"I Vant to Suck Your Blood..."

After watching 'True Blood' (C-) and 'Twilight' (F), I really have to take on the part of that little kid in the 'Emperor's New Clothes'. Why in the name of Bela Lugosi are vampires so popular these days? As fantasy themes, the idea of eternal life has been done to death. The vampire, in pop-culture terms, is an Eastern European folk tale invention meant to admonish the peasant class from abandoning the teachings of the church. Notice how most folk causes of vampirism involve being unbaptized, consorting with degenerates, and so on. And you'll notice how defeating or protection from vampires usually involves invoking religion.

The best explanation of vampirism was in the Garth Ennis comic, 'Preacher', where the undead Irish vampire Cassidy discovers that the religious elements just don't factor into the vampire world, as far as his experience, and the consequences involve a personal inability to reconcile the physical advantages in being a vampire with any sense of personal responsibility. The only other real acknowledgement of the actual effects of vampirism come from that little-seen comic by Fiona Staples I mentioned, and David Goyer's 'Blade 3' movie.

Which brings me to 'True Blood.' It gives us the premise that vampires really exist, and with the recent invention of synthetic blood, are capable of living with real people. Also, it gives us a world where casual, frequent sex seems really fun, Southern rednecks really do live up to their worst stereotypes, and enough people have special powers like shape-shifting and mind-reading. (Hey, if you've got vampires, why the Hell not, I say...) And since it's set in the American South, we've got enough sub-Flannery O'Connor/ William Falkner subtexts to hold our attention, if the vampire stuff-which I found dreary-has us rolling our eyes. Alan Bell being the creator, he makes enough connections between vampirism and racism/homophobia to justify his paycheck. Having worked my way through half of season one so far, It occurred to me that it'd be a far better show if it didn't have the vampire/supernatural powers crap dragging it down.

Then there's 'Twilight'. Oh, God. The only way this dreary, pointless slog is even remotely watchable is by listening to the 'Rifftrax' commentary by the MST3K folks over it. The undead protagonist is a whiny douche with a James Dean fetish, the female love interest is self-involved and dull, (and the actress has no skill except blinking her eyes really fast.) the story takes forever to go anywhere, none of the other characters have anything resembling personalities- they all exist to explain plot points, or provide background for the setting, or act as tour guides for the vampire life. I can understand why thirteen year old girls like it so much, though. It makes vampirism a metaphor for abstinence, and entering puberty is understandably scary for teenagers. The female lead seems to not have any problems fitting in right away with the other kids, though. Since she doesn't have any type of personality on display, we have to wonder why the Edward character is so attracted to her. I hate you, 'Twilight' franchise. What's worse, there's apparently a whole new sub-genre of books out there involving vampires, werewolves, demons and the like living in the real world, falling in love with humans, or vice-versa, and...and...gnngh...