Vampire Sex and Violence: True Blood and the Bubble of Female Hypergamy

Recently, a writer for Pop Matters blogged his reaction to the extreme sex and violence of the HBO series "Tru Blood," a show watched apparently only by women and gays. The blogger even calls the combined sex and violence scene (where the vampire "hero" desired by the female audience does some pretty nasty things) misogynistic. Tellingly, the female audience didn't think so, and in the comments, women write about how "artistic" it was and construct various excuses about why the scene was OK. [Which boil down to female morality in the age of Hypergamy: the guy was Alpha, it was OK.] But just like the moment when as Steve Sailer noted, a 500 square foot home in Compton sold for $340,000, this stunning display of female value for male Alpha dominance, to the exclusion of everything else, may mark the height of the female market for men ruled by Hypergamy. This may not be the beginning of the bubble. But it may, as Roissy argued, mark the beginning of the end of Hypergamy above all else. In other words, the top of the market for Alphas.


Famously, Charlie Sheen held a knife to his wife's throat, on Christmas Day (because nothing says the holidays like "Honey I'm going to kill you!"), and was rewarded not by being fired, after feminists and female fans picketed "Two and Half Men," but a raise, to nearly $2 million per episode. Women (as a group, in general) forgive pretty much everything if a man is Alpha. The Petersons, Drew and Scott, one convicted, the other charged, in their wives murders, had no problem attracting female attention, while nerdy cubicle dwellers go back to their porn collections and X Boxes. Drew Peterson, aging, over 50, was the favorite of local college girls in bars. Scott Peterson not only drew Amber Frye, while married, but dozens of marriage proposals behind bars. Johan Van Der Sloot, in his travels through Asia, drew plenty of female admirers, both Western female expatriates and locals, in his fame of being accused of killing Natalie Holloway. Reputedly, the girl Van Der Sloot killed in Peru, was fascinated by his past, and willingly went to his hotel room alone, late at night, after flirting with him at the local Casino.

The market for men, set by women, is dominated by well, Alpha dominance. Nothing else matters, other than pure, violent potential and aggressiveness, adjusted for socio-economic status. Thus Mr. Big is an A-hole, but does not kill anyone. In fantasy, however, the big shot guys do indeed kill people, because it's sexy. You can see this reaction in novels like the Twilight series, or the Sookie Stackhouse novels upon which "Tru Blood" is based, the "Anita Blake" series by Laurel K. Hamilton, and of course, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the spin-off Angel. Even "Dexter" with the sexy, rule-bound serial killer (he only gets off by killing other serial killers) follows the pattern. All the novels and TV series were popular with women, some exceedingly so, and all fall various rules.

First, the vampire protagonist must be much, much older, but look young. Second, he must dominate the female protagonist, and also protect her against his own violent desires (to hurt or kill her). Third, he must overtly humiliate nice-guy ordinary rivals who are the same age as the female protagonist, and make them look like pale imitations of his dominant masculine energy. Fourth, he must be "hot" and of course, hairless. Fifth, he has to kill a lot of people. Sixth, he must have a past of killing a lot of people, which the heroine must harness for her own ends to "change him." Finally, the vampire hero must dominate and often rape his female heroine, with sex so violent it leaves brutal marks.

This is particularly true in the climax of the best known vampire series, beloved by tween girls, teen girls, and their moms, the Twilight books. Where the vampire Edward Cullen takes his human teen bride and has sex with her, so violent that every bone in her body is broken, as she's transformed into a vampire. A teen girl, young and beautiful, forever! In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, vampire hero Spike rapes Buffy, which makes her love him even more. But she truly falls for him when he tells her of how many young girls, the age of her younger sister or younger, he raped and tortured before killing. In an earlier arc, Buffy finds her love for her other vampire boyfriend Angel unshakeable even while he's killing and harming friends, acquaintances, and teachers. Very tellingly, Buffy loses all interest in her human boyfriend Riley, when he loses the status of super-soldier and becomes just a decent guy without powers.

The Anita Blake series follows the same basic template (clearly Twilight author Stephanie Meyer ahem "borrowed" the structure of vampire-vs-werewolf, with the werewolf a doofus good guy), and the Sookie Stackhouse novels do as well, with the female protagonist rejecting the good guy suitor who is human, for the dangerous and much older (but young looking) vampire Bill.

Clearly, what is at work given the extraordinary popularity of some of these (Twilight in particular) and the sheer breadth of their copiers, is the desire for most women to have the ability in fantasy to have the violent, dangerous bad boy Alpha, without consequence. Because the proxy-doll protagonist has powers herself (Buffy) or will get them (Twilight) or what have you. It is also true that this stuff is nearly exclusively the province of very feminist men, openly gay men, and women. No "manly" guy's guy would dream of reading or watching the stuff, let alone writing it. It takes a very womanly view to come up with this stuff. And it is clear, women in the main, love it. You might even say they love, love, love it!

Which brings us to the Pop Matters writer Benjamin Riley and his objections:

The final scene of “It Hurts Me Too”, the third episode of True Blood’s third season, depicts some of the most horrific violence I have ever seen on screen. In the scene, Bill, the vampire antihero played by Stephen Moyer, has been arguing with Lorena, played by Mariana Klaveno, who is his ‘sire’—the vampire who made him a vampire. Lorena has manipulated Bill in an attempt to rekindle their romantic relationship, in part by attempting to have Bill’s current girlfriend killed.

After Bill tells Lorena that he will never love her, the two kiss before Bill pushes Lorena down onto his bed and begins to penetrate her. Bill is on top, Lorena is on her back. The aggression and intensity of the sex builds until Bill grabs Lorena’s head, twisting it around 180 degrees. He does this slowly and deliberately, and accompanying a shot which visually leaves nothing to the imagination is the sound of the bones in Lorena’s neck snapping. Next, a long shot shows Bill continuing while Lorena’s head is twisted completely around, facing the floor. The next shot is from below her, of her face. Apparently still alive, blood bubbles up out of her mouth as she says: “I still love you.” Bill keeps at it until the credits roll.

Just check out the comments on the site. The female audience LOVED IT. First, they found it "hot." Second, they justified the action (Bill was Alpha, all is forgiven for an Alpha). Third, the girl who "got it" was the romantic rival and "ex" of the doll-like female protagonist, cunningly written to be almost any girl wanting a dominant, violent boyfriend in fantasy. Of course women found her come-uppance satisfying. Nor did they object to what amounts to cheating, after all if another woman has the guy, it just validates he's worth having. And besides, Vampire Bill is Alpha. Women forgive anything in a man who is Alpha. Alphas being so desired and rare.

Writer Riley is just shocked at the true nature of female desire. When you boil it down, violence is no turn off, indeed is arousing, to most women, particularly those most desirable. As anyone who has observed the amazingly hot and often intelligent women around even the most pathetic lowlife who has a streak of violence. Indeed, the easiest way to be successful with women is through successful violence, as the winner, which is one of the major reasons the Ghetto and Barrio are so ridden with crime and cannot get out of it. When some "senseless" amount of violence, a shooting of a good kid with no gang ties, or a grandmother, or an infant occurs, rest assured some gang member will be having sex that night. Its guaranteed! Increasingly as Theodore Dalrymple argues, White British Chavs echo this same behavior, and of course White British Chav women find the men that beat them irresistible. As Dalrymple puts it, they find ordinary, decent men who would treat them well, boring. Sexless. In Chav Britain, the Barrio, and the Ghetto, this is normal female preference. Its shocking when a woman does not choose a violent thug. Even more when an attractive woman does it. Women have always found killers arousing, Geronimo when imprisoned at Pensacola, reputedly cut a huge swath through his jailers wives. Even though at the time he was a wizened old man, his body count made him sexy.

