as it should be instead of as a way to derail a discussion of the male gaze. If you want to start that as a topic, I'd be happy to see it.
It always seems on this site that if a female does it, it's legitimate, and if a male does it, it's deviant and bad.
A selective reading, perhaps, as we women don't all agree with one another all the time. As to the point I think you are trying to make, I do not believe that women as a class make men as a class suffer by objectifying them because we do not have quite the same social access to enforce our gaze to the same degree. If you disagree, please do talk about why you think that the female gaze is equally damaging. That opens this up for honest debate instead of self-defeating closed statements.
You're proving my point.
You're making what a woman does legitimate, while demonizing when a man does the same thing.
The above poster is correct. Posters here make it seem as if women are not interested in looking at men as if women have no interest in sexuality. How does mate selection work? Men interested in looks while women ignore looks (or social status and money) but are more interested in character and intelligence etc? I can not see this happening.
A study about the male vs the female gaze:
WOMEN are more prone to ogling than men despite the widespread belief they are less focused on the physical, a study suggests.
Scientists used eye-tracking technology to pinpoint what people looked at when shown a series of sexy photos. They expected women to be more interested in faces, and men in genitals.
To their surprise, they found almost the reverse was true. Men were more likely than women to linger on the face before diverting their attention to other parts of the body.
US study leader Heather Rupp, from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, confirmed the findings. "Men looked at the female face much more than women, and both looked at the genitals comparably," she said.
from here -> http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21563791-36398,00.html
Buffy actually had quite a few female demons, and a lot of the vampires are female. In fact, the first vampire to ever appear on the show was Darla, a female. Drusilla might be mentally disturbed, but she proves to be very dangerous villain who unlike most vampires has psychic powers, and she killed Kendra, the second Slayer to appear on the show. In "The Freshman", there's a clan of vampires led by a female called Sunday. Glorificus (Glory) in season 5, was the "big bad" of that season. She was pretty bad-ass, after all, she WAS a God. Then there's slayer-turned-really-bad Faith. Oh and Anya was a vengeance demon for scorned women.
But I think the strongest and most notable female villain in Buffy was actually Willow in Season 6. She even defeats Buffy, and she would have destroyed the world had it not been for Xander saving the day.
What about the late, great Octavia Butler's novel Fledgling? I absolutely loved her vision of vampires and I've never been a big vampire fan.
There are a lot of strong female vampires out there... and saying there is not seems likes selectively viewing the material.
And whenever there is a strong, sexy female vampire 1/2 of the feminist are "fuck yeah!" and the other half go "why does she have to be seductive to be powerful... begin rant, end rant"
Damned if they do, damned if the don't.
oh...
Selene from Underworld... One of the most bad ass characters created in the last decade.
Killed werewolves as a job and killed the strongest vampire in the whole movie by exposing the top of his braiiiiiiinnsssssssss.
pffft....
No strong female vampires... where do you come up wit this?
Strong =/= empathy-less, werewolf-killing machine.
My favourite vampire movies at the 3 Underworld movies (1 and 2 are particularly good, especially the first one).
In that series they have some very strong female vampire leads including the main character and one of the 3 Elders.
Also True Blood has female vampires. They don't have a huge role and aren't very important yet, but it's early in the show's mythology so can't tell yet. Plus Sookie is female. Plus there is that female character who runs that commune and clearly has supernatural powers (sorry don't know what she is yet or how to describe).
I think there are more male vampires, especially since Dracula was a male and alot of vampire movies are about him, but there are also female vampires and from what I can tell female vampires are becoming more and more common.
Kelly Armstrong has written a series called 'Women of the Otherworld' that is all about supernatural women who kick butt. Some are conveninally beautiful, but others are not. She doesn't have many vampires, but her books are generally great and all her charchters are fairly feminist.
Joan
I suspect that Joss Whedon (as an avowed feminist) purposefully designed his most significant vampires to be male - if you look at vampires as sexuality gone wild, Spike and Angel both definitely embody this idea of controlling male sexuality, through the metaphor of bloodthirsty violence (oh. and also sex). Yeah, Angel's Buffy's true love or whatever, but...they fuck and his true demonic nature is revealed (which he's always struggling with even when he's re-ensouled, and eventually it contributes to their break-up). Meanwhile Spike is pretty much always the epitome of the creepy, controlling, stalkerish, attempted rapist (which is something which really fucking irritates me - he's set up to be the ultimate unhealthy bad boy, and yet fangirls everywhere love him and think he's "cooler" than Angel, who at least tries to control his abusive side? Ugh).
Anyway, my point is - if you see vampires as a metaphor for abusive male sexuality/violence, it makes sense that they would be predominantly male characters. Even Edward, from what I understand not having read/seen Twilight, is so afraid of what his male/vampiric sexual power will due to Bella that he refuses to sleep with her until the last book. And then it really does almost kill her!
I guess if you're interested in vampires just as cool, sexy supernatural creatures, then it might make more sense to have female characters. Or maybe you just want more diversity, period, which is fine
The heroine of the manga Rosario+Vampire is female...
