The Vampire Craze

Cover your neck. Don’t go out after dark. Actually, nowadays, evil isn’t just creeping around at night. It’s also prowling in the bright lights of Hollywood. What kind of evil am I talking about? Vampires. Just because they can’t go out in the sunlight doesn’t mean they can’t venture into the spotlight, and for that reason, with fangs exposed, vampires are ferociously taking over the entertainment industry.

Typically, the first name that comes to mind when talking of vampires is Count Dracula, but a lot has changed in the 200 years since Bram Stoker first introduced the blood-sucking character.

Most of us can thank the 1990’s television beauty named Buffy, a blonde, teenage girl called upon to slay vampires and demons, for this change. They were consistently portrayed as the bad guys, and for that reason, vampires never really became the object of affection. They were never worshiped in the way Buffy received the praise and rise in popularity.

Buffy stopped staking vampires in 2003 and her vampire enemies retreated back into the darkness known as reruns.

That’s when Stephanie Meyer took over. In 2006, she introduced teenagers everywhere to a gentle loving vampire named Edward Cullen in her book, “Twilight.” He falls in love with Forks High School’s newest student, Bella Swan, and together they fight to overcome the challenges of a vampire-human romance.

The books and their sequels began flying off shelves, Edward Cullen became a real person in the 2008 film adaptation and girls started thinking of reasons why Edward Cullen is better than their boyfriends. These swooners are not only the young teen girls for whom the book is targeted. College students, thirty-somethings and their mothers have fallen in love with stone-cold Edward. Who doesn’t want to hear sweet words like “You are my life now” from a handsome, mature guy?

Perhaps piggy-backing on the Twilight pandemonium, HBO premiered their vampire series, “True Blood,” in late 2008. Vampires, an oppressed race in the United States, finally reveal themselves and begin fighting for their rights. Sookie Stackhouse, a mind-reading waitress from the heart of Louisiana welcomes a vampire not only into the bar she works in, but into her heart. Romance blossoms while a murderer begins killing off any vampire sympathizers in the town, and her brother, Jason, fools around with “V,” vampire blood taken as a mind-altering drug to increase focus and sexual performance. It’s scary, romantic and political all at once- the mark of good television.

They bite, they hunt and they can sense fear, so why do these monsters have us so smitten? For one thing, they have glorified sex appeal: unmatched strength, charming good looks and experience way beyond the years of any human. There’s more to it than that, though. There has to be, otherwise we wouldn’t be hanging on.

The real reason we’re so hooked is because vampires allow us to reflect on and learn about our real lives under the guise of fiction. “True Blood” deals with and comments on serious issues, like racism in the South, drug addiction and not fitting in, all through the veil of vampire rights. “Twilight” is a young girl’s first introduction to a serious relationship and the dangers of love.

Vampires allow us to learn, evaluate and reflect on our lives without consciously doing so. We watch strapping men and gorgeous women fight their battles and look at it as entertainment. We see the glamour, but it’s the similarities that hit home.

We may all not have fangs, but we all have feelings and we all face challenges.

It’s that closeness, that brotherhood we feel with our pale-faced friends that brings us back again and again.