With the creation of the paradigm shifting television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the notion of vampires in popular culture changed. No longer were vampires living in crumbling castles as their bodies decayed, as in Bram Stoker’s vampire myth, Dracula, based on the life of Vlad the Impaler, whom Stoker read about in Whitby Public Library, Yorkshire, UK, miles away from the setting of Dracula, now they were young, attractive (the character Angel in Buffy was said to be like an angel as his face never aged and lost its boyish (mid-20s) charm. The actor, David Boreanez got the role after he was spotted walking his dog, based on his looks) with a fetish for schoolgirls (hmm). Vampires had now returned to their pre-Stoker heritage of John William Polidori and Caroline Lamb who both created a vampire who was suave, elegant, and sucked the life out of people, based on the English writer, Lord Byron.
Now, combining the pre and post Stoker vampires, vampires were blessed with superhuman powers and the fulfilment of the American Dream of dying young and staying beautiful. Finally, the genre seemed to be saying, perfection is here. But was it?
In the show Buffy, Angel is cursed by Gypsies as punishment to have his soul returned. Suddenly, here is a perfect being who realises that he is merely a monster. He understands that to live one must live in both the day and night, however, the very things which make life worth living are denied him. An aversion to daylight means that Truth, the light of being, can destroy his myth of perfection. Likewise, that which we all yearn, Love is deprived of him as he cannot touch the symbol of Love in Western society (the Cross, depicting Jesus Christ’s sacrifice). Indeed, the irony of the curse is that if he experiences one moment of pure happiness, he will lose his soul and return to the monster whom he was before. This, he manages, by engaging in sexual intercourse with Buffy, the love of his life.
We can interpret the transformation of Angel in the psychologist Jung’s terminology. As a vampire, Angel acts out his unconscious, or in Freudian terms, his ID, his pure instinct- self-preservation (eat, reproduce and rest, although vampires cannot sire offspring as new-born children, they can create other vampires, thusly fulfilling that base instinct.). However, once Angel has his soul restored, the unconscious becomes conscious and Angel realises that he is not perfect, rather his is merely a shadow of a person.
I used the word shadow advisedly for to return to Jungian psychology, Jung states that for one to be whole, one must cast a shadow, something that vampires who have no reflection cannot. By this Jung means that if a person is complete then they must have two sides to them, a Ying and a Yang to use the Oriental philosophical terms. One must have the capacity for both Good and Evil, for Love and for Hate (which aren’t opposites but are used here to illustrate). The Jungian theory goes that if one is complete, a full person, then when facing the light, the light cannot pass through them, thusly they cast a shadow. If one is incomplete then the light passes through one and no shadow is cast, or a partial shadow etc. as these things must work in gradients.
To be complete, Stoker argued in his notes for Dracula, one must be able to appreciate the finer things in life. For example, classical music, which has come synonymous with Stoker’s vampire legacy, was abhorrent to vampires unable to appreciate the purity and the beauty. In the modern vampire myth, the vampires listen to heavy metal and indie rock, music associated with Emos and other black-clad teenagers, indeed, vampires in Stoker were for adults, now infantilised for children. Interestingly, when Angel has his soul he listens to opera and reads great fiction such as the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre suggesting that the creator Joss Whedon (who if reports are correct treats women as though he was a soulless vampire and should never be allowed to make a big budget film or series ever again) was influenced by Stoker’s notion of beautiful things only being appreciated by those with a soul, those who are more ‘complete’, those who, although imperfect, are human.
‘till next time
thegreaterfool2016 