Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy

by Richard Greene; K. Silem Mohammad

  Claudia in Interview played by a young Kirsten Dunst, is also portrayed as child-like and incapable. However, unlike Drusilla who is a grown woman, Claudia is actually a child when she is turned into a vampire. Claudia also plays with dolls and is dressed like a doll in frilly dresses. Despite her childlike body and her girlish appearance, Claudia is a vicious killer. The film’s comedic moments center on her child-vampire escapades. When she kills the seamstress and disposes of a number of piano teachers, Lestat reprimands her and reminds her, “Not in the house!” But as Claudia becomes older and begins to understand that she will never grow up into a woman, she becomes bitter and blames Louis and Lestat for stealing her womanhood from her. She deceives Lestat into drinking the blood of a corpse, a form of death for a vampire, in an attempt to kill him. Her childlike face as she lies and deceives Lestat is especially frightening and uncanny because such dark intentions are embodied within a small child.

  The feminine appearance of these three characters, like many others, serves to enhance their characters as devastating, threatening women. Ultra-feminine appearance, expressed through conventional dress, movement, and youth, offsets the female vampire’s excessive sexual or vampiric desire. The female vampire has, then, two interpretations. First, her feminine appearance neutralizes her as a threat. Or, second, her feminine appearance adds to her threatening nature; she is more dangerous because her body appears unthreatening. Barbara Creed explains that female vampires are horrifying and attractive because they threaten to undermine the dominant position of men in patriarchal, or male-dominated, society.158 The female vampire is represented as a femme fatale, a “fatal woman,” shrewd, cunning, and hell-bent on leading men to utter ruin. The femme fatale embodies a set of fears and anxieties about the place of women in general: women might rise from the dead and devour all those who ever wronged them with gross irrationality, emotion, and violence.

  The female vampire is also a character that inspires liberation. She threatens patriarchy, even when she appears ultra-feminine, her feminine body performing cruelty and violence. But this liberatory reading doesn’t work, because the femme fatale doesn’t survive; her evil nature is punished through death, or she is made powerless through ridicule. For example, in Queen, Akasha chooses Lestat to be her king, but her desire to dominate the world is too much even for the egotistical and arrogant Lestat. He is horrified when she litters the beach with corpses, and he conspires to kill her in the end. Claudia’s attempt at murdering Lestat in Interview is punished by death when Armand’s crew kidnaps her and she is left to turn to ashes in the morning sunlight.

  Drusilla, on the other hand, is made to look foolish. Drusilla and Spike escape Sunnydale at the end of Season Two, and in subsequent seasons we are updated on her story. She dumps Spike for a disgusting chaos demon, a half-man, half-deer creature with large oozing antlers and no personality. She is foolish and juvenile for dumping Spike for a revolting creature with no powers. She returns to Sunnydale in Season Five, only to be made to look foolish again when Spike rejects her and she flees in disgrace. Drusilla’s whereabouts are currently unknown.

  The female vampire as femme fatale provides a powerful social message for women. Being bad, beautiful, and immortal might be fun for a while, but girls, in the end it doesn’t pay off.

  The Male Vampire as Metrosexual . . . Sort Of

  Beauty is connected to power and self-definition in the vampire aesthetic. Vampire characters range from human-like to pure evil snarling monsters. Take the vamps on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example. Vampire protagonists, or those vampires that have some kind of character or sophisticated power, appear human-like, usually embodying elements of conventional beauty, until they are angered or about to strike, when they uglify, their foreheads going bumpy, eyes turning yellow, and fangs appearing. Those vampires that are subordinate or less powerful, or driven purely by lowly hunger (such as Harmony’s minions), are always ugly and usually meet their demise at the hands of the vampire slayer or flee in a cowardly fashion, never to be seen again.

  Sophisticated male vampires usually play the role of vampire protagonist in vampire films and television. In this role, the male vampire is usually a character struggling for self-definition. Having retained some semblance of humanity, he tries to navigate between the loneliness and boredom of immortality, and the ethics of killing humans. Often a self-divided character, the vampire protagonist struggles with delight in killing, need for bodily nourishment, and moral shame. Louis from Interview, Angel and post-soul-restoration Spike from both Buffy and Angel, and some portrayals of Dracula are examples. Because immortality has given him many years to reflect, the male vampire is often wise, articulate, and, last but not least, concerned with maintaining a distinctive image.

  The popular slang word metrosexual denotes a stylish heterosexual male who is in touch with his feminine side and possesses “good taste.” Similarly, the male vampire protagonist is in touch with his feminine side, as expressed not only through his appearance and movements, but also in his surroundings. Whereas less important vampires live in “nests” where they feed in filth, and leave the bodies to rot where they sleep, the male vampire protagonist is usually surrounded by gothic elegance, and languishes in a castle or mansion, or at least a well-furnished apartment. Even the masculine Spike from Buffy, who lives in a dirty crypt, is comedically feminine and image-oriented. Buffy catches him painting his fingernails black in one fifth-season episode, and he maintains a love for the soap opera Passions. Commonly, the struggling male vampire is challenged by some situation, like falling in love with a human, and this becomes an opportunity for him to express his emotions, which have been constipated by years of killing without regret. Though he is incredibly strong, the male vampire protagonist is rarely represented as overly muscular, or overtly aggressive. Because he is an Undead creature of the night, he is forced to be subtle, and is persuaded to hunt by his emotional inclinations.

