In the early 1980's, I was interviewed by a local weekly newspaper about being a real Witch. The article that subsequently appeared was a very positive one, and it was published on the front page of the paper, above the fold, with my photograph and real name. After the article appeared, my boss called me into her office to ask me about the article. "You think you're a Witch," she asked flatly. When I assented, she turned around, reached for the Merriam-Webster Dictionary on her desk, and looked up the dictionary definition of "witch." She then demanded to know whether I thought I fitted that definition.

This was an educated, professional woman in her fifties. By that time, there had been books, newspaper articles, television features and documentaries about the Neo-Pagan movement and Wicca for thirty years--ever since Gerald Gardner published Witchcraft Today in 1954. The local library had a couple of the Farrars' books on the general shelves. Yet this woman, who worked in the news industry, had never heard of modern Witches or Neo-Pagans.

I'm relating this anecdote because there are very tight parallels between the public image of the Vampiric Community and vampiric people, and the public perceptions of several other subcultures, in particular the Pagan Community. As subcultures, we ultimately have little control over stereotypes that are applied to us and how we're perceived by "mundanes"--by which I mean, everybody who isn't either a member or an informed sympathiser of our subculture. Pagans and Witches struggled to change our stereotyped image and "reclaim the W-word" for two decades, only to see our efforts annihilated by movies like "The Craft," television shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Charmed," and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and books like the Harry Potter series. Witches, or "Wiccans" weren't depicted as evil, but they were still fantasy figures who performed Hollywood-style cartoon "magic." Some of the television shows went out of their way to belittle and ridicule real life Pagans and make them look like wannabe know-nothings compared to the "real Witches." Now there are millions more fans of those movies, TV shows and books, especially among young people, who think of "witches" as chanting rhymed spells or waving wands, than are aware of what real-life Witches are and do.

Cultural perceptions of archetypes like Witches and vampires can't be disregarded. They're all-pervasive, emotionally and psychologically powerful, and affect not only how we're perceived as subcultures, but how we perceive ourselves. People in the Vampiric Community hate to admit it, and usually will furiously deny it, but cultural images and concepts about vampires influence our own self-perceptions and our thoughts about our condition. (It makes no difference whether the vampiric person ever consciously read a vampire book or watched a vampire film. In 1989, Norine Dresser, in American Vampires, pointed out that the average six-year-old child instantly recognizes the vampire stereotype and can explain its features in detail.) Along with this, fictional stereotypes have become confused with actual folklore, leading to various inane "logical explanations for vampire beliefs" that address vampire traits invented by fiction writers. One especially stupid example of this is the Florida physics professor who got a ridiculous amount of media coverage when he announced that vampires were mathematically impossible. Vampires' victims never automatically became vampires in folklore, and do so only in a very small percentage of fiction, but the media lapped up the story uncritically for its entertainment value.

For these reasons, it's useful to have an awareness of how the image of the vampire as a literary and metaphorical character has changed since 1800. (See What's in a Word? for an overview of how the concept evolved as a folklore belief.)

Dracula changed everything. Stoker's novel is still the "500-pound gorilla" of vampire literature, not only imitated, but constantly revisioned, extended, expanded, revised, and stolen from by present-day authors. The literary vampire prior to Dracula was either a horror story monster or, as Nina Auerbach points out in Our Vampires, Ourselves, an otherworldly, if highly dangerous, friend. But Bram Stoker invented and stylized vampire characteristics, limitations, and methods of destruction that became vampire canon in later fiction and films. What fiction introduced into the conventional wisdom became part of the "myth." Between 1897 and the 1950's, therefore, the conventional image of "a vampire:"

• was a walking corpse--a man who had died and returned from the grave
• was immortal, unaging, unchanging, invincible and immune to illness
• was a foreigner, usually with a heavy Eastern European accent
• was attractive in a slick, formal, dark and Aquiline way
• came from a high social stratum, usually titled nobility
• could shapeshift into a bat (sometimes a wolf, but the bat was a given)
• possessed hypnotic mind control powers, which could be exerted even from a distance, or when the victim was unaware of the vampire's presence
• was seductive and predatory, although he was interested in something else besides sex
• always wore a cape or a cloak, sometimes with a high collar
• was always formally dressed, often in evening clothes
• never ate food or drank any liquid but blood, which often raised suspicion in social situations
• slept in a coffin in the daytime (details like special dirt, "hallowed ground," and so on were optional--but the vampire had to have a coffin, no substitute was acceptable)
• had no reflection in a mirror (Stoker invented this. In folklore, corpses might become vampires if they were reflected in a mirror, but they certainly had reflections)
• was repelled by garlic and religious symbols (Stoker stylized these as being specific to vampires. In folklore, all "anti-vampire" repellents were in fact "anti-evil" repellents that were used against any supernatural threat)
• did not usually kill the victim with the first attack
• could turn his victim into a vampire by biting him or her, sometimes a set number of times. The victim had to die and revive to become a vampire.
• was dispatched with a stake pounded through his heart (usually nothing else was required, although Stoker insisted that beheading was mandatory)