Also, I think most vampires are male because vampires have pretty much always been symbolic of the darker aspects of sexuality (such as sexualized violence).
I've seen two episode of that on youtube. She is not a strong female. She is portrayed as a borderline idiotic, hyper sex object. Not to mention that creepy necklace, where only the guy can remove it.
I'm currently watching Blood Plus. So far it seems to be a great action series with a with a complex female lead. I haven't watched the whole thing, though.
Yes the male vampires are sexualized, but are they really being objectified? Rather than being passive objects to be lusted after, these characters play very active, domineering roles. They're sexual agents, not sexual objects. So I don't think it's fair to say that people on feministing would react the same way to female vampire characters as they would to movies that objectify women and place them in passive roles. I personally think the idea of vampires as violently sexual is pretty disturbing whether they're male or female, but that's just me.
This was supposed to be a reply to multipass's comment near the top of the thread
As others have implied but not quite stated yet, vampires are at least as much, probably more, rape metaphors than just plain sex metaphors. It thus seems to make sense for them to be mostly male; indeed, that the ratio isn't far more skewed is perhaps only because female vampires offer an opportunity to present the traditional "aggressive female sexuality = evil" trope.
Just a side note, True Blood has Jessica the vampire, and that girl has been just oozing sex in the past few episodes. This is purely from a male perspective as a fan of the show, but Ball definitely seems to be creating an aggressively sexual female vampire character there.
As for why there are fewer female vampires, or at least sexualized ones, I'd say the issue is one of marketing and audience. The vampire genre in recent years has become a market that caters to women and girls and therefore it's no shock that there are male characters who get sexualized. Welcome to the world of being a targeted audience, where your perceived values and desires will be targeted in order to try to get you to watch/read/listen/etc.
Yeah, Le Fanu's Carmilla is a really cool short story. I just read it last term for a gothic fiction class.
One vampire series I've not seen mentioned yet is Christopher Pike's Last Vampire. It features a very strong female, Sita, who is the oldest vampire in the world at 5,000 years (and sometimes is actually the only vampire to her knowledge). She frequently kicks a lot of butt, and, while she is sexualized, it's all on her own terms. It's teen fiction, so the books are short and read very fast, but I've loved them since I was about 12, and I still reread them fairly frequently at 25.
I'm curious as to whether anyone had read Christopher Pike's series, The Last Vampire. The main character being Alisa Perne and quite a strong female character, for the most part. It's been awhile since I read the entire series, (and I think it's somewhat difficult to get nowadays). But I know it's very different compared to the male as vampire thing that is seen.
I did remember enjoying those books, as Alisa (or Sita was always a strong woman and very well-developed. While she ended up becoming a vampire for love e her child and husband, she had so much power.
Oh my goodness, I thought I was the only person who'd ever read those. :) I loved those books, they left such an impression on me as a teenager. I completely agree with you.
I always thought that Drusilla was kick ass! Not only did she kill a slayer (Kendra) which is something few vamps have the intelligence and power to achieve, (most defiantly not the sort of thing your stock wilting fanged geranium in a under wired nighty would be able to do) - she’s got a very rich characterization which is almost always wholly skipped with female vampires in fiction.
Also Buffy herself was a created as a reaction against the typical "helpless blondie" cliché, and she’s not overtly sexualized, (steering clear of the whole "action girl cat-suit thing" eared joss and the costume department big kudos from me) so I don’t the show has any sexist leanings
I agree with you on other points though, twilight is really repulsing. I read a few chapters in the name of fairness, after I all I wouldn’t like it if someone was horrible to me because of hearsay, and by halfway I felt physically nauseas i wondered if Bella actually possessed a brain rather than a diseased pot plant for her frontal lobe.
for anyone looking to find good fiction with vampires/other undead beasties in, you could try the fifth elephant by terry pratchett (its part of a series but you can enjoy it on its own if you look up some of the back-story)three (and maybe a few more...) of the major players in that book a (vampire and 2 werewolves respectively) are female and very competent at what they do, although what they do is, shall we say on the charcoal side of the moral grey area. Also Thud! (Same author and series) which has a female vampire watchwoman (as well as sergeant angua, one of the aforementioned werewolves) is very good and has a paragraph that sends up the whole "female vampires must be sexy" thing tremendously.
There’s also a good sexism parody with the dwarves that’s a running sub story in several volumes of discworld, but I’ll leave that for you to find out. :)
Terry Pratchet is da bomb...
What about Equal Rites?
Eli in Let The Right One In was a great character...without ruining it for you her gender is up for debate, but she seems to strongly identify as female. Not many people have heard of it right now, the book is selling well though and an English remake of the movie is going to be out next year.
And in the world of anime there's always Saya. In Blood: The Last Vampire she was pretty kick ass. In Blood+ she did depend a lot on her male friend Haji, but in the end she was still pretty strong, even if she was depressed.
As far as True Blood goes, yall have to remember the character of Miriam; shes something that nobody knows about. Even Bill Compton and Eric have no clue about what she is. She is obviously very powerful, too, as she has total control over the shapeshifters and really everybody in Bon Temps.