The Sexy Vampire Trope, Explained

when you're a vampire you become very sexy [Music] among all the monsters lurking in the shadows none of them turn us on quite like the vampire everything about me invites you in my voice my face even my smell most teenagers don't have posters of frankenstein on their walls and the shape of water didn't inspire a raft of other love stories about humanoid fish men it's the sexy vampire who's been our favorite supernatural pinup for centuries a creature that's long been associated with the lust for more than just blood if i meet the true death without having at least kissed yazuki stackhouse that would be my biggest regret it wasn't always like this depictions of vampires from 4000 bc painted them as snout-nosed shapeless water-dwelling creatures during the middle ages vampires were closely associated with the decidedly unsexy lesions found on victims of the black plague it wasn't until the 1800s that vampires got a sexy makeover in stories like 1872's carmilla and bram stoker's dracula where they were re-imagined as erotic predators who played on victorian fears around sexual immorality you do seem a little familiar oh my dear lady i promise to be as familiar as you like since then vampires have steadily been getting well hotter the modern sexy vampire can be identified by the fact that they're eternally young [Music] rather than decrepit old counts today's sexy vampires may be centuries old but they look like teen heartthrobs how long have you been 17 a while they're brooding and emotional the sexy vampire harbors a deep inner torment that makes them sympathetic they often agonize over the pain they cause to others you can have it again i can't the cost is too high they also walk among us rather than dwelling in some musty shadowy castle the sexy vampire hides in plain sight usually enjoying the pleasures of the human world and since when the vampires like baseball well it's the american pastime and they're liberated vampires don't conform to rules whether it's social structures or heteronormative ideas of sexuality i haven't enjoyed sex with men since the eisenhower administration here's our take on the continued allure of the sexy vampire the roots of this cultural obsession and why our love for them refuses to die don't underestimate the allure of darkness even the purest hearts are drawn to it [Music] hi everyone so if you haven't heard the take finally has merch this is my favorite working from home shirt i've practically been living in our hoodie these colors say cinema celebration these colors are the ray of life that i need in my day and on my screen this is the mug i use when i'm leaning into my miranda priestly perfectionist side i love channeling my inner girl boss when i use my take tumbler this is the shirt that i wear for watching queen's gambit the boys and succession it's not just about the t-shirts though it should be because they're so cute but seriously by buying a t-shirt or a mug for a hoodie you can really show us your support and help us make more videos for you and by wearing our tees and our hoodies you're proudly displaying to the world that like us you have a deep love for film and tv critical analysis and you're sparking open-minded conversations by asking the world what's your cake and teespring is offering shipping all the way up until december 21st to arrive just in time for the holidays and check out thehyphentate.com for all of your merch options thank you for watching as always and please click on the link in the description below to check out our limited edition designs before they're gone why did you hate me so much when we met i did only for making me want you so badly i still don't know if i can control myself when twilight first introduced movie audiences to bella swan edward cullen and their angsty inner species romance in 2008 the vampire was given a new sparkly moment in the sun you're beautiful the film spawned four hit sequels and set off a renewed worldwide obsession with vampires and specifically with the idea of loving vampires i was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him twilight made vampires sexy again even though the stories themselves were surprisingly chaste you said that you wanted me to have every human experience not one supporters killing you twilight's vampires may have been relatively innocent but their genre has been coated with sexual hunger almost since its inception because i am to walk in the shadow of death for all eternity i love you too much [Music] joseph sheridan lefano's 1872 novella carmella is one of the earliest and most enduring vampire stories and also one of its more erotic concerning a woman who's preyed upon by a female vampire that also pursues her romantically i shall never leave you my dearest laura carmilla built upon the blueprint laid out by john william polidori's 1819 novella the vampire which transformed the vampire from a folkloric monster into a charming aristocrat who appears to be human and who seduces women before draining their blood this connection between vampires and lust was thus well established by the time bram stoker's dracula arrived in 1897 which popularized not only many of the conventions of