In the years following World War II, there was great anxiety around the potential advances and abuses of science, especially nuclear science. This led to the first considerations of vampirism as having a scientific or medical, rather than a supernatural or spiritual, origin. In addition to several rather silly films, in 1954 Richard Matheson published his novel, I Am Legend, which presented a carefully articulated "medical" explanation for vampirism: a bacteria that reanimated the dead. (Matheson used this conceit in a non-vampiric way in the 1955 short story, "Dance of the Dead.") The cultural fear that Matheson exploited was anxiety over nuclear tests creating mutated "super germs" that would run rampant in a global pandemic. In I Am Legend, the bacteria that had created only the occasional vampire in historical times mutates and infects every human being on earth except the protagonist. However, Matheson's story planted the seed for a notion that would tap a different cultural anxiety thirty years later.

At the end of the 1950's, Hammer Films' Dracula series gave the Modern Vampire Myth two more indelible visual images: fangs, and vampires who dissolved to dust instantly when exposed to sunlight. These were not precisely new ideas; pointed vampire teeth had been vaguely mentioned in numerous 19th century stories, including Dracula, and Stoker described ancient vampires crumbling to dust when dispatched. But no vampire in fiction or folklore was materially harmed by sunlight before F.W. Murnau incinerated Count Orlock with the rays of the rising sun in his 1922 silent film, "Nosferatu." Even after 1922, film and fictional vampires were not necessarily hurt by sunlight, although in many cases, a convention had evolved by which the vampire was inanimate and unconscious--"dead to the world," literally--between sunrise and sunset. Vampire teeth, as well, were variable and somewhat indistinct, and rarely seen in movies. But the 1958 film "Horror of Dracula" (or "Dracula" in the U.K., where Universal Studios didn't own the rights to the single title) seared two images into the public consciousness: the vampire with elongated canine teeth "fangs" and an alpha-male primate snarl, and the vampire shrivelling into ashes when exposed to direct sunlight. I explain the psychological impact of canine teeth fangs in the "Real Vampires" FAQ. The image of sunlight "dusting" a vampire became instant canon--it was so tidy, and so emotionally powerful. No one complained that it was also incredibly illogical. Vampire fiction authors and filmmakers from that point on twisted themselves into all kinds of narrative contortions to try and rationalize the solar-fire effect.

The 1960's television show "Dark Shadows" added two themes to the standard library of vampire plotlines which subsequently became very popular. Ironically, both were borrowed, not from vampire folklore or fiction, but from the 1932 movie, "The Mummy." The idea of something long dead being released from a tomb after centuries (or millennia) to walk among us incognito proved to be a powerful one, although a sexy vampire was far more interesting than even piercing-eyed Boris Karloff as a reanimated ancient Egyptian. The romantic notion that an ancient immortal would seek out and woo (or ravish) the reincarnation of his one true love also appealed to many vampire fans. Scores of vampire stories consequently start out with some unlucky person opening a grave, tomb, mausoleum or coffin and finding more than they bargained for, and scores of vampire novels and movies feature young ingenues pursued by ancient immortals because they look exactly like they did in a former lifetime.