Roissy argues (though he does not use the term bubble) that tough times are a bounty for betas, as women will trade off against sexual excitement to find security. I am not so sure this happens rapidly though I agree with it in general.

In my view, when survival and survival alone is paramount, then yes, a beta who will stay and protect a woman, is better than the fleeting attentions of an Alpha, who will always have other, prettier and younger women to occupy him. Even the most mild beta in normal circumstances can kill, and the presence of a man is better than his complete absence, against other marauding men. Often the least impressive of betas can make the most astonishing killers, witness Alvin C. York, who was initially a conscientious objector and temperance pacifist. York killed at least 8 men (likely more) and took 132 men prisoner.

But most of the time, survival in tough times is not paramount. A Depression is not the Siege of Leningrad. Or the Thirty Years War (let us be grateful for that). Thus, women don't need a man that much, as a provider. They can make do, without him, and rely on the sexy dominance of an Alpha, even if he's not around much. It will cost, but most women most of the time will happily make the trade-off of sex for security.

Furthermore, it takes time for the "sexual marketplace" as it were, to reach a clearing price for men. Female Hypergamy, the desire for the Alpha male (often to the exclusion of all else), requires either sustained and long-standing social pressure to avoid it, mostly by other women, through extensive shaming and shunning (which in turn implies stable social networks, little anonymity, or physical mobility), or sheer survival. Nothing much else seems to control it.

Even Jane Austen, in "Pride and Prejudice," tellingly has her heroine Lizzy fall for the "cad" but Alpha male Wickham, though the social conventions of her day will not allow her to consummate it, and Wickham is the market for a wealthy wife, or a simple mistress. Unlike Darcy, who has far more wealth, Wickham is by contrast, agile and well spoken, an excellent dancer (where Darcy is stiff), easy-spoken, charming, outgoing, and a very convincing liar. No wonder Lizzy and her sister both fall for the man (though Lizzie finally sees through him as Wickham's mercenary intent becomes clear). This from the most self-controlled female heroine in literary history, a character moreover written by an 18th Century woman.

Of course, today, marriage is for Kitchen Bitches, beta males so unmanly they take over household chores (women don't really want men to do this, they'd rather they just be sexy and dominating) to the point of making themselves so umasculine their wives lose all sexual desire for them. Today's Lizzie would rather live like Samantha from "Sex and the City," and when she can no longer turn heads, even with botox and plastic surgery and pilates, she can have a "fabulous" set of gay friends. And many memories.

The genie of what women really want, when times are good, and they can express it, is out of the bottle. A man needs only to look at Twilight, at Buffy, at Tru Blood, at the Anita Blake series, at Dexter, at any Rom-Com, where the heroine must avoid the attentions of the best friend (who is not manly enough to win her) and snag the commitment phobic, wanted (and had) by other women, Alpha male.

Couple that with most women now out-earning men, particularly in the largest mating/population/job markets, and the ability to be a beta provider is in question. In New York City, women outearn men by 17% in their twenties (ages 22-30). Indeed, women beat men in the same age group in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight:

Single, childless women in their twenties are finding success in the city: They're out-earning their male counterparts in the USA's biggest metropolitan areas.

Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a year, 8% more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas, according to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data crunched by the New York research firm Reach Advisors and released Wednesday. The women out-earn men in 39 of the 50 biggest cities and match them in another eight. The disparity is greatest in Atlanta, where young, childless single women earn 21% more than male counterparts.

…

"They don't need marriage as much," says Stephanie Coontz, who teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. "They're likely to be pickier, and they're likely to delay marriage." Coontz dismisses the notion that successful single women intimidate men and can't find husbands. They just marry later in life, she says.

"One day, I'll get married and have kids. But I'm in no rush," says Rebecca Loveridge, 27, a Washington, D.C., magazine marketing director who also writes a restaurant blog. She likes dining out, attending concerts and checking out art galleries with her friends. "Now is the time to be single," she says.

And why wouldn't a woman want to delay or avoid marriage? What does a Kitchen Bitch Beta husband have to offer? Slightly more income to buy a second sofa from Ikea? Versus exciting, thrilling sex with a dominant, demanding Alpha that other women want and have (therefore marking him as desirable in the first place).

Even in a recession, the "market clearing price" for beta men has not reached its level where women would actually give up exciting sex, with dominant Alphas, that they know they cannot gain exclusivity over, for the entire devotion of a beta guy. Particularly not when they are young, fertile, and desirable. Able to form families.

And increasingly, beta men are becoming aware of this deep, nearly unstoppable preference. That at best, they can in their thirties, find a woman who will settle for them as a boring, near "gay best friend" to shop with while they dream of the man who really excited them. And express not so secret contempt for their Kitchen Bitch husband. The only women as a group seemingly exempt from this are Mormons, who have tellingly a massive and very stable family network, with overt mentoring by older women of younger ones, and intense pressure among Mormon girls to select a nice guy relatively early instead of pursuing many, many Alpha men in the anonymity of urban job centers. A young Mormon woman may often be married by age 25, while her non-Mormon SWPL female counterpart is reaching her twentieth or even thirtieth partner. Nearly all Alpha dominant males. This as much as the "affordable family formation" of Steve Sailer's writings, accounts for the low fertility of Whites (i.e. much delayed marriage and childbirth). Often, a woman who "settles" for a boring beta guy will find that he's not even worth having a kid with, which would require fertility treatments anyway by age 38 or so. Increasingly, sperm donors are the rage, as in the romantic comedies "Back Up Plan," and "the Switch." After all, if any woman wanted this guy in the first place, he'd have been married decades earlier. Much better to get a better genetic material from a dominant, masculine guy who is a sperm donor!

Increasingly, beta men are finding that women, in their late thirties, have too much baggage to visibly settle themselves for merely being the accessory in a big wedding party. Hence the annoyance of older women at men who having been sitting out the relationship game in their twenties, unwillingly, find no incentive to settle for their age peers (though they would for younger women).

But the key is women themselves. Who would seem to require, several generations of growing up impoverished and desperate, as times turn increasingly grim, and single-motherhood poverty outweighs the sexy desire and tingle of Alpha dominance, in favor of Beta dependability. After all, despite rising gas prices, and periodic price crunches, America's love of big vehicles has not gone away. Periodically, small cars like the Toyota Corolla in the early 1970's, and again in the late 1970's through mid 1980's, find favor. Only to be shoved aside by bigger, more roomy and more horsepower blessed vehicles that provide excitement not reliability and economy. The big muscle cars have staged a modest comeback, but the roomy and powerful cars of yesteryear have merely morphed into SUVs and Trucks as cars.

Female fantasy reveals what women really desire, in the scheme of things. Which at its ultimate, is a violent, dangerous man they can control through being sexier than other women. This is why Vampire Bill, breaking the neck of his lover as he has sex with her, is not shocking but arousing. The openly gay Alan Ball, creator of "American Beauty," and also "Six Feet Under," knows his female audience. There have been no outcries, no calls for cancellations. No feminists protesting. They were too aroused themselves. The silence by women and feminists to this scene, in a show watched almost exclusively by women, is telling. As are the many, many comments defending the scene and the character by female viewers.