vampires but their implicit sexuality stoker's count dracula is a wealthy charming man who lives with three sexy vampire sisters who use their own wiles to seduce men before feeding on them meanwhile dracula is captivated by lucy westinra a 19 year old woman who's open about her own desires and who even toys with the idea of marrying multiple men can man and a woman really do that i did only last night symbolically dracula visits lucy in her bed chamber at night to feed in secret until at last all his illicit attentions transform this formerly demure young woman into a crazed sexual demon [Music] as these stories show us the fear of vampires is inherently a fear of sexuality and its capacity to turn people particularly innocent women into immoral monsters and this sexual tension underscores even the largely abstinent twilight although rather than punishing its characters for transgressing it rewards them for staying pure believe me i want to i just want to be married to you first as eva weissman writes in the guardian twilight told readers that chastity is the most erotic choice you can make turning the prolonged forbidden flirtation between edward and bella into something all the more titillating for how long it takes to be consummated stop trying to take your clothes off you want to do that not tonight edward's attraction to bella also goes beyond being merely physical bella is the only person whose mind he cannot read while the smell of her blood intoxicates him i've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life twilight connected with its teenage audience so precisely because of how it plays on this adolescent desire to be seen as special [Music] and the fact that edward must force himself to resist acting on his attraction only makes it sexier i don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore and don't a similar dynamic can be found in twilight's most obvious precursor buffy the vampire slayer where angel the vampire with the soul tries and fails to contain his attraction to the human buffy i love you i try not to but i can't stop when both finally do give in to their desires angel immediately reverts back to his demon self reinforcing just how sexily forbidden their love is i want to take comfort in you and i know it'll cost me my soul and a part of me doesn't care the fact that buffy and angel can never fully be together without the world literally ending makes their relationship all the more tragic and romantic i love you i love you nothing can change that not even death to be a vampire is a very sad fate and this brings out the desire to nurture and protect him says psychologist dr cecilia de felice a dynamic that's common to these fictional vampire relationships as dr felice puts it the vampire's drive to suck our blood is a metaphor for how much we need love and how much we need to be needed we see our own vulnerabilities in them everything i've kept buried inside came rushing to the surface i'm simply not able to resist her in these sexy vampire stories we identify with both the vampire and the victim recognizing the yearning to completely devour someone while not so secretly wishing someone would yearn to devour us you want what everybody wants you want a love that consumes you [Music] well you people should stay up late to keep odd hours it isn't just sex itself that makes vampires alluring the vampire is known as a creature of darkness unable to live in the normal sunlit world the vampire also doesn't have to play by its rules they are in other words pretty cool although they're hundreds of years old edward angel and so many other sexy vampires spend most of their time hanging out with teenagers graduation caps uh yeah it's a private joke let me trick you a lot for them the party never has to end a notion that has its root in the movie vampires of the 80s and 90s as buffy the vampire slayer creator joss whedon has acknowledged the show owes a considerable debt to the lost boys joel schumacher's 1987 film about a group of motorcycle riding leather jacket wearing vamps who can similarly pass as human and who use this ability to live it up on the california coastline feeding on beach bums to a pounding rock and roll soundtrack you don't have to beat me michael you just have to try and keep up led by kiefer sutherland's david the vampires of the lost boys are hardly the lonely stuffy aristocrats of a century before they're more like a gang initiating jason patrick's michael into their fold through a series of hazing rituals to test whether he's badass enough to join them the lost boys were vampires reimagined for the mtv generation as suggested by the film's tagline which doubles as an aspirational mantra for teens sleep all day party all night never grow old never die it's fun to be a vampire the lost boys also offered a stark contrast to the old-fashioned conservatism of the 1980s espoused by ronald reagan schumacher himself has acknowledged that this sense of transgression is key to the film's appeal saying this movie is in a way about the fear we have of the other those who live outside of the mainstream these vampires are rebels and they have a great time being bad near dark released the same year as the lost