The 1980's saw a spike in cultural anxiety about malicious elements infiltrating "normal" society. The Satanic Ritual Abuse Conspiracy panic, daycare child abuse hysteria, rising awareness and fear of organized criminal gangs of all kinds, and a growing consciousness of the AIDS epidemic all fed into a sense that "the enemy is among us." This was accompanied by a shift in the Modern Vampire Myth. The fictional vampire became less a solitary, conspicuously foreign or alien figure and turned into something closer to home and much harder to detect. In "Fright Night" (1985), the vampire wore casual clothes and moved in next door. In "The Lost Boys" (1987), the vampires were a motorcycle-riding gang that mingled nightly with the crowds on the local boardwalk. In "The Hunger" (1983), the vampires lived in a New York City penthouse and frequented night clubs. Anne Rice's novels presented an entire vampire subculture, interacting seamlessly with the everyday world. To protect their secret, these vampires were faster, more ruthless killers than their predecessors. They couldn't risk being exposed, so they didn't visit victims repeatedly and slowly drain their blood over time. Apparently able to inhale five pints of blood through a small puncture wound in about two seconds, the new vampires had instantly lethal bites. In a decade gripped by fear of "serial killers," fictional vampires now became the slickest of mass murderers, killing repeatedly, even nightly, without being caught.

Anne Rice made a rigid rule out of something Stoker only vaguely suggested: that vampirism was deliberately passed on as a form of blood-borne disease, and not simply as a spiritual consequence of the vampire's bite. To become a vampire, the victim had to drink some of the vampire's blood. By the time Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976, social anxiety was focused on numerous new and alarming contagious diseases, especially viral diseases, that thwarted medical science. This fear had been receding for a while as it appeared that vaccinations and antibiotics were poised to essentially eradicate contagious disease. That false hope was exploded by AIDS, other viral plagues, and the resurgence of bacterial illnesses that were now drug-resistant. The idea that vampirism had to be transferred through a concrete mechanism such as drinking infected blood became instant canon. Various writers picked up Matheson's idea and created fictional "vampire viruses." The concept was such a psychologically compelling one, to modern virus-wary Americans, that rumors proliferated that there was actually a "vampire virus" in reality.

Authors who felt bound by the established conventions at the time they were writing often tried to find ways to make them "logical." Vampires were depicted as having "allergies" to garlic or silver, to explain why those substances repelled or harmed them. Vampires were felled by wooden stakes because wood was toxic to them. In complete defiance of logic, however, sunlight became ever more destructive, with vampires progressing from shriveling to ashes in sunshine, to actually bursting into flames. In the British miniseries, "Ultraviolet" (2000), the vampires violently exploded like bombs, destroying everything in their immediate vicinity. Perhaps the hole in the ozone layer was a factor in this drastically increased sun sensitivity! As real people began to wear sunscreen and worry about skin cancer, fictional vampires also became more vulnerable to the sun.

The Modern Vampire Myth had always included the romantically appealing idea that a vampire carefully selected those to whom "the gift" would be passed on. The whole "Turn Fantasy" that forms the foundation of so many vampire stories (vampire encounters mortal and chooses him or her to be "turned" and share immortality) is based on this wish fulfillment fantasy of being "chosen" for one's unique qualities, which is certainly not unique to the vampire genre. But vampire role-playing games like Vampire:The Masquerade added a new and even more interesting element. Now there was a fictional model for a global, complicated, multi-level and diverse underground society into which vampire initiation qualified one for membership.

The Modern Vampire Myth was shifting rapidly toward making the vampire world attractive to join and belong to. "Good guy vampires" and vampire romance were simply features of this trend. Numerous authors created universes in which vampires now had a large underground society and a cultural history of their own. It was possible to be "converted" or inducted into this society. This was a poignantly appealing element for every person, of every age, who felt alienated, ostracized, lonely and "different," and who longed for somewhere that they truly "belonged." In an era in which the Internet facilitated a like minded "community" for every possible affinity group, fictional vampires now had their communities, as well.

Fictional vampires largely lost their shapeshifting ability, although some enjoyed the compensation of being able to fly while in human form. This was partly due to the proliferation of fictional universes in which other supernatural beings shared the stage with vampires, especially werewolves and other were-animals. Never as popular in fiction or film as vampires, werewolves had enjoyed some peaks of attention from time to time; now they were frequently depicted in vampire fiction with their own underground subculture that tended to be at odds with that of the vampires. There's a certain symmetry to this trend, given the etymological and folklore relationship between vampires and werewolves in history.

Vampires gained one minor shapeshifting capability, however: extendable fangs. Although fangs remained almost universal, it was obvious from vampire films that they presented some practical hindrances. In addition, the shift toward vampires as creatures that looked completely normal and moved through human society undetected meant that obvious anomalies such as fangs had to be disguised. The solution was fangs that conveniently retracted and extended, like a rattlesnake's. I'm not sure where this idea originated, but it caught on very fast. Fangs were already phallic, being long and pointed, penetrating someone else's body, and utilized in an activity with erotic overtones. Now they became almost comically so, as the fangs' extension when a vampire was "excited" directly implied a penile erection. Some stories even made a deliberate joke out of this idea. After "extendable fangs" were well established, it further became popular for vampires to be depicted as having a whole "game face" and sometimes other altered features (like long nails) that the vampire would semi-shapeshift into in order to attack a victim.

