Friday 24 July 2009

Sexy? No No No

"That's one of yours, isn't it?"

This was my mother's comment in relation to an advert on tv for True Blood, the latest tv series about vampires, and...Anna Paquin vaguely trying to convince the world she's a total actress and everything.

It's not, however. It's not one of mine, and unless I hear extremely good things about it to persuade me otherwise, I'll probably have nothing to do with it. And why? Because I've realised I actually quite loathe vampires now.

It's not the mythology; vampires have a broad and interesting range of rules to operate by and do neat things with, story-wise (flying, repelled by religious accessories, super strength, can't come in unless invited, sparkling etc). It's more to do with the fact that when I hear there's a new film or tv show or book about a vampire/vampires, I can pretty confidently bet it'll be about a lone, brooding, misunderstood fello who hates his nature and wants to be like us lucky, beautiful, brave humans. And he'll be "hot".

If vampires are ever going to be interesting again, they need to be Scary first, as opposed to Sexy. When was the last time we had a genuinely Scary, Non Sexy vampire? No other popular monster trope suffers from this, they're not burdened with the Problem of Sexy. Werewolves aren't Sexy, witches - with the exception of Halloween costumes aimed at slags - aren't Sexy. In fact, there's a fun "Who Is The Least Sexy Witch" game to be played with the cast of Charmed, Melissa Joan Hart, and the cast of The Craft(Winner is tied between Holly Marie Combs and Neve Campbell - with those two around such a competition takes on a gymkhana element).

Angel, Edward Cullen, Lestat, my pop culture intake has been officially overloaded with sadsacks with 'technically good' physiques who just need the love of a good woman to rehabilitate them. When oh when will vampires stop being pouting, vacant drips and get back to being genuinely frightening monsters? I don't want to see brooding hunks mumble and whine about their blood lust as a half-baked allegory for sex or whatever, I want Nosferatu, I want Buffy, hell, even Are You Afraid of the Dark did it better:



So there you have it. I will resume my (passing at best) interest in vampires only when they stop being surly boyfriends that unhappy fat girls can dream about.

2 comments:

Ems said...

Winner is tied between Holly Marie Combs

:O

YOU TAKE THAT BACK. HOLLY MARIE COMBS IS A GODDESS.

Dan said...

You, my good woman, are deranged.

Remember that episode where they did actually all become Goddesses? Phoebe was the Goddess of Sluttery (not a staggering feat for Milano), Paige just shouted a lot and maybe had a bow and arrow? And Piper was the Goddess of like, being a hatchet-faced shrew or something.

Never had I missed Prue more.

 
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