boys also casts its vampires as rebels a gang of wild outlaws roaming the deserts of the american southwest in katherine bigelow's neo-western the film's vampire gang evokes all the tropes that made those early gunslingers so iconic their self-reliance their lawlessness and their fearlessness [Music] they have a decidedly punk rock attitude embodied by bill paxton's severin with his biker jacket lanky black hair and permanently affixed sunglasses you can see how the vampire holds a natural appeal for anybody particularly teenagers who already feel like outcasts in 1985's fright night we can see this attraction manifest through the character of evil ed the slightly geeky horror movie loving best friend of protagonist charlie brewster ed is lonely and powerless a bullied outsider that no one takes seriously which makes him easy prey for the suave vampire jerry to seduce you don't have to be afraid of me i know what it's like being different they won't pick on you anymore by becoming a vampire evil ed is made powerful which allows him to unleash all his pent-up anger at the world i used to admire you you know that of course that was before i found out what a fake you were a similar release occurs for charlie's girlfriend amy whom jerry also turns amy goes from the virginal repressed girl next door to a seductive temptress and for her it's a moment as empowering as it is terrifying what's wrong don't you want me anymore as je ancorn writes for we are the mutants there's an obvious analogy to puberty in the transformation of living into undead but the allure of the vampire represents something more than that it's the journey from the sunlit world of school and parents into the nighttime world of bad influences and nightclubs of fun fairs and freedom that feels like flight i know what it's like being different they won't pick on you anymore or beat you up i'll see you today all you have to do is take my hand vampires are wild dangerous and free creatures who live an undead life of hedonistic thrills that's directly opposed to the workaday grind most of us inhabit where we're bound by morality shame and fear they're the rock stars of the monster world [Music] you're welcome good girl gone vampire by embodying sexuality and rebellion vampires have naturally always been tied up with sexual rebellion beginning with the lesbian metaphor of carmilla vampires have been inextricable from stories that challenge heteronormative boundaries allowing writers and readers to explore themes of being queer or genderfluid is this a bad time ah a bad time there's no such thing as bad historically this aspect of the vampire has often been used as a means of exploitation in the 1960s and 70s directors like jean roland essentially built their careers on lesbian vampire films that straddled the lines between arthouse horror and pornography why don't you talk i've got to do it for us otherwise we'll be killed when they return movies like the rape of the vampire and the nude vampire emphasized graphic imagery of slinky vampire harems in a way that fetishized their queer subtext spanish director jess franco's vampiros lesbos possibly the most celebrated film of the subgenre finds the beguiling countess nadine karodi preying upon the innocent linda in her dreams suggesting a repressed desire that becomes a consensual attraction in person there's an obvious male fantasy element to these movies which the british film institute's emma smart describes as all heaving bosoms and low-cut dresses and indeed one of the reasons lesbianism may have slipped into the vampire genre in the first place was because according to screenwriter tudor gates sexual imagery was considered more acceptable within the supernatural enabling filmmakers to bypass sensors it bit me look it was my fault a broach i gave that said the lesbian vampire film afforded a rare agency to women in the horror genre and it offered a progressive defiance of traditional gender norms eventually a more nuanced depiction of queer themes would work its way into films such as 1983's the hunger which featured catherine deneuve as a lonely vampire who seduces a young doctor played by susan sarandon using their sexual encounter to turn her what have you done to me i've given you something you never dare dream of what everlasting life but unlike the male gaze that has defined those earlier lesbian vampire films the hunger sex scene defied camp or easy exploitation are you making a pass at me mrs black [Music] while homosexual males don't have a vampire sub-genre to call their own the vampire film has long been a way to explore those themes as well the homoerotic undercurrent of the lost boys was apparent even to kiefer sutherland who described the scene where david catches michael as a very sensual moment as alci levia wrote in bright wall dark room the lost boys can even be read as the story of michael embracing his queerness with the beautiful star serving as bait to ensnare michael into exploring the true roots of his fascination with david's all-male gang levia argues that the film suggests the only way michael can truly become a lost boy is by literally killing his heterosexual urges [Music] and as brand intensely noted in the