While the deep-rooted preference for sexy, and violent men (the two are synonymous with most women) can never be erased, young women who grew up poor, and knew their mothers grew up poor, alone and abandoned, can rapidly prefer a reliable beta to a life of raising kids on poverty wages.

Because hidden in the sexual marketplace is the power of incentives. Men now are discovering, and indeed cannot avoid it, that being a beta provider is no longer possible, and that the quickest way to female desire is successful violence. This is a huge incentive to create a brutal, unmoderated competition for available women along the lines of British Chavs, the Black Ghetto, or Mexican Barrio. Close off beta provider status, by continually declining wages, and female advantages in wages where it matters most: the twenties when men and women find mates, or decide to play the market (basically until they age out of attractiveness) and see what happens. One can hardly be a beta provider and be the equal of a woman in earning power, much less her inferior. She might as well just work another part-time job, or improve her career, and have a really sexy man. The key to beta provider status is as much the man bringing much more money to the table than the woman, otherwise he's just a Kitchen Bitch, as unmanly as Rosa the part-time cook or maid.

But just as compelling, is the knowledge that women respond to violence. That as long as they don't suffer from it directly, themselves (and even that is negotiable, witness Rihanna and Chris Brown), violence if successful (getting away with it) is the path to a woman's desire, if not her heart. And if a man has her desire, her heart will soon follow anyway. This is the incentive at work:

Be violent and successful at violence. Get the girl. And another. And another.

Winner take all (literally). Loser ends up dead (or alone).

Enough of this, good and hard, in a sustained effort, and it might not even take two generations. Particularly if men become far more aggressive, in almost every aspect of life, to the point of frequent fights and killings, to gain status and women. Nothing more deliberate could be constructed to make all of America, into a version of South Central LA or East Los Angeles, or Westlake Village. THAT sudden transformation, as young men arive at young adulthood, unable to compete for women in any other way but through violence, could spark a massive shift in the market, as women seek to escape a cycle of violence and poverty through overt, self-knowing repression of their innate desire for violent and dangerous men.

Which might shift back again as with vehicles (from small and reliable to big and powerful), or might not, as in the housing market.

But in the interim, it would seem that it is Alan Ball's world. The only question that remains, is the hyper-explicit sex and violence in "Tru Blood" the excess that marks the top of the market for Alphas, the moment that valuation of men has gone so insane that it cannot go on, or are their higher peaks of insane valuation of violent dominance still to come?

My own feeling, admittedly as man not a woman, is that the current market in men set by women is not sustainable. That the value put on dangerous and sexy men, in fantasy and reality, is just not something that can go on much further. Something, if only men responding massively, in a sudden way, to these obvious incentives: "be violent and I'll have sex with you!" is likely to happen.

And when it does, women might well find that the line between fantasy and reality is blurred, as the Roman people, gorged on sadistic spectacles of death in gladiator games, public executions, and animal fights to the death, found at the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
...Read more

Twilight vs Call of Duty: The Hidden Story

The Twilight New Moon movie has posted $140.7 million for its opening weekend. The response, which was surprising, of tweens, teens, and their moms lining up, many a week in advance, for the movie, generated a lot of press coverage. Finally, the press and feminists celebrated, a movie that generated fangirl response on the lines of Star Wars and Star Trek enthusiasts. The hidden story, of course, is the phenomenal sales, unheralded, of the video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2." The game posted $310 million in sales its first day, and 4.7 million copies in its first 24 hours. Beating the "Grand Theft Auto IV" record of 3.6 million copies . The five day figures for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" were $550 million, again beating "Grand Theft Auto IV" which held the mark at $500 million.

The lesson is that while the attention may go to the fangirls, and the expensive legacy media of theatrical movies, the profits go to male-friendly videogames. Among the reasons: there isn't much competition. Moreover, it is likely movies and video-games will continue to diverge, one becoming a female-gay ghetto, and the other being "males only."



The first "Twilight" movie cost according to was $37 million. No current figures are available for the "New Moon" sequel, but the cost likely spiraled to around $60-75 million, given more effects, characters, rising salaries for actors, and so on. Marketing probably added another $30-40 million, making the film's total up-front cost of around $90 to $115 million or so. As Hollywood business writer and author of the "Big Picture," Edward Jay Epstein estimates, Studios net only about 18% or so of their revenues from theatrical / box office receipts. Fully 82% of revenue comes from Video on Demand, DVD, Pay-TV, and free TV rights (foreign and domestic). Further, studios only get 75% for the first weekend box office receipts, falling to about 50% thereafter. For foreign box office sales, percentages can drop even further while costs for dubbing, promotion/marketing, import fees, and so on can mount. It worth noting that piracy threatens both theatrical and DVD revenues. The LA Times notes that some studios have dropped profitable Korean and Spanish-language divisions, due to piracy. Eli Roth famously found that his loathsome "Hostel" movies were on sale on the street in Mexico City for the equivalent of twenty-five cents, American. Good quality pirated copies, too.

Of that $140.7 million that Twilight: New Moon pulled in, the studio will keep $105.5 million or so. That essentially covers its cost up-front and likely assures a tidy profit for the movie, assuming DVD sales track ticket sales and are not impacted by piracy.

Compared with the development costs, which were estimated to be $40-50 million and around $100 million total, the film "Twilight: New Moon" and the video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" cost about the same.

But, the video game already pulled in about $310 million, or $210 million of net revenue, compared to a break-even figure for the film, through the first weekend (Fri-Sat-Sun) vs. the first two days (for the game). It is extremely unlikely that the five-day figure for the movie will match $550 million. Even more important, the game is more resistant to piracy than the movie. While pretty much any copy properly written to a DVD will play in most modern DVD players, making piracy technically easier for organized crime pirates, the same is not true for video games which generally have more robust copy protection. The games certainly can be pirated, but the expense generally prevents large-scale organized crime rings from participating, unlike movie DVD piracy. Moreover, online-game play is often a critical component, making purchasing of pirated discs a general non-starter, given that companies can and do require proof-of-purchase to participate in online play. These can be defeated, but again it is costly and most organized pirates do not bother.

Out of these trends several things are likely to emerge. First, that video games are ever-more bifurcated, either hit-driven like "Call of Duty" or cheap, and simple, like many of the IPhone games, which are troubled by piracy or in the case of Android low sales. Because of piracy and low-revenues for the Iphone style games, the barriers to entry into successful game development into "the next level" (profitability beyond a single developer) are likely to be high. Developers can still create simple games widely available (Apple's App Store tends to be better than Google's Android app store or Research in Motion/Blackberry's store) but widely pirated with low price points.

Hard to make enough money to move to the next level in that business. Increasingly, because of the high capital costs required to make a "hit" game, the video game business is resembling Hollywood of the 1920's through the 1940's, only with one big difference: unlike the studios the game companies have few female customers. But clearly, there is an order of magnitude or more, around two to five times as much money, hit film to hit game, available to video game makers. As game companies seek out (inevitably) cheaper labor, their costs will go down for everything but marketing, giving them a tremendous cost-advantage against Hollywood as well as making entertainment that men and boys desire.

