Vampires: Alluring Angels or Deadly Demons?
I’ve noticed a major factor in the post-Twilight craze over vampires is the idea presented that all vampires are beautiful… handsome… super sexy and just so darn alluring. Which makes them perfect addictions for mainstream culture. I find this Twilight-era of pushing “pretty” vamps is a bit overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I agree one hundred percent that vampires intrinsically possess a haunting and hypnotic quality. It’s an aura humans find irresistible… a sort of carnal call to our blood and bodies. But what I LOVE about this concept… what is so intriguing about it is that vampires are so addicting even though they aren’t stunningly good-looking. They’re supposed to look average. Or even lesser than if they’re letting their demon side show.
Think back in the day to European folklore and Nosferatu. Both pretty well summed up as 1) pale and 2) hideous. Vampires were something that villagers didn’t understand so it was necessary to describe their appearances as such ugly ducklings to warn people not to walk alone very late at night. Or else you might end up torn apart. Or pale and hideous.
Luckily with Bram Stoker’s Dracula there came a shift in vampiric appeal – vampires that were pretty decent looking, but primarily they just knew how to work it. It was the air about them that was oh-so-enticing: the confidence (you would have it too if you were immortal), the silkiness, the power, the seductive attitude. And maybe most important – the hypnotic eyes. Irresistible.
But I’m not naive. I know that such depictions of only decent-looking vampires would never survive in Hollywood. (It would be difficult to fool the mind without fooling the eyes on screen.) BUT then I think about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Blade films and I think, well kudos to them for keeping the “pretty vamp” thing under control. In Blade, the vampires pretty much looked like everyone else except they had fangs. But you couldn’t help but be dazzled by their power – coolness – and ease with which they could rip your arm off.
And just look at Buffy where many of the vampires are supposed to look like your average human before they were turned. Not only that, the most important idea is that their human face is always masking their true vampire face… an appearance that is completely demonic since it represents their true evil nature. (Because let’s not forget that what makes a vampire such is the lack of a human soul. The idea is that they have no moral inhibitions and are therefore more free than any of us will ever know how to be is what results in their evil deeds.)
Below are pictures of my eternal undead love, Spike (aka William the Bloody from Buffy):
In his angel face…
And his real one when he’s not so happy…
Not very pretty in the above. But even in his demon face, everything that Spike did still had such a strong magnetic quality. I was always hypnotized by him.
Vampires are supposed to be raw, and sometimes it’s refreshing to see the ugly. It’s fun.
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- NGC on vampires, are they real? I discovered this National Geographic documentary on vampires on YouTube....
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