Feminine Submission to the Vampire
I have noticed in my decades of existence that creatures in the horror genre—whether books, television or film—experience ebbs and flows of popularity. Using mass market fiction as an example, Anne Rice ushered in a new fascination with vampires, then much later JK Rowling prompted an interest in witches. The Twilight series rebranded vampires for a new generation.
In television, the early days of soap operas broadcasted in black and white brought us Barnabas Collins and his supernatural cohorts on Dark Shadows, bringing the dark side to a generation that spurred horror minds like Stephen King. And by the 1990s, the epic universe of Joss Whedon brought us teen life struggles and tales of redemption (and failed redemption) with the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel.
The Fascination
But when looking at supernatural horror—the type of horror spun with creatures who live outside the rules of the natural world—why are we fascinated? In slasher horror and tales of true life serial killers and mankind’s misdeeds, we gaze into the evil we all have hidden inside us. So, why the attraction to things like witches, werewolves and vampires? Surely, such creatures do not exist.
These creatures, and for me it was the allure of the vampire, romanticize the notion of humankind’s basic struggle with right vs. wrong, good vs. evil. They soften the blow of examining the dark corners of the human mind. The vampire may need human blood to survive, but he was cursed so he has an excuse. An addict or sociopath may not receive the same leeway.
And if we harken back to the old Dracula films straight through to newer vampire cinema, when a vampire attacks and feeds from his victim, the response of the victim often equates to euphoria or orgasm— a testament to the power of giving, the joy in submission or perhaps merely surrendering to helplessness because it is the supernatural after all, so a mere human cannot fight.
Buffy’s World
One arc of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer focused on the love story between Buffy, the iconic teen girl vampire slayer, and Angel, the 200-plus year old vampire living with a gypsy curse that returned his soul to him. The love affair itself was not unusual, as women have traditionally found themselves enamored by male blood-sucking monsters. But the fact that Buffy had an inherited responsibility to slay the undead and yet still fell victim to loving one, presents an interesting dichotomy.
She often had to face that contradiction in brutal ways. The very first time she had sex, and that was with Angel, it caused his gypsy curse to spiral and rip his soul away, returning him to the vampire of legendary evil he had been before his redemption. Then, she had to plunge a sword in his chest and send him to Hell.
Simple Symbols?
But what does that say on a symbolic level? Buffy was a vampire slayer yet still couldn’t help but be drawn in love and lust to Angel. And, like the good girl she was, she gives him her virginity only to have her world be torn apart (as only a woman in a patriarchally-dominated sexual world can experience: Buffy has sex with her true love, but as he is a dead man, a vampire, the act itself is against nature as sex is meant for reproduction. Add Angel’s gypsy curse and what Buffy thought she gave in good faith turns her man into an evil monster. Which, it could be argued, happens to men…)
But to me, seeing women defeat monsters or fall in love with them reinforces the strength women need to have in the world. Because regardless of what feminism says, or teaches us, or how it propels us toward equality… in the end, women are usually weaker than men, we are typically the ones penetrated and rarely the ones who penetrate. We have the babies. We bleed.
Our lives are real horror stories—yet we rise above it with grace and poise and with luck, captivate men with our own spells.
The Plot Sickens: Angel Ackerman sees Boys in the Trees…
Crash Analysis Support Team
Angel Ackerman
After a fifteen-year career in print journalism, Angel Ackerman has studied world history, (specifically post-colonial Francophone Africa, Muslim relations, and contemporary Western politics) and traveled several continents. Her recent publications include the poem This Paris in Step Away magazine, an essay on the weather and travel on the Horn of Africa in Rum Punch Press, academic encyclopedia entries on Djibouti, a review in Global Studies South on a book examining famine in Somalia, book reviews from eons ago for Hippocampus Magazine and an upcoming essay on chickens. Follow her on Twitter.
Get your Crash Palace and The Last Knock gear!
THE LAST KNOCK horror podcast is a Crash Palace Productions’ featured show. Besides this site, you can find THE LAST KNOCK on iTunes with new shows posted every other Sunday at 9 PM ET.
Crash Palace Productions website design and creation from Brian Yount Digital Enterprises with banner and THE LAST KNOCK advertising art from Palko Designs. THE LAST KNOCK logo from Paul Belci.
(Still photo from Buffy the Vampire Slayer via The WB.)