The Real Reason Men Have Always Hated Vampires
Posted by: Erica Maxwell
Filed in:
entertainment
2:00PM, Thursday October 15th 2009
People magazine will release a “New Moon” special to the ravenous, adoring masses tomorrow. The tween girl set will dutifully purchase it, their mothers will surreptitiously steal it, and every dude will hate it. We’ve told you why chicks dig vampires and men don’t, while Esquire says it’s because the vamps are batting for the other team, but this doesn’t begin to cover it. Men, well, straight men have hated vampires since Bram Stoker—they’re hardwired for it.
First of all, Bram Stoker’s Dracula casts its vamp as an Eastern European count (Victorians hated outsiders) with hairy palms (Victorian clue for masturbator—they hated those too) who swoops in, steals women, sexes them up, then returns them to their men. After being held to the breast of Count Dracula and impaled by his teeth, the girls lose it. They want to wander the streets in their sexy nightclothes and eat children. They want to have lots and lots of sex with their husbands and anyone else, and they want it right now.
Not necessarily so bad? Well, except for the children-eating part. But to the old audiences, this was the worst. They were in the middle of a full-on culture war in the 1890s. Women were just beginning to press for civil rights concerning their own bodies, their children’s lives, divorce laws, work laws, and voting reform. Drugs and sex scandals were out of control in London’s West End, and the newspapers were thick with famous men losing it all through opium and illegal homosexual sex. Frumpy middle-class England was coming into its own and didn’t truck with revolution. The vampire fanned this already existing unrest. Like a Pride Parade through the Bible Belt, the vampire was a visual symbol of everything everyday dudes felt themselves on the cusp of losing. If the Count got to them, the good women were beyond the control of the men—that was terrifying. That and the bloody damned-for-all-time thing.
Jumping ahead, we have Bela Lugosi’s cool cat Count from the 1931 Todd Browning-directed Dracula. He is also a c**k-blocking lady stealer. At the opera he draws attention away from Dad and his fiancée, immediately shutting them down as he draws the ladies into himself.
As the film continues, Dracula comes at night to bedrooms (something the fiancées themselves are not yet at liberty to do) sucking vampy, sexy blood and gaining control. Loving his darkness and his hot accent (what girl doesn’t love an accent?), the women were free to let their freak flag fly. Makeup, black clothes, wantonness—oh my! Again, this is happening all against the tumultuous mess of the flapper days. Girls grow up and get sexy obsessed with death, and the boys lose their historical place. Even worse, in this case, the ladies might be having symbolic sex, but human men are left blue.
Danger changes faces with Anne Rice as she pens into existence the self-loathing, ambiguously gay duo of Lestat and Louis in Interview with the Vampire. Uptight Victorians have lost the battle; American culture is colliding with sex and violence—the two bloody devils hold a mirror to a confused and angry world. In the film version, the camera swoops in over San Francisco, and, from a distance, the city twinkles with soft light until the audience is pulled into a street filled with drunken homeless men, the unsmiling masses, and a gray mess.
It’s an ugly world and Louis and Lestat may sex it up all throughout, but they’re unsure of themselves and unable to deal with adult women. They might bite the women or kill the women. The ladies may love them for it, but they aren’t enviable masculine figures. Esquire says we want the gayness as a way to experience Bacchanalia safely. It isn’t even safe. It’s blood and death and sex and never being able to die or relax or grow in any way—but still unappealing to men. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt‘s characters can only live with themselves in their godless world through mini-vampire girl Claudia. Interview takes all the fun out of the fun. Why would the menfolk love it if all they’ve got to live for is a little girl who dies before the movie’s over anyway?
And Twilight. Why on earth would men like Twilight? I submit to the jury: vegetarian vampires, no fangs, self-loathing, abstinence, glitter, and teen marriage. No wonder they’re all backing away.
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Riley
wrote on October 15 2009 @ 01:44 pm: [report]
I love a good vampire novel or movie, even bad ones. I’m a geek though.
The tacked-on teenage angst love story of Twilight ruins the portrayal that other books and movies have given the vampire. It’s like a Disney version of a vampire story. Girl doesn’t quite fit in, he is a loner, girl helps guy understand himself, fall in love, she “gives” herself to him, 14-year olds clap and I die a little inside.
Ginger
wrote on October 15 2009 @ 03:19 pm: [report]
Everytime I was told about a boy who took his girlfriend to Twilight, I asked if they knew that franchise was telling the girls not to put out.