Secondly, the success of Twilight and the sequel, are both good and bad for Hollywood. Good, in that they found a way to tap the fan-girl wallets of the folks below waiting in lines (some up to a week) for the premier [Click on images to enlarge]:



























Looking at the pictures, a common thread appears for the fans of Twilight. They mostly do not find lots of male attention, let alone that of hunky, semi-gay, Alpha Male "sparkly vampires." They tend to be pre-pubescent, Moms, or overweight. Not all of course, but that accounts for most of them. Of course they want in fantasy what they don't get in real life. The comparison to the Star Wars geeks who lined up for that movie is of course, natural and apt.

For the purposes of fairness, the "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" fans are shown below (fewer photos, because of less media interest).





Not much different, though a few are older. They seem to crave what they do not get in life, action/adventure (from the safe distance of the couch of course). Both the film and the game deliver to their respective audience.

But the danger for Hollywood is that the games can drive them out of business. Unlike the game companies, which can seek cheap programming labor in China or India, Hollywood is "stuck" using expensive actors, special effects, and location shots. The costs for the Call of Duty Franchise will only go down, over time, and sequels. While that of the Twilight series will only go up. Coupled with a tidal wave of predictable "sparkly vampire" bad-boy with superpowers fighting over teen girl projects, movies will become "gay" the way Broadway shows, reading/literature, and pop music (see Adam Lambert) have become. Many of Hollywood's key executives including Disney's Rich Ross are openly gay. While they have a keen eye for female-tween/teen appealing projects, they have failed and predictably will fail to generate much in the way of male-appealing projects. Movie after movie featuring a metrosexual vampire bad-boy that appeals to the fangirls is guaranteed to turn off guys from the theater. In favor of intermittent purchases of expensive video games. Call of Duty is listed at $60 at Amazon.com. That works out to about 5 movies, per person, or nearly 3 paired tickets at full prices. Given the pressure the recession has on wallets, sales for video games means less money men have to spend on movies. This is particularly so as movies inevitably, like TV, become a female-gay ghetto.

Hollywood is intent on replaying Detroit's strategy: create a negative view towards your product by much of the potential customer base. Depend on a small portion of the potential customers, on only a few particular profitable models. Create a negative view of your key workers and executives nationwide, and create a high labor cost. Lack any imagination or quality that were hallmarks of your products in the past. Cede key customers to rivals with lower costs and perceived higher quality.

It is likely they will end up the same, bankrupt, bailed out, and still failures.
...Read more

Twilight is Junk

Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight," based on the best-selling novel of the same name, opens today in movie theaters across the nation. Deadline Hollywood Daily has predictions of a $60 million weekend box-office. By all accounts, "Twilight" is a huge marketing and social phenomena. Yet it is bad, truly bad, fantasy, just on it's own accounts, and even worse in it's social effects.

As commenter Wiredgrenadier noted in a comment on my post "More Scary Vampires":

"Twilight" is basically female wish-fulfillment fan fiction, full of completely shallow characters (who never really grow in depth), centered around a Mary-Sue of the worst kind and a supernatural being for whose love a compelling reason is never given.

More so, the characters also never face true challenges. The Twilight vampire type is immortal, wealthy, has a superhuman physique and is, quite frankly, indestructable. From a standpoint of character development and story suspense, those vampires and the world they roam in are about as interesting as a heap of bricks. Nothing of true impact is ever done with them (which is already symbolized through the first novel: its 600 pages could just as well have been 300, so little does truly happen).

This is quite true. Moreover, "Twilight" is not alone. Other examples, would include Laurel K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake" series (which skews slightly older, young adult women rather than teen girls as with the "Twilight" series) or the "Sookie Stackhouse" novels by Charlaine Harris.

All of these novels have various female fan-fiction characteristics. This would include "Mary Sue" wish fulfillment, resolution of conflict through rather icky sexual situations and encounters, mostly devoid of any mention of the word "Love" or any depiction of realistic romantic love, and a huge dose of "specialness" in relation to the female characters powers of sexual attraction and control, of powerful, dominating, supernatural male characters. All of whom are far older and more powerful than the female characters.

Other examples of this kind of fusion of female fan-fiction meets "Chick Lit" would include "Lonely Werewolf Girl", and "Cry Wolf" which provide a werewolf instead of vampire setting.

In all cases, with these new female fan-fic fantasies, the traditional settings of fantasy, which are mostly rural, fantastic worlds far removed from mundane settings, are up-ended. Instead, magic exists right alongside the modern, urban setting, with magical societies being merely jumped-up versions of the publishing, fashion, advertising, and public relations occupations/industries that dominate Chick Lit. While certain male-oriented authors such as Tim Powers ("Last Call" and "Expiration Date") have used modern urban settings (modern Southern California and Las Vegas), the magical secret societies exist outside and completely separate from the mundane world, and have no rules save that of the jungle.

The main concern of the female heroines are that of Chick Lit. Finding the most dominant guy, remaining thin and beautiful, becoming successful in a "cool" field filled with status and "important people." The important people may be werewolves or vampires, the field may be a magical private eye, or a vampire, or werewolf, instead of fashion or publishing, but the strong appeal to single young women are the same: STATUS.

This is a far cry from traditional female romance novels that centered on family, romance, the word "Love" and the desire to find or create the right family. It is also a departure from the traditional female fantasies written by authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin ("Wizard of Earthsea") or Anne McCaffrey ("Dragonriders of Pern") where tensions between utopianism and necessity, feudalism and modernism, tradition and the future, all collide. The mostly female heroes have things to accomplish that are more than merely status-climbing and becoming important, with an important boyfriend.

The female fan-fic type of works, whether "Twilight" or "Anita Blake," are of recent vintage. The Blake series is the oldest, and dates only back to 1993. These novels are as commenter Wiredgrenadier noted, poorly written, with little dramatic structure, tension, or resolution. Things just happen, the protagonists are "Mary Sues" with a strong resemblance to Chick Lit characters, and sex as the solution to all problems (often the ickier the better) characterizes the novels. Even the "Twilight" series, that many clueless older female conservative columnists love, has lots of graphic sex, though no sexual intercourse.

The novels themselves are terrible influences on young women, particularly given the collapse of traditional culture and institutions. Young women are mostly influenced by peer groups and the media and entertainment environment. Thus, these fan-fic novels have an outsized influence. An influence that is toxic and bad for young women and society.

The heroines enter into relationships with powerful, much older men, that are controlling and socially isolating. Rather than achieve anything by their own independence, they merely exert power through their relationships with these powerful, older men (who merely look young and "hot"). The relationships are characterized by violence, with rape a common theme. Often the female characters have sex with characters they do not love to control or influence those characters. Remarkably absent is the Western ideal of romantic love, of consensual choice by two roughly equal young men and women, who form a lifetime partnership for both child-rearing and mutual support and affection, including deep romantic love after physical passion has burnt itself out.

The relationships the female characters have is built on pure lust and physical passion. The reason they love the older, socially dominant, male characters is never explained. Nor is the reason the older, dominant male characters love the female characters explored, save youth and beauty. The young women in the stories don't struggle and sacrifice, don't accomplish concrete, physical goals, have no plans for advancing themselves outside a relationship, and are merely pretty and desired. Jane Austen would be horrified.

Because the choices the young women make are abysmal. Violent, bad-boy brooding men, who have no capacity for compassion, integrity, self-control, cooperation (with other men), leadership (that does not include sheer intimidation through physical violence), or providing for a family. The stories, and "Twilight" is among the worst, read like a how-to manual for one bad-boy, abusive relationship followed by another, leading to single motherhood and the pattern repeating. Since in real life, not fantasy, girls turn into young women, who turn into older women. "Twilight" alone, with both the book and the movie, will turn out quite a number of single mothers who perpetuate misery and unhappiness from generation to generation through stupid choices in men, and rejection of the proven ways to advance in wealth and status: education, wise choice of career, saving money, and deferred gratification.

