Hollywood’s Crush on Vampires
by Stefica Budimir-Bekan
US production companies have been shooting films and TV shows about vampires, shape-shifters and other mythological creatures for ages but never before have those series created such hype around the globe. Vampires are the new heroes.
The film “Twilight,” based on the bestseller vampire series by Stephenie Meyer was released on 21 November 2008 and broke records at the US box offices with a 70.6 million dollars opening haul at the first weekend. The sequel “New Moon” was highly anticipated and hit the big screen on November 27, 2009 in the UK. The second-season premiere of “True Blood” based on the “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” series of novels by Charlaine Harris has become the most-watched programme with 3.7 million viewers on the US premium cable network HBO since the finale of “The Sopranos” more than two years ago. And last but not least, the series premiere of the CW’s The “Vampire Diaries” on 10 September 2009 was watched by 4.8 million viewers, a bigger audience than any other channel had to date. But, why are vampire stories so popular? Does love really suck?
Every Now And Then
All of these book and film series deal with the love between a human girl and one or more dangerous, incredibly handsome vampires.
“The sudden attraction of vampires comes in waves. Every couple of years they are all the rage for a while and then slowly interest in them is lost by the mainstream,” says Theresa Bane, an American author and vampirologist.
She believes that the vampire is an indicator of society and when it appears a corner has been turned. When people feel that they are powerless and emotionally isolated, the vampire emerges and becomes a presence in their lives. “The vampire hype will last until society “finds itself,” she says.
It’s All About Sex
Celebrity psychologist and psychiatrist Borwin Bandelow from Germany explains the hype differently. “People want to be frightened. If you watch a vampire movie, you are scared but when it comes to a happy end, your brain releases endorphins (happy hormones) and you feel good again.”
He also thinks that vampires not only stand for danger but also sex. “Being bitten by a vampire is an unconscious expression for sex. The sinking of a vampire’s teeth into a person’s neck is a metaphor and symbolises the penetration of a penis into a vagina. This again stimulates our reward system in our brain which releases endorphins,” he says. He claims that this system is primitive but has a straight pattern. In the beginning, fear arises and then this fear is turned into sex and a sense of well-being. “Hollywood knows this. That’s why they are reheating material that worked earlier”, he says.
“I Will Turn You”
Theresa Bane thinks that it is silly to link fangs to sex because that’s just the way a vampire eats. “The species of vampires that do feed on blood are not the ones that do so in a sensual fashion but rather do so like a white shark, from ambush, without mercy.”She has heard the fang = sex-argument from psychologists before but gives it little credit: “When we look at a dog eating from its food dish, we do not think to ourselves ‘cover the children’s eyes’”
Her job as a vampirologist can also be very dangerous. Many people have tried to convince Theresa that they are real vampires. “The reason that there is not much personal information about me on my website is that I have had a death threat from someone claiming to be a real vampire. Apart from the fact that I do not believe vampires are real, I do happen to believe that crazy people exist,” Theresa explains.
In her book “Actual Factual Dracula: A Compendium of Vampires” she has catalogued over 900 species of vampires. In her second book about vampires, an academic tome entitled “The Encyclopaedia of Vampire Mythology” she details out 600 of those species. “People who wear contact lenses and press-on fangs are not vampires. Claiming to drink human blood or even doing so does not make a person a vampire. The human body is not designed to process blood,” she says.
Are There Real Vampires Out There?
There are mythological energy vampires with psychic powers. Theresa has met several people who claimed to be energy vampires but not a single one has been able to prove that they are real. A woman said that she feeds off the sexual energy of her willing partner. “Her partner can claim to feel tired and drained, but that may only make her a voracious lover. At my age and weight I’m tired after sex too, but my husband is not an energy vampire,” Theresa says.
There are a bunch of websites with people claiming to be sanguinarian vampires, people who feed from other people’s blood. “Any human being, who consumes blood, be it human or animal, have either a chemical imbalance in their brain or there is some sort of mental disorder that they are suffering from. There is not a single physiologically healthy human being on the planet that has a need to consume blood,” she says.
Blood As A Painkiller
Professor Bandelow explains that those are often people with a borderline personality disorder. In his book “Celebrities - On the Difficult Happiness of Being Famous” he talks about the ubiquity of the borderline syndrome among celebrities. “Patients with such a syndrome tend to hurt themselves. When they cut their arm with a knife and it bleeds, their brain releases endorphins. Happy hormones kill the pain and produce a sense of well-being. If normal people did this, they would only feel the pain, not a sense of well-being,” he explains.
“The vampire is a mythological creature, a creation born of mankind’s need to explain that which could not be rationally explained,” Theresa says. As long as people are firmly rooted in reality, the fascination with vampires is a wonderful escape into a special fantasy world. Dreaming of a guy that loves you so much that he would die for you is every woman’s dream. The fact that those fictional figures are vampires is almost unimportant. There is nothing wrong with wearing fangs and fake contacts for Halloween. But always keep in mind: The next time somebody wants to bite you, it’s either a person suffering from a mental disorder or just somebody who wants to have sex with you.
Myths and Mythology
Most of the mythology of the vampire comes about because of man’s burial practice or was simply invented by Hollywood’s movie-making:
-Sexy love-bite? No way! A “real” vampire would never attack a person’s neck but rather its belly. The neck vein is the one going into the heart and is filled with the body’s dirtiest blood.
-Is Bram Stoker’s Dracula the real deal? No, he was made up of 27 different species of vampires. The vampires of “True Blood,” “Twilight,” “The Vampire Diaries” and the like are watered down versions of it.
-Do vampires sleep in coffins? No. Dracula used a coffin as a show of his personal wealth, as most folks in Victorian times were buried in a sheet. Bury the body too deep and decomposition is greatly slowed. Should the body be exhumed and it is decided that there is not enough decomposition present that was a sign of a vampire.
-Are vampires afraid of sunlight? No. There are those vampires that are destroyed by sunlight, however, the greater number of the species is OK with it.
-Do vampires turn into bats? Of the species of vampire that have the ability to shape-shift, most do not turn into bats. Most popular are glowing balls of light, followed by a beautiful woman, horse, human, dog, cat.
-Afraid of crucifixes? Bram Stoker invented this myth.
-Garlic? It was used because people believed that its odour created a magical barrier that protected folks from the invisible intangible vampire.
by Stefica Budimir-Bekan