At this time, in the twenty-first century, the Modern Vampire Myth has the following commonly known and accepted features:

• the vampire is usually an animated and very lifelike corpse, but may also be a human being transformed in some way without completely dying, or a separate non-human species or "race."
• the vampire is equally likely to be male or female
• the vampire is invincible, unaging, immortal and heals immediately from most wounds
• the vampire has enhanced physical powers such as immense strength, speed, ability to fight multiple opponents, preternaturally acute senses, ability to move silently, and so on, but usually does not have mesmerizing or mind control ability
• the vampire appears indistinguishable from ordinary people, aside from more than average physical beauty. Any atypical features, like fangs, are shape-shifted or extended only when wanted
• the vampire wears ordinary, up-to-date street clothes (and frequently no clothes) although he or she usually has a keen sense of style
• the vampire either kills outright, turns his or her victim into a vampire, or avoids drinking human blood altogether. The slow languishing decline of the victim with repeated visits is uncommon (although in some cases a victim serves as a "blood bank" indefinitely)
• vampires are explicitly interested in both blood and sex.
• vampires usually don't eat food, but almost always drink wine and other liquids
• the vampire bursts into flames when exposed to sunlight
• victims are transformed into vampires by drinking the vampire's blood. Most victims are simply killed and do not become vampires.
• vampires exist within an elaborate subculture, with laws, leaders, "enforcers" and hierarchies
• vampires are killed by a wooden stake through the heart, but the "stake" can be any piece of sharp wood, including arrows and crossbow bolts. A frequent vampire-killing method is exposing the vampire to sunlight.

For vampire-identified people, several elements of the Modern Vampire Myth are especially influential. When people approach the Vampiric Community or individual vampiric people seeking to be included, they are usually secretly hoping for several different things, whether they articulate them or not.

1. A community in which to belong. The appeal of the "turn fantasy" is only secondarily about "being a vampire." Vampiric Community fora and websites are full of articles laboriously arguing that being a vampiric person is a drag and no one would really want to be "turned." They're missing the point. "Turning" means being initiated into a secret society which then must accept the initiate as a member by right. It means belonging, not only because the initiate was selected beforehand as worthy, but because the turning itself transforms the initiate into something that is an undeniable and irrevocable part of the community. Once "turned," the initiate must be accepted by the community (as long as the initiate follows the rules). The Modern Vampire Myth usually presents the underground vampire society as protective, wealthy, and often providing financial support for its members--no "McJob" worries for the vampire initiate, it will all be taken care of.
2. Invincibility, unearthly beauty and eternal youth. The Modern Vampire Myth invokes freedom from fear of mortal frailty--aging, disease, disfigurement, pain, and death. Oddly, few people seem to imagine themselves as immortal vampires several centuries in the future from now. A fascination with having been immortal, witness to history and the past, is almost universal. But it's rare for someone to imagine "being turned into a vampire" today and think about what vampiric life might be like in the future--when retinal scans and DNA testing have replaced signing one's name and everyone walks around with implanted GPS microchips. Futurism is not a noted perspective among vampire-identified people.
3. Sexuality without consequences. No STD's, no AIDS, no pregnancy, no erectile dysfunction, added to the fact that in the Modern Vampire Myth, everyone has a perfect, ageless body without exercising or dieting, and a good dose of preternatural beauty and supernatural charisma, as well. No wonder vampire erotica is one of the fastest-growing fictional genres.
4. Preternatural power: Vampires lost the mind-control and hypnotic abilities they had in earlier decades, but gained super-powers. The idea of having so much strength, speed, agility, and imperviousness to injury that no bully or gang could even again beat you up or harass you is a very tempting one. Being able to walk fearlessly into any situation or down any dark street, knowing that you can "handle anything that comes at you" is a major element of the "turn fantasy." Being a fantasy, most people don't stop to think through all the implications of having a reputation for that kind of ability--if you used it, you'd be exposed to your enemies as a vampire. But why spoil the dream with practicalities?

© 2007 By Light Unseen Media. All Rights Reserved.