Be that as it may, it's instructive to examine the possible reasons WHY these fan-fic stories are so popular. As noted, the earliest of them (Hamilton's "Anita Blake" novel "Guilty Pleasures") dates to only 1993. The earlier female fantasy authors wrote strong, independent heroines who's primary accomplishments lay outside relationships, and even echoed the structure of male fantasy. Only instead of "save the day and get the girl" it was "save the day, win the heart of the proper guy."

What has happened is demography and marketing. There is a huge entertainment market, focused on women, young and old. Disney makes a considerable amount of it's money marketing one wish-fulfillment Pop Tart after another to pre-teen girls. If it's not a young Britney Spears it's Miley Cyrus as "Hannah Montana" or the "Cheetah Girls" or the "High School the Musical" actresses. Older girls, in their teens, have "Gossip Girl" and various other conspicuous consumption tales, in luxury goods or luxury sex, to amuse them. Women in their twenties, thirties, and beyond, have "Sex and the City" to titillate them. Though "Sex" has as the Wall Street Journal noted, a substantial teen and pre-teen female audience, through the repeats (censored) on various cable outlets. Women are getting married later and later, earn more money than male counterparts (in urban areas) and have more educational achievement (often an indicator of income). Indeed, the American Medical Association lists women as making up fully 50% of all incoming medical students. All that delayed marriage, higher disposable income, and free time leads to consumption of luxury goods including tales of luxury and luxury sex-relationships. A demographic and cultural shift that moves downwards into teens and tweens, as well.

Note the pattern of wish-fulfillment. A "career" where the girl or woman is "important" in some industry like fashion or pop music (never say, classical music where rigorous and demanding regular practice is required). In many cases, fame and celebrity are on offer. Wealth and status among an insular, wealthy in-group is the major part of the story. Romance with various bad-boys of dubious character is on offer, and the men are always quite literally at the top of the heap ("Mr. Big"). Nowhere are the themes of Jane Austen, i.e. choosing carefully the right man for a husband (or boyfriend) evident. Nor are the other concern of Austen and female writers like her anywhere in these stories: deep romantic love, and romantic love explained to the viewers/audience.

It's a consumerist approach to live, and sex, with love and human connections completely absent.

This sort of approach, which Disney pioneered, and the publishers of junk like "Twilight" copied, rests of course on the assumption of good times. Disney depends on enough disposable income from parents to pay for Hannah Montana related T-Shirts, concert tickets, movies, and more. Not the least of which is the cable or satellite package for the Disney Channel where the "tween" girl stars like Cyrus and company are launched. [Amusingly enough, to the constant consternation of Disney, the young women who portray the "tween" wish fulfillment idols regularly engage in the practice of posting inappropriate to provocative photos of themselves on the Internet, no doubt preparing themselves for overtly sexual roles as they inevitably age out of their Disney roles and can no longer credibly play teen agers. The path of a parent of young girls is not an easy one.]

Decades long expanding economies, a whole series of industries built on disposable female income, from either parents ("tweens") or single young women, have built the economic and demographic and marketing structure to create the environment for "Twilight" and the books like it. However, this structure looks increasingly shaky.

Chick-Lit books, and the fantasy cousins of "Twilight" and "Lonely Werewolf Girl" are dependent on disposable income. As the publishing, public relations, fashion, beauty, and advertising industries come crashing down, during what looks to be a prolonged, lasting recession, there won't be that many employed in those industries, and women young and old will have less disposable income. [High incomes for women are disproportionally distributed in these professions, plus the legal, and medical professions. There are relatively few female Mechanical or Chemical engineers, for example, but many female publicists, lawyers, fashion designers, and associates and assistant in book and magazine publishing.] It is possible, of course, that female readers would want even more feel-good fantasy of wealth, power, and luxury, and increase rather than decrease the appeal of these books and stories. However, there is far too much competition among the female market in books, magazines, television, and movies, and so far indicators are that the appeal of these kinds of luxury goods sex-status stories have peaked.

ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money," which was an adult version of "Gossip Girl" has been canceled due to poor ratings. "Gossip Girl" is struggling to stay above 3 million viewers, and so far is on track to repeat last season's performance, of about 2.5 million viewers. Viewers and readers generally don't have an appetite for contemporary based luxury, status, and relationships characterized by the same, during economic hard times. Preferring instead to be taken out of the present day for fantastical settings of the past, an alternative reality, or the future.

So far, in the extraordinary run of general economic good times from the early 1990's to the present day, the fan-fic vampires of "Twilight," and other supernatural versions of "Gossip Girl" are seemingly immortal. But just as sunlight kills most vampires, prolonged hard times and the required shift by women along with men to sheer economic security rather than luxury good consumption (including luxury good relationships and sex) may kill vampires like "Twilight's" Edward Cullen after all. It is not set in stone, but quite possible that female fantasy may return to traditional themes of accomplishment and actual, real, romantic love-based romance (instead of icky and violent sex) that used to characterize the genre. Let's hope so.

Update: reader/commenter Wiredgrenadier passed on this link with the quote by the actor who plays "Edward Cullen" in "Twilight" :

"When you read the book," says Pattinson, looking appropriately pallid and interesting even without makeup, "it's like, 'Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.' I mean, every line is like that. He's the most ridiculous person who's so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn't do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that's how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he's a 108-year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."

The actor also complained that fans, including a six year old, asked him to bite them.

Historically vampires have never done well in recessions, quickly turning into figures of ridicule as the real scary monsters are poverty and unemployment. The ridiculed "nerd" or "beta provider" may well win out for a while as incomes crash and single motherhood becomes unaffordable, a luxury good of good times long past.

...Read more

More Scary Vampires

It is the day after Halloween, but Vampires are still scary. Not the vampires themselves, of course, but what they signal in terms of how women view the "ideal man." Which is both quite different than what women had viewed as "ideal" in the past, and has implications for how men themselves will react. Ironically, the Wall Street Journal has something far scarier, in it's implications, than the most bloodthirsty vampire.

First, the Stephenie Meyer novel "Twilight" will soon be showing in theaters. Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily reports that users of online ticketing service Fandango voted "Twilight" the most anticipated new movie of the year, and that the response, 95% from women, is tremendous. Naturally, of course, no man, or certainly straight man, would willingly be caught dead watching the movie. Or undead, as the case may be. Interestingly, 42% are 25 or older, while 58% are younger than 25. The novels and movie appeals strongly to young women. The Orange County Register has an article that also suggests this is the case, that teen girls form the core readers for these types of fantasy-romance novels.

"I feel bad for my future husband," says Hammel, 16, of Mission Viejo, who says practically everyone she knows has fallen for the books. "Because he'll always be second in my heart to Edward."

What is interesting is that the news story points out how the vampire novels cater to young women's desire to never grow up. To stay young, sixteen to seventeen, without responsibilities, beautiful, and in love, forever. This is a very different view, of course, from the traditional type of romance novels, pioneered by Jane Austen, where the whole point was to grow up. To become an adult, free of the confines of childhood and the childhood home, able to act as a mature young woman, indulging in both romance (and implied sex) with her husband. Marriage and children were considered the goal — it was merely a question of finding the correct husband, and avoiding the unsuitable ones.

