Meredith Hershey
Professor Herndon
Literature 3312.S001
31 August 2010
Vampirism and True Love
The modern Vampire as society knows it is a dark, brooding and mysterious being with a fickle nature and excessive emotional baggage. Though they tend to be extremely passionate and romantic, they are often portrayed with an overwhelming desire to micromanage their lover’s lives out of some notion-conscious or not-of superiority. These are hardly positive traits, and yet vampires are romanticized to such an extent that hardly anyone notices the abusive qualities of the relationships presented in stories like Twilight and the Vampire Diaries. They have become the perfect examples of a perfect relationship to a whole generation of people. In order to satirize and bring to light the preposterousness of such ideals, I have put together an eHarmony dating site profile highlighting all of the supposed desirable qualities one might look for in their vampire mate.
The reason for the unorthodox choice of creating a fake dating profile was to bring to light the presumably obvious problems with the vampire worship that society has chosen to ignore. Hoards of pre-teen girls and middle aged women have fallen head over heels in love with the vampire romantic interests presented to them in titles like the Twilight Series, the Vampire Diaries and True Blood. These vampires are nearly always men, and they are always described as pallid, emotional, and perfect. Their human girlfriends are always pretty but insecure, especially when the story is in a high school setting or in some way involves young adult characters. They are presented as meek and lonely, and when they meet their undead boyfriends, they cling to them desperately, often letting the vampire suck their blood, control their lives, or generally walk all over them.
The issue with these types of stories and vampires in general is that superficially, they may seem like perfect romantic relationships, but they are really quite unhealthy. Since their inception, vampires have been metaphors of tragedy, disease and misfortune. They were the creatures hiding around corners and in dark alleys. Their reliance on others for sustenance made them, in essence, parasites. Now that vampires have ascended to romantic hero status, their stalking and abusive behaviors have become acceptable within the context of the story. Edward from the Twilight Series for example, admits to his girlfriend that he has sat in her bedroom and watched her sleep since they met, an action that would never fly in reality. Yet, neither Bella nor Edward finds anything wrong with it. This behavior is a criminal offense, but because Edward is a superhuman being, he gets away with it, a common theme in vampire lore. In addition to draining the life of their loved ones, often without any thought of the repercussions, they manipulate them, intentionally or not, with both their physical appearance and actions. The undead heroes share disturbing similarities to real life perpetrators of domestic violence, something that fans of vampire romance novels don’t seem to recognize.
The eHarmony profile, chosen for its supposedly sanctimonious and thorough matching process, was a satirical attempt to make these similarities glaringly apparent. The persona was a beautiful blonde woman named Claudia Harker and she was looking for an undead lover. Her required qualities were a possessive nature, emotional baggage, and a lust for blood. She had no interest in friends or family, and she was fully happy to spend the rest of her hopefully eternal life mooning over a pale, unrealistically handsome man. This fake identity was modeled after the typical vampire novel heroine. Her shallow and almost disturbing qualities, such as her lack of interest in anything but her potential boyfriend and extreme submissive personality, are meant to clarify what exactly is wrong with the types of women who fall in love with vampires. These heroines are crippled in their characterization. They are made to be helpless little girls who cannot live without their blood-sucking boyfriends. Naturally, they often have horrific encounters with rival vampires which end in them being gruesomely injured, but never seem to learn from these incidents, ending up in the same situation again and again. Vampire novel heroines are victims of their centuries-old lover’s outdated notions on how women should be treated, and many of them mistake attempts to dictate their lives as love. The vampire himself tends to explain away his possessive behavior as trying to protect his “true love” from the outside world. Vampires are described in nearly every incarnation as superior to humans in looks, strength and intelligence, resulting in vampire heroes coming off as patronizing to their human girlfriends rather than caring.
The fictional vampire is fundamentally a domestic abuser. Claudia Harker was essentially asking for a man to take advantage of her in every way, and while she may seem like a silly caricature of a brainless vampire fangirl, she is no different from popular characters like Bella, whom many young girls idolize. As it is presented to them today, a typical relationship with a man involves being weak-willed and clumsy so that he will be drawn to their inability to take care of themselves and swoop in to protect them. Many vampire stories involve the vampire being afraid of injuring or even killing his girlfriend, and yet his love for her is too great to stay away, leaving the impression that causing physical pain, directly or indirectly, is not only forgivable, but just an unfortunate side effect of being in love.
Stepping back from the similarities to domestic violence, the relationship between vampires and humans in the popular media are just too superficial. Twilight, the biggest offender of these inappropriate messages presents you with a couple of teenagers who meet, and in a whirlwind of theatrics, form a bond they immediately classify as a love so strong, no other relationships can compare. There are no examples of Bella and Edward having any other connection other than a love for Muse and a physical attraction. Bella and Edward don’t do anything but proclaim their love for each other. They don’t go on dates, they don’t have friends outside of Edward’s family and the third party love interest, and they rush into marriage, parenthood and eternal life immediately after high school. There is no deeper connection. Claudia Harker’s eHarmony profile includes a desire for an over-the-top yet baseless romance in order to emphasize the shallow relationships illustrated in vampire romance.
The eHarmony dating profile was created as a way to showcase the disturbing concepts vampire novels encourage. Claudia Harker is a victim of domestic abuse, she has a misguided notion of what true love is, and were she a real person, she would undoubtedly end up in trouble, with real life “vampires”. Yet, fans of the modern vampire romance have yet to recognize this woman in their idols. They don’t recognize the parasitic nature of vampires, and if they truly believe that sucking someone’s blood passionately from their neck signifies love, they are doomed to make the same mistakes as the women in the novels they admire.
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