If I were a guy (and I’m mainly thinking of the teenagers and college boys) and had to sit through a totally lame movie that was not just making my girlfriend go ga-ga over a ficitonal character but telling her that sex is not cool and marriage is where it’s at I would hate Twilight too.
Well, I do hate Twilight. Just for other reasons.
impoddity
wrote on October 15 2009 @ 07:39 pm: [report]
It’s like the vampire went from being a total badass to a total twink. FAIL!! (not PC, but you know :/ ?
mrcash
wrote on October 15 2009 @ 07:51 pm: [report]
Men don’t hate the Blade trilogy. They hate Twilight because there are no fight scenes. Same reason why they hate rom-coms and love movies like Transformers and Batman. I didn’t think it was that in depth. I do think this article is right about the above mentioned movies, though, in that time period.
CaleeKay
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 12:51 am: [report]
What about True Blood!? Every guy should love that! So many ta-tas! Even i do!
(and i cant stand twilight)
Riley
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 08:08 am: [report]
@mrcash - Yeah, if it doesn’t have explosions or a lot of yelling, I cannot understand what is going on. I just sit there scratching my head and smelling myself, attempting to grasp some plotline amongst all the talking. It is very difficult and my brain usually hurts until I can get to a bar and drink some PBR and have a raw steak. Thank the almighty John Wayne that you are here to share your most informed opinion.
Jimmyg
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 08:50 am: [report]
What a silly little article. Men are the sole reason vampire movies and literature even exist. Men are the primary audience. Men hate Vampires the same way they hate zombies, and they hate Cthulhu. These things are all ‘bad’ and need to be killed, and we need to read about these methods and watch how they are performed, for when it really happens we will be your saviors, and our Hammer Films and Kirkman’s Walking Dead collection doesn’t seem so immature now does it?
Men hate Twilight because it is garbage written by a woman with a teenage girls brain creating her words, for teenage girls and about teenage girls - did you miss this part? We don’t like Hannah Montana, High School Musical or the new 90210 either. Men hate Twilight because the vampires aren’t monsters. Men hate Twilight because it’s so corny, that we find ourselves blushing for all of humanity when we watch it. Sure Lestat and Louis and Armand are all a little metro, but they were still bad ass scary monsters when they needed to me. Most importantly, men hate Edward Cullen because men love Cedric Diggory R.I.P. *pours out a butter beer for my homie*
C.Munro
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 12:09 pm: [report]
I dunno, it seems to me from the stereotypical vampire traits that such characters were always aimed at a young, female audience. The frilly clothes, the brooding neuroses, the dark sexual undertones. It’s all very romantic, in a cheesy still-in-junior-high way, and I simply don’t have the stomach for such schmaltz.
mrcash
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 02:21 pm: [report]
@ riley-
Welcome
Simple fact is the MAJORITY of men prefer action movies or comedies with slapstick humor. Excuse me if you don’t but that doesn’t change the fact that most me do.
Pinky
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 03:28 pm: [report]
For the last time…Lestat and Louis were not gay.
impoddity
wrote on October 16 2009 @ 07:54 pm: [report]
@Pinky: It was Louis and Armand, right?
stormygirl
wrote on October 17 2009 @ 03:23 am: [report]
Idont like twilight either, they are not what vampires are supposed to be like. I like the violence, blood, fight scenes, explosions, fire, action, etc. I’m a geek anyway.now Bram Stoker,that was the good stuff. That twilight stuff, forget it(fail)
Bing2408
wrote on October 17 2009 @ 05:17 am: [report]
First of all, I don’t think anyone commenting on this article has read any of the Twilight series. There is plenty of gore and sex in the series; she just doesn’t feel the need to make the story revolve around the fact that Edward is a vampire. Also “tweens” are kids between the ages of 9 and 12 and Twilight was certainly NOT written for them. I love vampire and other supernatural genres. I think it all depends on the type of plot you enjoy i.e. romance, thriller, horror or even humor. Of course most guys won’t be into romantic stories.
Lucas Hardeman
wrote on October 19 2009 @ 08:11 am: [report]
@JimmyG -
For a man with a love/hate relationship with the Harry Potter world (books rule, movies suck), truer words were never spoken. Kudos to you.
But yes, Vampires are definitely a male creation. And when handled by men behind the pen, or the camera, we get good results, i.e.: From Dusk Till Dawn, the aforementioned Blade Trilogy (which i found my first man crush in Ryan Reynolds), and 30 Days of Night.
Twilight sucks monkey balls. Plain and simple.