Certain themes pop up in the vampire novels, over and over again, as detailed in a recent Wall Street Journal article. The vampires are of course of perfect physique, washboard abs, and beautiful countenances. The vampires are all "rich" and have wealth, and often power, in their own secret societies. Interestingly, most of the novels feature byzantine politics and "treaties" with humans and fellow vampires, other supernatural creatures, that the female protagonists must navigate. The parallels to the tortuous "Mean Girl" politics of High School Girl Popularity are of course, obvious. The female protagonists of course do nothing, really, except land the most powerful, and politically influential (in the "secret society") vampire, and become the "Head Mean Girl" of the supernatural version of High School. Indeed, many of them are set in Vampire Prep Schools.

For all of feminism's chorus of changing society, it is instructive that none of these novels show the protagonist gaining a career, a skill, a family with a supportive husband, or entering into a traditionally male field where the protagonist is accepted as an equal on her own terms. No, instead what these novels provide is the vicarious thrills of being the most popular and powerful girl in school, with the Big Man on Campus as the eternal boyfriend, forever. With no adult responsibility, or anything else to intrude in the "forever now," where time and the idea of time, simply does not exist. No planning for college, no career focus, no concern about family. None of that.

It's striking, how young women want so little of what feminism offered, and indeed chose the exact opposite — updated versions of the Bronte novels, only with supernatural overtones. Contrary to Freud, we can read these novels and discover what their readers want (they certainly reward the authors well, with sales in the millions). Which is, with respect to men, perfect physiques, physical power far in excess of other men, wealth that does not require work, or a daily job, and very hierarchical, feudal style politics echoing that of female cliques in High School.

The Wall Street Journal calls this the "Alpha Male," but of course it's a Woman's idea of an Alpha Male, echoing Byron, not a Man's idea of an Alpha Male.

For most men (well, straight ones anyway), Byron would be considered a failure. While dubbed, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Byron was by the standards of modern men an absolute failure. He had affairs with distant cousins, a married woman (whom he treated cruelly), and was likely, bisexual, having affairs with men at College, and afterwards. He was reputed to have had an incestuous relationship with his half-sister. He sent his illegitimate daughter away to an orphanage, to the disgust of the Shelleys, who eventually broke with him over that issue (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's daughter was born prematurely and died as an infant.) None of Byron's works are much remembered today, and are only rarely read, in contrast to the Shelleys. While "Frankenstein" remains a classic, Byron's works like "Childe Harold" are forgotten.

Nevertheless, he had many affairs, was famous, and was likely the first "celebrity" in the Western World. Famous for being famous, as opposed to actually achieving anything. It's significant that he had few real friends, no real political or cultural influence, and was not an "Alpha Male" in the way that most men would understand it.

For men, Alpha Male is pretty much leadership. The man who dominates a social setting by virtue of his social network, which includes hefty doses of patronage, mentoring, decision making, and most of all, success. Not just for the Alpha Male himself, but more importantly, those in his social network. Thus, Generals Grant and Sherman, would both be considered Alpha Males, even though their sexual pairings were few, and both remained loyal and faithful to their wives. The late Coach Bill Walsh, who successfully mentored an astonishing number of NFL Head Coaches, and took over temporarily as Head Coach of Stanford, so that protege Dennis Green could become Head Coach of the Minnesota Vikings, at that time, the second Black Head Coach in the NFL would be considered by most men, as an Alpha Male. Even though Walsh was not imposing physically, or someone of stature so dominant that he controlled any room he stepped into. Nevertheless, his players and assistant coaches all felt Walsh, his system and his unique analysis, gave them the best chance to win every game. Walsh, like all successful head coaches, made it a point to expand his power and influence, by pushing for his proteges to be hired at head coaching jobs of their own.

Which points to the big difference in preferred social structures between men and at least as indicated by the vampire novels, young women. Men like "flat" social hierarchies, where hard work, leadership, and talent combined can give them opportunities to be part of a "winning team" that expands their own social network. Just as Grant and Sherman both protected each other politically, when each was at a low ebb, so too do the preferred social hierarchies of men protect against losing (since to move ahead takes risk). Achievement is measured in concrete goals accomplished — enemy cities taken, armies destroyed, supplies destroyed or rendered useless. In peacetime, games won, or items sold, or buildings constructed. All of which require cooperation, trust, and delegation of duties, indeed specialization, to accomplish anything big and worthwhile.

None of which, of course, are evident in the profoundly feminine world of the Vampire romances. There might be males in them, but they don't bear any resemblance to what most men consider "manly" anymore than Lord Byron would be any man's idea (at least any straight man's) idea of a role model. Indeed, while the relationship is paramount for the female protagonists of the Vampire romance books, for men in fantasy novels dealing with the supernatural, it is usually just an afterthought. Build an army, an alliance of trust, defeat the monster, and get the girl. All of which happen in sequence, as a result of being a supernatural Bill Walsh or William Tecumseh Sherman. Known to his troops as "Uncle Billy" and in the years after, in the habit of quietly assisting his former troops with food and money if they called at his house. For the girls in the Vampire books, it is of course the reverse. Get the brooding, Byronic hunky vampire guy, and then get the rewards, such as social power, eternal beauty, and popularity.

It is not wrong for men and women to want different things, in different order. Profound gender differences drive each culture, regardless if they are acknowledged openly or not. Yes young women seem to have decisively rejected feminism. But the problem lies in the current situation where men and women's fundamental interests are not aligned. In Jane Austen's day, as lamentable as the restrictions on women's lives were, the fundamental interests of both men and women, to make a good, life-long match for marriage, were aligned (at least for the middling Gentry that Austen wrote about). The economic growth of the 19th Century, and that of the Twentieth, brought that alignment about to the Western masses, down to the most ordinary of persons. While men and women may have thought about society differently, had different perspectives, and wanted different intermediate things, their end goal of making a happy marriage, and having successful, happy children, was shared by both, and society as a whole.

Now, there is a huge mis-match in the relationship market, and nothing speaks more to it than the Vampire novels. Young women want the hunkiest of hunks, natural of course, but also a very hierarchical society where losers and winners have already been picked, and no one changes out of their status, ever. It is a society frozen in Amber, fixed with as the Wall Street Journal describes, "atavism" of a backward, feudal nature. Not just in the original, Bram Stoker version of Dracula, but all the updated versions, from the Sookie Stackhouse series to the Laurel K. Hamilton novels, feature very feudalistic societies made up of "Kings" and "Queens" who "run things" like a combination of the Borgias mixed with the Sopranos mixed with South American Drug lords, with a supernatural twist. Societies made for pretty young women, but not for ambitious young men.

As these young women grow up, they are more likely to demand these hierarchical societies, which advantage pretty young women and place at severe disadvantage ambitious young men. They are likely to prefer older men, who will be in competition with their male peers for their favors. After all, a great deal of the Vampire fantasy is that of the older man, who looks younger. All the vampires are very much older and more experienced than the female protagonists. Politically, this equates to a high degree of support for socialism, among young women. Because socialism provides a frozen-in-amber society, with influential and powerful families running things by design. It is no accident that every socialist economy is plagued by scores of young men, outside the margins of economic success, looking to trump aristocratic control by extreme violence. This is as true in the banlieus of France as it is in the favelas of Brazil.