  But when the male vampire embodies typically feminine traits, it works not to render him less frightening or less powerful, but instead allows his audience to identify with him. No longer evil incarnate, if he dies, it’s a tragedy. More often, he lives, either to torture himself and do penance for his wrongs, or to live a life of vampire happiness after he has learned his lesson. He expresses his emotions, struggles with them, and he does so with some kind of “good taste” or aesthetic sensibility. He is able to see beauty in everyday worldly objects, even if not in himself, and this brings him solace. He takes comfort in the harsh world that troubles him so deeply; this is the ultimate lesson for the human audience.

  Symbolizing a wish fulfillment for immortality, freedom from the mortal coil, carnivorous animalism, and a sexual voracity, the vampire has given us something to both fear and to embrace. The image and appearance of the vampire serves to question a number of boundaries, between real and unreal, dead and Undead, masculine and feminine. Beauty plays varying roles in the vampire aesthetic. Vampires are themselves beautiful and their beauty fits with standards of human beauty. Their visual appeal makes them seem less threatening, as beautiful entities are commonly thought to be pleasurable to gaze at or engage with. However, a vampire’s beauty also works to make him or her more frightening; encountering a beautiful vampire usually means one will meet one’s end. Not only are vampires often physically beautiful, but they seek beauty in their vampiric struggles with immortality. Beauty, especially for the male vampire protagonist, is a comfort, a shield from the bane of immortality. But, as we have seen, beauty functions differently according to gender in the vampire aesthetic. In the realm of the Undead, the male vampire becomes a beautiful martyr while the female vampire becomes a disastrous woman whom we love to hate.

  20

  True and Untrue Blood

  RACHEL ROBISON

  The sight of blood makes a lot of people feel strangely threatened. It evokes fascination and terror. Horror movies frequently play on this fact about our psychology—the bloodier the better.


  Blood is a matter of life and death. When we see blood, we know that if too much is spilled someone will die. If that person receives a transfusion, blood can save their life. Blood can be dangerous: it transmits a variety of diseases. Blood’s life-giving force has been connected to eternal youth and immortality. Its capacity to bring disease and death has been suggestive of other special powers that blood might bring with it. Vampires, because they thrive on blood, are frequently thought to be able to take advantage of blood’s mysterious properties.

  Blood Is the Life

  There are two general categories of powers that are commonly attributed to blood, each of which carry with them a distinct set of philosophical questions. These questions do not see resolution within the vampire legend itself; the power of blood is stipulated and, if one believes the story, one must believe that the resolution to the metaphysical questions is somehow, inexplicably, possible, though not sought after.

  So, for example, if one believes a standard story about vampires, one must believe that there is something about the nature of blood which makes it life-sustaining for those who have died. If one actively seeks out an answer to the question of how blood can have this property it is likely they will discover that there is no answer to be found

  There is, however, a more interesting question which is answerable: Why do we assume that blood carries with it the magical or metaphysical implications that we frequently find in these stories?

  The first kind of powers attributed to blood involves youth and age. Blood is connected to the preservation of youth and beauty. This is evident in many legends, a notorious example of which is the tale of the “Blood Countess,” Elizabeth Bathory. Legend has it that the Countess killed over six hundred young female virgins, drained them of their blood, and bathed in it. Her motivation was to ensure for herself eternal youth and beauty. The likely truth behind the story of the Countess is that she was an early serial killer (killing nowhere near six hundred people). Accounts of her activities were exaggerated and sensationalized. People attempted to make sense out of such senseless deaths by locating the motivation for her behavior in the mysterious youth-preserving power of blood.

  Our mythologies also attribute healing powers to blood. In Greek mythology, the blood of Medusa had both the power to heal and the power to kill. Her blood was even capable of giving life: Pegasus was said to be born from her fallen blood.

  The most noteworthy of the powers that blood is said to possess is the power to make someone immortal. Vampires drink the blood of humans and from it they are ensured eternal life (provided that they are not beheaded, staked, or consumed by flames). After vampires have drained humans of their blood, they may then allow the humans to drink from their own, undead blood. In this way, their victims too are granted—or damned to—eternal life.

  The fact that our legends contain such creatures—evil creatures who are capable of escaping death entirely—points to a deep sense of dread. One explanation for the appearance of vampire legends is that they are attempts to explain phenomena that would otherwise go unexplained. Vampirism might be invoked in order to explain death due to a mysterious disease or a seemingly purposeless murder.

