SEX and the VAMPIRE

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Twilight series de-fangs the Dracula dynamic. (SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT)

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The Oversexed Vampire

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The Vampire as One of Us ( )

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The Sexless Vampire

As Sigmund Freud once said: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Right. And sometimes vampires are just vampires.

But beginning with the first major literary work about the vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula, published in 1897, vampires are mostly about sex.

While an embodiment of evil, Stoker's Dracula achieved immediate popularity largely because he was a perversely liberating force in Victorian England, his bloodsucking ravishment of virginal victims a sublimated portrayal of repressed sexuality raising its inevitable head.

"The character of The Count can be construed as the great submerged force of Victorian libido breaking out to punish the repressive society which had imprisoned it," observed author David Pirie in his book The Vampire Cinema. "One of the more appalling things that the Count perpetually does to the matronly women of his Victorian enemies (in the novel and in the best of the films) is to make them sensual."

One permissive century later, that dynamic is completely inverted in bestselling author Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, the second book of which, New Moon, is now a film likely to match or exceed the box office success of the first entry.

The vampire hero of Twilight, Edward Cullen (played as brooding hunk by English actor Robert Pattinson) is a hero precisely because he represses his own desires -- carnal and otherwise -- toward the scrumptious Bella (Kristen Stewart). It is no wonder the book and films are especially a hit with young teen girls: They respond not only to Pattinson's emo good looks but to his implicit respect for Bella's boundaries. (Edward's intrusion into Bella's bedroom in the first movie results in little more than a cuddle session. Sigh.)

Not that there's anything wrong with that. The vampire movie has well and truly moved beyond Dracula and now represents a rich and varied horror subgenre.

The contemporary vampire movie represents a wide spectrum of attitudes to sexuality, wherein Twilight takes an innocuous place in a sliding scale of prurience:

THE OVERSEXED VAMPIRE

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

It was no accident Neil Jordan cast the sexiest male stars of the '90s -- Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas -- to play vampires in his adaptation of Anne Rice's 1976 novel.

Rice smartly built on the Victorian repression of Stoker's era by introducing an element of homoeroticism to the vampire tale (Cruise's Lestat puts the bite on Pitt's Louis de Pointe du Lac). While the movie version played down that aspect, it remains an aspect of the film's subversive potency.

THE VAMPIRE AS ONE OF US

True Blood (2008)

Vampires and humans are pretty much integrated in Alan Ball's excellent cable series, with both sides holding up their own ends when it comes to sex (kinky and otherwise), violence and malevolence. Taking place in the Deep South, the show's relationship between good-hearted waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and decent vamp Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) is forbidden in the same way inter-racial relationships once were... and still are.

THE SEXLESS VAMPIRE

Let the Right One In (2008)

The vampire creature in this ingenious Swedish thriller has the deceptive appearance of a pre-pubescent girl (Lina Leandersson) except she literally doesn't have sex organs. Hence, her relationship with the troubled 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) holds only the promise of devoted friendship ... and the means for Oskar to act out his nascent homicidal tendencies.

THE MORMON VAMPIRE

Twilight (2008)

Author Stephenie Meyer brings her Mormon sensibility to the vampire tale to an extent that might have horrified Bram Stoker, but scores with the girls and young women who helped the first film earn close to $200 million domestically. Edward's restraint towards his true love Bella resonated powerfully with teen girl fans, according to a recent study from the University of Missouri. "With teens, we actually found that they appreciated the message of abstinence," said assistant professor of communication Melissa Click.

"The media environment is saturated with teens in sexual relationships," Click said. "(Twilight) does provide something different for girls."

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 21, 2009 C1