Give me Something to Write About!

Sitting, staring at an empty screen is one of the most frustrating and scary things. Words want to come but they are locked up, beating on the door to be let out but they are trapped. I needed a topic. I said to my husband "Give me Something to Write About!" We both laughed. (not everyone will get that reference). Now I have the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on replay in my head. Give me Something to Sing About was one of the pivotal songs in that quirky episode Once More with Feeling - the perfect way to get so many back stories all out in the open in one single episode. A truly 1950s musical-esque way to cut several episodes of explanations from the series.

That brings me to something that, if encountered, would be a very scary thing indeed! Vampires. Not the wussey, touchy feely vampires of recent romantic teenage fiction but the gritty, rip-yer-throat out kind. The kind I really, really would not want to meet in a dark alley unless I was armed to the teeth with a non-wavering faith, silver crosses, holy water, multiple wooden stakes (preferably on a multiple barreled crossbow for rapid and maximum impact) and a definate means of escape. Or a vampire slayer as back up.

Vampire lore has been around, from the dawn of time, in many different cultures. In Europe vampiremania led to people being buried with stakes in their hearts and sometimes bricks in their mouths to prevent them rising to inflict carnage on the living. Both the shrinking skin of corpses that made it appear that it's nails were still growing and those poor souls inflicted with the hereditary blood disease porphyria seemed only to confirm folkloric myths. (The disease was described by Felix Hoppe-Seyler  in 1871.)

Vampires appeared in poems and novels, form the mid 1700s onwards, including The Vampyre, Jules Verne's The Castle in Transylvania and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Television and movies took them up with a relish with Nosferatu being a classic amongst all of them. Myths and folklore have been around for a much longer time. Vampires shunned the light-giving sun, were blood thirsty, erotic, demonic, self-serving and just plain nasty. (In the 1990s, I must admit I loved the televeision series Forever Knight, with a vampire police detective trying to redeem himself... but there was still the classic blood suckers and danger involved with confronting one). One thing they did not do was sparkle in the sun!

Traditionally, vampires embodied our fears (of the dark and of dying), they represented  a separation from community, anti-social behaviours, repressed sexual desire and our inner darkness which Jung called our shadow, the dark part of ourselves that we do not want to admit to. The scariest thing being losing oneself or soul. They were the cursed.

There was always a dangerous, (sometimes not so) slightly erotic tinge to the classic vampire stories but there was always the threat of the untamed monster turning, risking both life and soul. Times may have changed and we may now be more immune to horror, no longer scared of the metaphorical dark, no longer worried for our soul and our modern sensibilities and thinking may have progressed beyond the Victorian but surely this should have dictated that vampires were depicted as even more depraved, more terrifying and more evil. Recent teenage vampire novels have neutered many vampires, making them soft, cuddly (though slightly cold) boyfriend material with the prospect of joining them in happily wedded undead bliss... 

"Its alright if something's come out wrong,

We'll sing a happy song,

And you can sing along" 

-  Something to Sing About (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once More with Feeling)

No matter how sophisicated or civilized a vampire may seem, it is not safe to dabble on the darkside. There will always be consequences. You had better be either willing to accept them or be very well protected. (Even Buffy suffered consequences when she and Angel finally gave into their desires.) When did it become socially acceptable to murder someone (that you supposedly love) by draining their blood.
"Oh, it is okay, as we are going to get married and unlive happily ever after."
I have found some of the most recent novelisations and resulting movies are promoting some disturbingly unhealthy behaviour towards women... but that is my personal opinion.

There is a t-shirt (that I own)...

Then Buffy Staked Edward.

The End.

Give me the wooden stake! I would rather die with my soul intact, thank you.