atlantic the film also arrived just as the aids epidemic was taking hold in the 1980s and killing thousands of gay men the lost boys tensley writes dealt with blood intimately at a time when the substance was fraught with new grim connotations a similar fear underscores 1985's fright night where chris sarandon's jerry looks every inch the suave sophisticated yuppie i invited him over why which matter charlie afraid i'd never come over without being invited first this allows him to hide in plain sight and to use his powers of seduction to wreak quiet terror throughout the town the embodiment of the hiv paranoia that gripped america during the early years of the disease similar fears and an open rejection of them underscore the plot of hbo's true blood which draws an overt comparison between the quest for vampire equality and the struggle for gay rights i know for a fact he supports a vampire rights movement how progressive of them creator alan ball has rejected the idea of the show being read as a direct queer allegory even suggesting this reading is homophobic given that vampires are dangerous but through its depiction of an america where vampires are marginalized by society terrorized by bigots and targeted by religious groups the illusions would be difficult to ignore demons literally they have no soul but reverend newlin you must be aware of polls that show consistently growing support for vampires right polls are fixed while anne rice's interview with the vampire and its sequels have frequently been discussed as among the most homoerotic vampire films ever released rice herself has described vampires as transcending not just sexual labels but gender ones as well rice says the vampire genre is all about outsiders who are told they're damned and condemned but rather than linger in the shadows they refuse to accept that evil's point of view more modern vampire stories have embraced this potential for more open exploration within the genre in 2019's bit a transgender woman laurel falls in with a group of intersectional feminist vampires who accept her womanhood without question unlike the human world men can't handle power they have it already and look at what they've done with it what about me never crossed my mind the film is overtly political the vampire gang is out to attack the patriarchy and the first time we see it kill it's heavily implied that it's punishment for a sexual assault you want me to say her name how do you know that my super sexy vampire power's silly but at the core of the film is the romance between laurel and the vampire izzy a relationship that as rice suggests is largely about two outsiders who find each other and it's plenty sexy so you trying to go home tonight today all the rules have been changed vampires can be good or bad they can be chaste or promiscuous and their being queer is no longer subtext or fear but simply a part of their story illustrating that point the vampire genre recently came full circle with carmilla kinda tv's web series adaptation of that original 1872 novella as a reimagined college drama told from the point of view of journalism freshman laura hollis and her vlog well it is day three of the incursion here in room 307 and betty is still missing she has been officially replaced with the roommate from hell in this version carmilla isn't an evil force trying to steal laura away from a man or some idea of the quote-unquote normal world they're shown to be genuine soul mates and what could be sexier than that you were dead and and now you're not and i know that you're probably going through a lot of stuff with your mom it's just it makes sense that creatures of the undead who walk the earth for thousands of years would have such strong staying power but why has every generation used these horrific monsters to discuss their deepest desires vampires are attractive because they exist outside of the boundaries of society they represent a fear of the unknown but also our attraction toward it it's a combination of i'm terrifying but i'm also aroused and sexual at the same time the earliest vampires offered us a way to process our desires to deal with our fears of everything from a woman's sexuality to lgbtq relationships to that all-encompassing other but thanks in no small part to the barriers broken by the vampire genre most of us no longer see these things as a thread now the sexy vampire serves a different function they're not a monster to be feared but a fantasy to be explored and indulged something we can all sink our teeth in two it's cool not growing old i like being the eternal stud [Music] you

Channel: The Take

Views: 291,051

Keywords: twilight, edward cullen, bella swan, edward and bella, breaking dawn, robert pattinson, kristen stewart, true blood, the lost boys, the vampire diaries, nina dobrev, ian somerhalder, paul wesley, elena and damon vampire diaries, elena and stefan vampire diaries, anna paquin, sookie stackhouse, alexander skarsgard, hunger, susan sarandon, kiefer sutherland, interview with the vampire, brad pitt, the nude vampire, requiem for a vampire, bram stoker's dracula, vampires

Id: utJJ7iTLUmU

Length: 23min 49sec (1429 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020