Vampires are wimping out

From stinking, crawling corpses to brooding, drippy teenagers, the vampire has been transformed. Anne Rice, Stoker and Polidori have a lot to answer for: our delicious fears have been shortchanged.

Here is a short history of vampires.

 First there were dead bodies which crawled out of the grave and ate people or their life force. Along came John Polidori’s character Lord Ruthven who was well dressed, got married and killed his bride.

Next on the horizon was Stoker's historical revision of Vlad Tepes, ‘Dracula’. In real life Vlad Tepes nailed the turbans of envoys to their heads, so everyone decided that he was blood-thirsty, and being literal peasants, the rumour of blood drinking arose. This goes to show that we have to be very wary of diplomacy, or leaders who don’t employ decent spin doctors. Dracula, by the way, was well dressed.

Hammer studios gave Dracula a veneer of culture and yet more good tailoring. Then along came Anne Rice. Her vampires were sympathetic, but only in the literary sense, so we didn’t have to fear them, as long as we weren’t bad people. Anne Rice converted to Christianity while writing those stories.

The post-millennial vampires and blood substitutes followed, as seen in ‘True Blood’ and the ‘Twilight’ movies, one of which I watched bits of before giving up overwhelmed by a sudden urge to open a vein. The new breed of vampires wear Dockers and are sensitive in a brooding, ‘love-me-I’m-so-vulnerable’ kind of way. The unreformed ones, the ones who drink teenage girls, wear mallgoth kit and would be indistinguishable from truculent teenagers, if not for their teeth.

From stinking, crawling corpses to brooding, drippy teenagers, the vampire has been transformed. Anne Rice, Stoker and Polidori have a lot to answer for: our delicious fears have been shortchanged.

Fear of vampires translates into fear of blood, a very primal thing. If you doubt me, the next time you have an ‘ouchies’ in the toolshed or kitchen, don’t run for the plaster. Instead try to stare fixedly at the upwelling from the wound and tell yourself repeatedly, ‘it really isn’t so serious, I can deal with this’. At the very least, you should begin to worry about the stains.  If it is serious, skip this challenge and call emergency services.

According to the latest plotting and narrative devices for vampire shows, the bloodless incidents and teenage sighs point to post-millennial avoidance of fears as the easiest route to personal happiness. Given the multitude of fears from which to choose, this seems like a sensible proposition in a demented kind of way.

Even though vampires have been sanitised, blood is still an extremely powerful symbol, and there is still good reason to be nervous about it. The most powerful use is probably the whole thing of external loyalty. I discern two types: the blood loyalty given in a lifetime and the loyalty handed down from generation to generation.

Loyalty which is given on the basis of blood is just plain stupid. Kids with penknives damage themselves and frighten their parents, but can be repaired with a plaster and a good talking to. The type of gang loyalty, the ‘blood-in-blood-out’ thing, is thicker still. In this day and age of star witnesses and new starts for jaded offenders in the form of witness protection, that sort of idealism deserves everything it gets.

Politics and belonging to groups also emerges out of the blood oath: witness the flags dipped in blood of the Nazi era, the apparent genetic relationships to ideology of any number of idiot groups for people who need to fill their empty lives with ill-conceived and prejudiced causes, as well as the appeals to blood on the part of politicians who are intent on their supporters shedding it.

Blood loyalty which is handed down from generation to generation are more insidious. The blood feuds of Mediterranean families springs to mind. So do the nauseating oaths that guide successive generations of societies and countries into enmity and war.

Blood is not a debt or reason for a cause. It is something that requires a plaster, or perhaps a surgeon, and the aftermath should be mopped up with suitable cleaning products.

The vampires and their teeth may have been reduced to damp rags, but there are plenty of real people and beliefs who will feed and prosper on blood.

Should we really be putting away the sharpened stakes and cloves of garlic just yet?

This column is taken from 'The Writing is on the Coffee Cup'. It is placed here as a marketing ploy, but also so that I can contradict myself in an item which I will post tomorrow.