COMPARING MODERN VAMPIRE STORIES
MTV’s article comparing modern vampire stories includes Buffy, True Blood and Twilight.
A fearless young woman is attracted to an impossibly handsome vampire — sound like the story line from “Twilight”? It could also be “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” HBO’s “True Blood” or FEARnet’s upcoming “The Dark Path Chronicles.”Even Anita Blake, the vampire hunter who famously quipped, “I don’t date vampires, I kill them,” ends up falling for a guy with fangs.
Which is all to say, nothing is new under the midnight sun — vampiric lore included. Twilighters who can’t wait for the movie’s release in three weeks can get their fix in lots of other places this Halloween. But how do the other stories stack up?
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” may not be on television anymore, but the Dark Horse comic actually has a “Twilight” character. “I never knew ‘Twilight’ existed when I named the character Twilight,” Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy,” laughed. “There’s room for many Twilights.”
“Buffy” the comic doesn’t have as much star-crossed romance as “Buffy” the TV show, in which Buffy falls for Angel, the Edward Cullen of his day. The central metaphors of the two series are very different — you should wait until you get “bitten” for “Twilight,” high school is hell for Buffy — as are the two heroines, Bella and Buffy. Buffy doesn’t waste time anguishing about whether her vampy boy will marry her, impregnate her, bite her — she’s got bigger issues, like having to save the world (again). But the overall arc about the anguish of loving someone who is immortal is still there.
“If people want stories about girls who love vampires, they should have them,” Whedon said. “It’s not like I came up with it. It’s always deeply romantic or deeply interesting or deeply scary, or all of the above, and that’s going to be mined long after I’m gone.”“True Blood,” based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, also has a very different metaphor to offer — vampire as outsider deserving equal rights — but the heroine is someone Twilighters can relate to. Like Bella, Sookie is an outcast in her small town, and she’s plunged headfirst into a supernatural world when a hot vamp walks into her life. Edward is intrigued by Bella because he can’t read her mind — Sookie is intrigued by Bill because she can’t read his.
Sookie’s the psychic in this series, and it’s what makes it hard for her to connect with people — what they say and what they think are very different, and all the voices swirl in her head like buzzing bees. But Bill, who as a human was a Confederate soldier, makes her feel calm. Both Bella and Sookie feel more at home with Edward and Bill — who are beautiful, noble, gentlemanly and self-despising. Bella and Sookie are inexperienced when the story begins, but as they get to know their vamps, they both want their guy to take a bite. Edward and Bill are weaned from drinking human blood — Edward drinks the blood of animals, and Bill drinks a synthetic substitute made in Japan, sold in bottles at room temperature as True Blood.
“If it’s just a story device to have fangs, then I’m just not that interested,” “True Blood” creator Alan Ball laughed. “We’re really trying to focus on who Bill is, what’s his history, what is the curse of being immortal, how is that a bad thing, what’s it like to be immortal and still yearn to be human, to have lost everything that meant something to you? To meet somebody and feel like you have a second beginning? You know? And so those are the things that I think are important to me.”Mary Lambert’s “Dark Path Chronicles” features a young girl named Samantha, who, like Sookie, hears voices — but the question remains if she’s psychic or just schizophrenic. She falls for “really cute” Jurgen, who looks 23 but is 75 years old and, as a human, had been forced to fight for the Germans in World War II.
“Vampires are the quintessential rock stars,” Lambert said. “They’re forever young, they come out at night, they have superpowers — but in exchange, they’ve been robbed of their humanity. So if they do fall in love, they’re doomed to lose people, because humans die and vampires don’t.”
Like Sookie and Bella, Samantha is a bit inexperienced and not sure what she’s getting into at first. But despite her naïveté, she’s fearless, perhaps when she shouldn’t be.
“It’s like Juliette Lewis and Robert De Niro in ‘Cape Fear,’ ” Lambert explained, “except this guy is young and handsome. But we all know that he could suck her blood and kill her. The audience should be afraid for her. She wants him to be her boyfriend, and this is the question — like in ‘Twilight,’ when the good girl meets the bad boy — should she lose her virginity to him? Should she go off on a motorcycle with him? It’s a metaphor.”But not every vampire story sticks to that whole romantic notion of the vampire as a gentleman caller — sometimes, when the vampire comes calling, you should slam the door shut and run. The vampires in “30 Days of Night” and the upcoming sequel “Dark Days” are not interested in seducing the women of Barrow, Alaska, or any other town, nor do they have a peace treaty with any other neighboring supernatural creatures. They just want to feed. And there’s nothing in their frenzy that would make teen girls swoon over, say, Vicente or Marlow.
“That’s driving me nuts,” Steve Niles, creator of “30 Days of Night,” complained. “We’ve got ‘Twilight,’ which 16-year-old girls are going batsh—over. One of my big motivators for ‘30 Days of Night’ was that vampires had gotten annoying and silly [by being romantic]. So I strip it back to where they look at you like cattle. They don’t like humans. They don’t spend time worrying about us.”
So the whole bad-boy metaphor, or the losing-your-virginity metaphor — being bitten as a substitute for sex — goes out the window in exchange for a metaphor more worthy of Halloween.
“It’s a direct confrontation with death,” Niles said. “And they’re metaphors for fear of invasion and disease and more. Vampires have the potential to be really scary. How can they be scary if cheerleaders are dating them?”