  But there is a deeper motivation behind the vampire legend. People are curious about and afraid of the fact that they will one day die. The vampire is an entity to whom this will never happen. People can rest assured that there is a way out—to escape death, one can always turn to vampirism. This way out, however, involves a choice to turn toward evil, a choice which, if one is a good person, one will not be willing to make. This choice allows the ordinary person to make their own choice with grace. They will forfeit the potential for eternal life on earth in order to be a good person and perhaps to reap the benefits of eternal life in some unknown world beyond this one.

  The Fount of Immortality

  These powers also suggest the presence of metaphysical problems, primarily questions related to the connection between blood and life. How is it that drinking blood will cause a vampire to live forever? In order for this to be the case, blood would have to be the very thing that keeps us alive. Blood and no other thing would have to be essential for our continued existence. It would also have to be true that vampire blood is somehow special, even though the heart is no longer beating and blood is no longer being produced.

  Drinking the blood of a vampire will turn an ordinary person into a vampire. It’s not merely drinking blood that does it, for drinking the blood of another ordinary person will not turn an ordinary person into a vampire. There must be some property of blood so that, once it is in the body of a vampire, it becomes life-preserving. Traditional vampire stories take these assumptions for granted and don’t try to explain the mechanisms by which they work, though contemporary vampire stories do attempt to deal with some of these questions.

  In addition to the powers that have been attributed to blood that relate to youth, life, and death, there are also powers attributed to blood that involve close bonds. The nature of such bonds varies from one legend or practice to another. People connected in some way “by blood”—in other words, by kinship—are thought to have a closer connection than those who are not. Consider the expression “Blood is thicker than water.” We tend to think that we have special obligations to family members even if they are far removed from us because they are our “blood relations.” Consider also the practice of becoming “blood brothers”—a practice according to which two people cut their fingers and mix the blood together as a sign of their undying friendship and loyalty. In both of these cases, blood serves as a binding force which creates certain responsibilities toward those who are connected by blood.

  Perhaps the most prominent and significant practice in which a bond is created through blood is the ritual of drinking the blood of Christ, taken either symbolically or literally. According to Christian theology, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross saved humanity. His blood was spilled so that humanity might be saved. He died so that we can live forever.

  The spilling of Christ’s blood for our salvation is memorialized in the rite known as communion, mass, or eucharist. Bread and wine are identified with Christ’s body and blood. Christians eat Christ’s body and drink his blood, in order to establish the fact that they have become immortal, they have gained eternal life. Different Christian denominations have different views on just what this means. According to Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutherans, the bread and the wine, after they are consecrated, really become the body and blood of Christ, though this is not something that could ever be detected by chemical analysis. According to most Protestants, this ceremony is merely a symbol: the bread and wine do not actually turn into Christ’s flesh and blood.

  Our vampire mythology turns this practice on its head. Vampires have eternal life, but not the kind of eternal life that Christians are promised if they live right and follow God’s teachings. Drinking the blood of Christ symbolizes the bond his followers have with God and their devotion to follow his commandments—to live a good life. If they do this, they will be rewarded with eternal life. A vampire, on the other hand, drinks from the blood of humans. He commits an evil act in order to live forever. When a vampire drinks blood, it symbolizes his damnation rather than his salvation, and the bond formed between the vampire and his victim is more sinister. The bond created can lead to the death, manipulation, or corruption of the victim. The vampire is in a position to change the victim physically, psychologically, and even morally.

  How is it that blood ties create obligations? If we are, in fact, obligated to other people you would suppose that we would be obligated to them whether we have blood ties or not. What makes these blood ties so important? How is it that blood ties can lead to salvation or to domination and manipulation?

  In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, after Mina drinks some of Dracula’s blood, a connection is formed and he is able to control her. How can we make sense of the claim that blood can have this power? How as readers can we be drawn in to a stor
y that allows the mere presence of someone else’s blood in a person’s system to diminish the extent to which that person has free will? Has Dracula somehow become a part of Mina?

  HBO has recently provided us with a new bit of vampire lore to sink our teeth into. True Blood is a fun southern twist on the beloved blonde-virgin-falls-in-love-with-a-brooding-vampire story. Our heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, drinks the blood of her civil war veteran beau, Bill Compton, and a close bond is formed between them. Bill knows when Sookie is near. He knows when she’s in danger. The more of Bill’s blood that Sookie drinks, the stronger her ability becomes to sense Bill’s presence and to know whether he’s in danger.

  Normally, we tend to take our pursuit of knowledge as an individual enterprise. But when Bill knows where Sookie is or knows that she’s in danger, knowledge has moved beyond the individual level. What Bill knows about Sookie cannot be separated from her union with him—a union formed by blood.

  The blood in True Blood also has implications of a more erotic nature. When Sookie drinks Bill’s blood, she finds herself immediately sexually attracted to him. This can’t be explained by claiming that Sookie and Bill are star-crossed lovers. Sookie is frequently put in positions in which she must deal with Eric, the vampire sheriff of Area Five where Bill lives. Sookie despises Eric. Nevertheless, when she is put in the position in which she has to either drink Eric’s blood or die, she does what any reasonable person would do—and finds herself powerfully sexually attracted to Eric as a result.