Babel Clash

In comments about Jaye’s post on Tuesday, I saw something we’re all used to seeing: a little vampire hatin’.

For all of you out there who hate the vampire, Imma let you finish.

But let me just say something first . . .

I get it that there are a lot of people who see Twilight as the sort of cultural monolith they have to scorn. It’s the scorn version of a rubber mallet hitting an elbow. After all, the Twilight phenomenon is huge. It sparkles. Teen girls love it so much they swoon, while their moms, embarrassingly enough, are right there with them.

Personally, I love that Twilight got young people reading. I love seeing message boards where–rather than just imbibing Twilight’s mixed bag of messages as if they were custard–young girls debate those messages. And I love it when I get an older teen reader who writes to me, “I loved Twilight when I was younger. But I wanted something more. Then I found Jane.”

In my secret fantasies, I consider Jane the Anti-Bella, but we won’t get into that.

What I will get into is that vampires aren’t the enemies. All of the centuries of amazing mythology coming from every single corner of the globe should not be dismissed. The fact that vampires  have terrified the human race for centuries, in multiple incarnations, should not be dismissed. They fact that the act of sucking life essence from our bodies is a fear so primordial and so charismatic we’ve had to touch upon it, as a species and throughout our existence, should not be dismissed.

The fact vampires offer up a raft of double penetration jokes should not be dismissed.

And yes, vampires have been silly over the centuries. Let’s not forgive the legendary goat-sucker, the chupacabra. But vampires have also always fascinated humanity. Indeed, why they’ve always fascinated humans gives us such insight into our own dark depths. They are, after all, the walking embodiment of that mystifying connection between thanatos and eros–between death and sex. Even the Twilight series, in its admittedly awkward and rather puerile way, tried to work out just how this connection functions for us, and why it rivets us as a species.

In other words, don’t blame the vampire for how it’s been portrayed. It couldn’t help Gary Oldman’s boob wig any more than it could help the sparkles.

All it wants to do is live happily, seducing mortals with its unholy offerings of pleasure and death. All it wants is our blood, our souls, and our bodies. And throughout history, humans as a species have been helpless not to want to give in.

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