Among other things, this explains the infamous Gender Gap. Why single women in particular prefer more Leftist, socialist politics than men. It is really a preference for a stable aristocracy, which makes sense given how the different sexes view romantic success.

As these young women grow older, the habits and views of men they have created in adolescence, of course, are unlikely to prove a happy template for solid, stable relationships. In real life, as opposed to fiction, relationships with Byronic bad boys rarely end happily. Theodore Dalrymple notes in his "Life at the Bottom" how both his female patients and his nurses, preferred violent, abusive bad-boys, over stable, decent men. That they only grew out of their attachment to the bad boys when menopause hit. Given the weakening influence of parents, Churches, and other purveyors of traditional social values, and the strengthening influence of peers and the media environment, this is not a happy development.

It would be a mistake, of course, to blame the authors. They simply see a market, and fulfill the demand in the marketplace. No, the blame is entirely that of the social system that allows the mis-match, between young women wanting what only a very few of their male peers can be (impossibly handsome and strong, impossibly rich, impossibly mature, impossibly socially powerful), and the reality of who most of their male peers really are: the lineup of geeks at the dance from the classic 1980's John Hughes film, "Sixteen Candles."

Many or perhaps most of these young boys who are "geeks" can grow up to be successful men in business, the military, or other careers. A look at actor Anthony Michael Hall then and now, is instructive. None of them can grow up to be "Edward Cullen" of the "Twilight" novels. Only a very few men can even approach that combination of physique, power, status, and Byronic brooding bad boy intensity. Perhaps the innate desire to have these qualities in men leads young women to indulge what Roissy in DCM has called the "soft polygamy" of major urban centers in the West.

The real scary thing, however, is that we may be seeing the result play out already, in Japan. Not as a Godzilla movie, but the depopulation of Japan. The CIA World Factbook reports that Japan's Total Fertility Rate is 1.22 (2.1 is considered replacement rate). Japanese women, like their American and European counterparts, would rather chase after the closest thing to Edward Cullen society has to offer, or indulge in consumerism, than marry their male counterparts and have children. Perhaps the failure of the economic success model — the old heroic myths where the male heroes assembled an alliance and slew the monster, saving the day and getting the girl, is responsible for the new reality of the Japanese Salary Man.

Recall the link at the top of the post? The "hodo-hodo" slacker generation of workers in their twenties and early thirties do not want to be promoted. They find the extra money (not as much as before) not worth it. Certainly not worth all the extra work and time away from their own activities. Given how much of Japanese productivity is built upon (largely unpaid) extra work by supervisors, the refusal of Japanese men to take promotions is telling. In part, the young men cite previous lay-offs, where the life-long work meant nothing during budget cuts and firings. But buried between the lines is the nugget that Japanese men, the younger ones at least, no longer believe that wealth and power that is achievable from a Salary Man job will lead to a family. This is the natural outcome, perhaps, of women's increasing power and status in society.

If women have independence, freedom, and their own wealth and power, then they can demand the Byronic bad-boy, and settle into single status, permanently. Only an extraordinary man, unlikely to be found among Salary Men, could persuade them to give up their independence, and it would require the extraordinary levels achievable only in supernatural fantasy, with feudal "secret Kings" and "Queens" living among ordinary people. It takes an "Edward Cullen" to get married, in other words, and for most men, knowledge of that requirement is a reason to stop caring. Stop caring about advancement in work. Stop caring about promotion, responsibility, more money. Leisure time and amusements rule. Much like the life of "Chuck" in the NBC-TV series, before the arrival of the beautiful secret agent.

Western society is predicated on a simple but historically effective bargain between the sexes. Men compete to acquire wealth, power, and status, in a relatively "flat" and open competition, with risks and rewards and social dynamism, which also implies that yes, men (and women) can lose power and status. Women accept this part of the bargain, and in return get much greater freedom of movement and persons relative to other societies, and the protection of men against threats internal and external. It's why Wyoming and New Zealand, rough frontier societies, subject to frequent reversals of fortune, both gave women the right to vote in 1869.

The corollary of course is that few men are priced entirely out of the marriage/relationship market, and no women can really "share" the few men who can approach the fantasy of Edward Cullen, the man who Byronically dominates them and (just as importantly) other men. Generally, societies that have men along the line of Byron tend not to be romantic utopias, but more along the lines of Idi Amin's Uganda, or Mobutu's Zaire. The classic, "Big Man" society with a Big Man ruling everything, and resentful, angry men in the Bush plotting revenge and overthrow of the Big Man.

In the current consumerist plenty, young men are not squatting out in the Bush, planning to overthrow the few men who approach Edward Cullen. Western (and that would include Japanese) society is simply too rich and filled with diversions, from the NFL to X-Boxes, for that to happen. Now. But in a prolonged, and lasting depression, with female preference still set and lagging, for the fantasy of an Edward Cullen, and willing to "share" the few that approach the fantasy?

Nothing good can come of that. Which is a prospect truly scary.

...Read more

Vampires and Women: Why the Fantasy Has Turned Scary

Recently, the Washington Post had a story on how vampires have become Hollywood's new leading man characters. While the article has plenty of typical press-release hype over HBO's "True Blood" the story does touch on the popularity of the current "romantic vampire."

Which is scary. Because of what this particular form of vampire shows about what Hollywood is peddling as a romantic fantasy for women and girls, and the market for it. The problem is, the current vampire fantasy is a highly aggressive, violent, testosterone fueled man who will be meekly under the romantic and sexual power of the female lead. This is both a huge departure in the vampire fantasy as it formerly existed, and disturbing in the messages that inevitably push women and girls towards bad choices that they are already prone to make.

First, it's time to review just what the vampire fantasy has been. Almost every culture has vampires as a folklore culture, fear of the undead is a common human fear. What jump started vampires into the modern media era was Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.

The novel dealt with Victorian fears about the stability and endurance of the nuclear family under threat of foreign immigration and contact with the wider world. Fears that were not unfounded, as we can see with today's Britain having 50% of births illegitimate, and not unreasonable either considering the history the Victorian reformers always had in mind. It was not unusual during the Georgian era to encounter 12 year old prostitutes in most major and many minor cities, including their fashionable districts. Most of the cities were hell-holes of drunken behavior, prostitution, thievery, and murder. Gin was the drink of the day, and most English were drunk most of the time. The same Christian reformers who formed the anti-Slavery movement, such as Wililam Wilberforce also endorsed attempts to reduce drunken behavior (encouraging beer consumption instead of gin, limited drinking hours, drinking in pubs instead of the streets, etc.) and public morality to reduce prostitution's acceptability, and encourage the nuclear family, rather than debauchery and patronage of prostitutes.

Thus, when the novel's proper Victorian middle class gentlemen Jonathan Harker, finds his fiancee menaced by Count Dracula, who seeks to turn her into a vampire and make her his bride, the novel's concerns resonated with Victorian reformers who felt several generations of efforts could be undone by menacing foreigners with ways that could corrupt the English back into their old vices. It's interesting that Dracula is presented as smooth, charismatic, attractive to women and able to influence men, but in the end is both revealed to be a monster in his behavior and appearance, and destroyed by a very middle class group who work together, in middle class cooperation and friendship: a doctor (Van Helsing), Harker the lawyer, an American, and a man of minor nobility. Dracula in the end is killed (really) with a Bowie Knife. The symbol of the American frontier. The novel ends with Mina Harker married to Jonathon, and with a child named after a friend who died fighting Dracula.