I was an avid Buffy watcher, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve watched a few episodes of True Blood. I like it but I don’t love it like I do Twilight. It doesn’t pack the same punch for me. I don’t have that sense of addiction with anything else but Twilight.
Do you watch any of the above shows? Do other vampire stories stack up to Twilight? What makes them better or not as good as Twilight?
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ughh true blood is such a rip off of twilight! news flash true blood: twilight is the best most amazing, incredible ,heartbreaking,wonderful, life saving vampire love story there ever was and ever will be so stop trying to top Stephenie because it wont happen in a million years.
Actually Ava, true blood is based on a book that came out before twilight.
Neither of them are copies of each other.
I love Buffy and Twilight!
I use to be completely obsessed with Buffy in High school, and I think thats why there are so many people who “fell in love” with the vampire/high school girl story. Sure its not anthing new, but I love both of these stories none the less…
I used to watch Buffy and I liked it, but I wasn’t sickly addicted to it, meaning I wouldn’t die or look forward to the next episode. I haven’t seen True Blood, but it doesn’t draw me to it. To me, nothing is like Twilight. NOTHING has grasped me and has no intentions of letting me go like Twilight has. I don’t want it to let me go either…
I like True Blood because it appeals to me on 3 different levels… It’s about Vampires, it’s set in Louisiana, and Rene has THE accent. It’s swooninducing for me, a simple cajun girl. I love Twilight hard core like, it’s my deepest obsession. I never was a fan of buffy though…
I was a fan of Buffy when it was on t.v. but wasn’t a hard core fan of it. I find it kind of interesting that no one has mentioned 30 Days of Night. It was mentioned in MTV’s article. I happen to liked that movie and graphic novels. Its dirty and gritty and way against the norm. I really like True Blood and the Sookie series. It’s got similarities to Twilight but Charlaine makes her stories come to life with its uniqueness. But, I have to admit, Twilight is my favorite out of them all! I would have to say it is the love story factor of Twilight that reeled me in.
I love buffy. that was an amazing show!!! i am a hard core buffy and twilight fan. i love them both!!!
I agree w/what Ana said, I’m exactly the same way… I am truly Twilight Addicted, unlike w/any other book or movie ever before… and I’m loving it!
I will take a lot of heat for this…but early Buffy and Angel was pretty good. Very intense, sad,emotional, passionate and everyone rooted for them to get together. They had onscreen intensity. It is yet to be seen if Eddie and Bells will have the same spark.
I was addicted to the Twilight novels until I discovered Charlaine Harris’s “Dead Until Dark” series (which the True Blood series is based upon) and I have been obsessed with those ever since. It’s not just teenage girls who are drawn to this lit; I am a mother of 3, and must say that the Harris novels are NOT appropriate for teenage girls. But for an older audience, they offer so much. They are incredibly sexy, funny, entertaining, and captivating. The HBO series is doing a lot to enhance the story–because of the nature of the first person perspective in the books, Alan Ball has a lot of room to develop lesser character story lines and it is so fun to see. I think that is the mark of a successful medium shift. Who wants to see the *exact* same story in film? Yes, I know, fans will complain, but I think Ball is a visionary (I’m also a fan of 6 feet Under), the cast is incredible, the story is just as captivating and he gives it another dimension to enjoy it in. Bravo!! Bring on the vamps
I also was a fan of Buffy when it was on T.V., however, after all these years, I can still put in the DVD and watch the show and get addicted over and over again… pretty awesome show
I was absolutely addicted to Buffy. The chemistry between her and Angel was very intense. I can’t push myself to watch Twilight, but I recently started watching Trueblood and it is great. When I first started watching Trueblood I did think of Buffy though. Buffy/Angel were the original love story.
I loved buffy when it was on; it was really different, creative and had some of the most amazing dialogues ever, and i still think it’s a one of a kind today. On comparision between true blood and twilight, i would have to say true blood. True blood has this very real and gritty quality about it that just draws you in. While twilight sometimes just makes me cringe out of the cheesiness, albeit very sweet romance of bella and edward. I just hope they give us more eric northman who actually has some really good storylines in the book.
Well, i loved buffy in high school… they are after all, the original edward and bella. i absolutely love twilight now, i love the books more so than the movie. i think a lot of really important stuff was left out, but it was all in all, nice to see some of my favorite parts come to life on the big screen. as far as true blood, i love that one too. i watch it religiously every week (when its airing) i cant get enough of it either. i’d say i love it about as much as twilight, but in a different way. twilight was meant for the young adult audience… pre teens and teens… tweens and older women i think just loved the romance of it really. as to where, trublood is meant for adults. i feel like they both meet my needs. i was a little disapointed that there wasnt more physical things in twilight, but i understood why. but, with trueblood, i get the more physical stuff. they both have great story lines… and have the romace factor… i’m a sucker for romance (as i’m sure all the fans are) but i do feel like trueblood has a lot more action than twilight. there is always something going on there. with twilight, you get all the romance you want, which i do love. and then with trueblood, you get the romance, and the action. i dunno. use to when people thought of vampires, they thought of the ones like in 30 days of night… interview with a vampire… you know? and in trueblood i feel like you get the best of both worlds. the classic views of vampires, and the more modern views. i dunnno, i really just think i love them both pretty equally.