The stage versions of this novel was a smash, producing a number of films, including notably the 1922 silent German version by F.W. Murnau (name changed from Dracula due to a lawsuit by Stoker's widow) and the 1931 version with Bela Lugosi. It established the Vampire as sexy, but monstrous underneath, though limitations in effects and the Hays Code meant violence and gore had to be implied rather than shown.

This portrayal of the Vampire as sexy but underneath, monstrous, soon changed into the Vampire as a joke. The deepening Depression, and subsequent War Years, led to audiences demanding comedy rather than horror — their own lives were filled with enough during that time, thank you very much. Films such as "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein" with Dracula and the Wolf Man along for the ride, and Lugosi once again playing Dracula, were common.

Hammer's 1958 version of Dracula, starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, resurrected the Vampire as both sexy and monstrous, instead of a joke. This particular cycle saw the last "sexy but monstrous" version in 1979's "Dracula" starring Frank Langella, who had also played the role to considerable acclaim on Broadway. The same year, the Vampire was once again, a joke with "Love at First Bite" starring noted champion tanner, George Hamilton.

This cycle has repeated many times: Vampire as monster (to be defeated, by a middle class man, and his wife/girlfriend saved), Vampire as sexy but a monster, Vampire as a joke (Count Chocula, Blackula, etc.). So it was that the somewhat mixed humor and horror versions of this treatment "Fright Night" (1985) and the "Lost Boys" (1987) were succeeded by "Near Dark," a fairly brutal treatment of the Vampire, and 1992's version by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gary Oldman ("Dracula.")

One thing has always remained the same: Vampires are either straight out monsters who menace middle class men's girlfriends/wives (or, in "Fright Night" and "Lost Boys" their divorced mothers) and must be killed, or they are sexy rivals who are underneath, monstrous, and must be killed, or jokes for our amusement.

The Vampire took a new, somewhat scary turn, with 1997's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." While the movie (fairly unsuccessful) had vampires as somewhat icky jokes, the TV series had the Vampire presented as both monster, and romantic boyfriend, in the same package. Buffy's sexy Vampires, both foreigners (keeping that part of the tradition), were preferable to the middle class, brave, nice, but "boring" men who sought her. Even though her Vampires kept, well slaughtering people, Buffy presented the disturbing fantasy that a beautiful and "special" young woman could, by power of her beauty and sexuality, control a testosterone-driven, violent, aggressive man and domesticate him into her lover and intimidator. Even after one Vampire boyfriend slaughters some of her friends, and another rapes her ("Spike"), the title character keeps coming back for more, even to the point of professing her love for "Spike" and having implied off-screen sex with him.

Following TV's "Buffy," the 2001 "Sookie Stackhouse" series, by Charlaine Harris, and 2005's "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer, continued in that mode, i.e. a beautiful young woman controls a violent, dangerous man, by virtue of her beauty and sexiness, in novel form. The former is now an HBO series, by openly gay writer-producer Alan Ball ("American Beauty") called "True Blood." The latter series has sold 7 million books in the US, and reportedly 50 million world wide. Of course, a gay man understanding, let alone having anything meaningful to say, about the ways in which men and women interact romantically, is about the same probability of my winning the lottery next week.

The success of this type of Vampire character is disturbing. For obvious reasons, the Vampire only appeals to women (and well, gay men). The Vampire is stronger, more violent, more aggressive, older, and longer lived than the "boring" ordinary middle class men he's compared to. He promises immortality, eternal youth and beauty (which has a power, a definite power for women, but does not last). The idea that a woman might extend (even forever) her beauty, sex appeal, power over men, is certainly understandable. The trillion dollar beauty industry caters to this desire, among women, and anyone who's seen an "invisible" woman, i.e. one over age 50, ignored by waiters, waitresses, clerks, and so on knows how cruel a youth-obsessed society can be when women lose their youth and beauty.

[Only "Near Dark" out of all the Vampire Films explores the "relationship" of a female vampire and young man. And there, it's reversed. The young man rejects vampirism, saves his family, and "rescues" the girl from vampirism, restoring her to humanity. Obviously, men only value beauty, intelligence, character, and compassion in women as love-interest fantasies. They don't need power, aggression, and violence in their fantasy partners as women do. They'd also rather be the heroes themselves, and don't see themselves as monsters. For obvious reasons (no children, love, marriage) a female vampire is useless as a romantic fantasy for men, since there is no happily ever after.]

However, this fantasy of young women "controlling" aggressive, violent, hyper-testosterone men, through the power of their beauty comes at a price. While women might like this fantasy, in real life men filled with high levels of testosterone and aggression generally lack control, unless it is directed in careful competition such as football, Mixed Martial Arts competitions, and the like. Which in turn are the result of literally years of training and control. Real life analogues of "Edward" from "Twilight" or "William" from "Dead Until Dark" would resemble Johan Van Der Sloot (suspected by some of killing American tourist Natalee Holloway in Aruba) or Scott Peterson.

If Pornography is bad for men, giving them wildly unrealistic ideas about women, their bodies, and sex, these Vampire fantasies are just as bad for women. Power, status, and above all violent aggression in a fantasy where the woman controls the Byronic Vampire? It's as puerile as the nerdy guy fantasy of the super-heroine who likes blowing up stuff too (see any movie with Milla Jojovich or Kate Beckinsale in black leather). However, that fantasy won't lead to nerdy guys making disastrous choices. At worst they'll waste money on the Special Edition DVD, and the video game.

For women, and particularly younger women, something has been lost. Good judgment about men, including the natural trade-off between intelligence and testosterone. It's true, that there is a correlation between higher IQ and lower levels of testosterone and aggression. Making smarter men who are less aggressive less sexually and romantically desireable for women. But women far too often, in our politically correct society, overestimate their ability to exert control over men with high levels of testosterone and aggression. Writer "Theodore Dalrymple" (his pen name) in "Life at the Bottom" recounts a conversation with one of his patients, in the hospital in London where he worked. A girl of 17, who had her arm broken by her boyfriend. He questioned her, and she admitted she knew the boyfriend was violent and prone to abuse when she started dating him. That was the attraction, the danger, and the excitement. Dalrymple's question was what if that aggression was turned on herself? Her response was that she could look after herself. Dalrymple's reply that men are stronger than women (as her broken arm indicated) produced the retort that such words were "sexist."

This pattern persisted even with Dalrymple's educated, professional nurses. Who chose men who abused them, even at work. They confessed to Dalrymple that they knew the men were violent, they could see it at a glance from the scars from fighting, the tattoos proclaiming a love of violence, and their behavior, dress, and friends. Still they chose them, because ordinary, decent men were in their words, "boring."

These Vampire fantasies are disturbing, because they are both a cultural marker (women have responded to the fantasy of testosterone laden men, with violent pasts and tendencies, as fantasy figures, with sales figures for the books through the roof) and a cultural shaper — it encourages young women to indulge in this fantasy even more. At best this will produce more alienation and distrust between the sexes. The number of men who can meet the criteria of the sexy, brutal, strength and testosterone filled, but controlled, figure of the Vampire is approximately two: Mixed Martial Arts Champion Randy Couture, and Chicago Bears Linebacker Brian Urlacher. No others need apply. At worst, more young women will end up like Natalee Holloway, overestimating their ability to control the aggressive young men around them.

Can't we just move to the Joke phase of vampires now?
...Read more