Those dark, messy vampires...
Oct. 30th, 2010 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wishusThis is more of a thought-piece than a proper essay … (my excuse for vagueness).
I heard from an old friend last weekend, who’d chanced across a review of one of my stories and sent congratulations, which was very thoughtful of him. I haven’t seen said review, but there is an online blog referring to it, as it was in Black Static. What I was particularly intrigued by is this teaser statement from the tta blog:
Interestingly, out of the all the anthologies that I reviewed in Black Static #19, these were the only ones that had more female than male contributors, suggesting either that vampire fiction is a subgenre that appeals particularly to women writers or that women writers appeal more to these particular editors (as far as I can tell Evolve was open to submissions, but there was an element of 'by invitation' to The Bitten Word). I'll leave wiser eyes than mine to read the signs.
Okay, I’ll have a go at deciphering… and I think I find a question: is vampire fiction a subgenre that appeals particularly to women writers?
We’re playing Family Fortunes. I’ll be Vernon Kaye (shiny teeth)! Can you name a writer known for vampire fiction? Our survey says… well, top answer is probably going to be Bram Stoker, and these days, Stephanie Meyer has to be close to top too. Ooh, one of each. But who else?
Consulting my essential guide to vampiric fiction by Christopher Frayling, when Bram Stoker was writing at the end of the 19th Century, he was coming in following another boom time for the vampire in literature: Polidori and derivatives with their Satanic vampires; ‘fatal women’ like Lefanu’s Camilla; weird, invisible forces and Russian folk-vampires revitalized by the likes of Tolstoy – there were plenty of vampires about.
Stoker’s vampire really captured the public imagination, and in the 20th Century, its popularity was reinforced first by stage, then film interpretations. We got variations on Hollywood themes to follow: Hammer Horror picked up on a lot of the 19th Century tropes, but I imagine most people would not be aware of the enormous literary provenance behind these images that they may be more familiar with. But, back to the 19th Century, there was – as one writer has recently described the new wave of ‘fangbangers’ – a ‘glut’ of vampires in fiction – some of it more high-brow than others. Nothing new under the sun… or not under the sun, if you know what I mean…
But these days, it’s all different isn’t it? Vampires are now so popular that they’ve practically got their own shelf-space in Waterstones under ‘Dark Romance’ – all with those black and purple covers, and all of them authored by women, crowding in poor Mike Shevdon, there, with his urban fantasy books.
As labels go, this ‘dark romance’ one is both a help and a hindrance to encouraging newcomers to the dark chocolate box of vampiric fiction. It’s that word: ‘romance’. Humans tend to respond quite subconsciously to words, and give them certain associations. Ian McEwen found this with Enduring Love - fewer men were prepared to read a book with the word ‘love’ in the title, according to Mslexia. So, to market vampiric fiction as ‘dark romance’ is to say something very specific about the content that you want to use to influence a purchase.
‘Dark romance’ sits between horror and fantasy, and largely features a lot of female-authored vampiric fiction of a certain type. Well, they are there because they sell… because teenage girls want something to read when they’ve done with Twilight… because that’s the fashion: untouchable, troubled, cool boys with fangs.
As a seasoned aficionado of the Gothic, I don’t particularly want to read derivative, bad fiction any more than some of the decriers of the latest fad of fangbangers (‘semi-porn’, as another writer recently described it. Well, even Stoker has its erotic moments, though perhaps Dracula is more about the abhorrence of sex than the thrill of anticipation). However, there’s probably nothing very wrong with giving it a go (reading, not sex. Actually, sex as well); it doesn’t do any harm and it keeps the kids reading (definitely reading and not sex). After all, everyone reads trash from time to time and enjoys it. I used to like the Sweet Valley High books before I read the likes of Wuthering Heights or I Capture the Castle. Oh – and Wuthering Heights has sold four times as many copies this past year, simply because it got a mention in Twilight Next reads = good! It’s also worth pointing out that not every work of this kind is by necessity bad. And badness is subjective anyway.
So is this attraction to vampires a recent phenomenon for girls? I think to an extent you can argue this – for the sheer numbers in any case – but there is something about the subtle or not so subtle questioning about sexuality that has always appealed, especially to young novel readers… who are mostly girls after all. To succumb to vampirism is the ultimate taboo; that last vestige for potential of lost virginity… which hangs, and hangs and hangs with the latest teenage fare, to the point where the tension is no more in question. It is also an alien ‘other’ sexuality, and it’s this questioning about sexuality which keenly appeals to people who are basically just growing up… and those nostalgic for those innocent times.
Ah, the first time… it can be gory, it can be painful… you can be led astray by someone who knows too much about things that do you no good. Dangerous! Exciting! And… er, was that it? Not pregnant, not infected… not ruined for your future husband… to our modern sensibilities, there’s just so much less at stake with ordinary sex. So, yes, vampires! And werewolves sometimes, but we’re not too keen on the hair.
I have devoured lots of Gothic fiction since my teen years. As for the modern vampires, I had read Angela Carter and Storm Constantine before I read the 90s doyenne of vampirism – Anne Rice. I loved the deliberate coldness in the characterization of Tanith Lee’s Blood Opera books, and later discovered the complex and intriguing trilogy of Blood Wine books by Freda Warrington… I liked the various treatments these writers gave us of vampires (Anne Rice should have kept her editor, mind), though all had some element of romance either featuring quite prominently or sneaking in at the edges. However, if you compare the dynamics of the relationships between the vampire/human or vampire/vampire romances in the works of these authors and Stephanie Meyer’s books, there is a difference: the relationship between Bella and Edward is what Fword writer Caitlin Brown describes as “retrograde” one. She argues that TV (with Buffy) has subverted this dynamic to give strong female characters, but that novels have not. I agree, as many female vampire characters: Claudia, Akasha, The Lady of the House of Love all achieve vampiric power and skills (hunting; psychic powers; longevity) but are ultimately disempowered or vanquished as punishment for trying to reach beyond their place. Still, they are not dancing to the same tune as Bella: Edward’s sometime sycophant. The Lady tries to work against fate, while Anne Rice’s vampires are not exactly reactive creatures.
In fact, I disagree with Caitlin Brown when she writes: “Meyer’s insistence on perpetuating a power imbalance in her novels means that any claim she may eventually have to feminism in the texts is entirely shot to hell.” Power imbalances are for kicking against. If it were Meyer’s intention to inspire her readers to think and achieve things for themselves, then it only seems right that she should show them a protagonist they can identify with at the beginning. We can’t all be kick-ass from the word go.
What does concern me is that the things Bella strives for seem so… shallow. I don’t know if this is a huge problem (at least one of the SVH twins was a swot), but it’s like she’s following a lead… she’s a WAG, a wannabe X-factor contestant singing karaoke love ballads. It’s only reflective of our current culture, but that doesn’t mean I’m entirely comfortable with it.
When we think about all the things a vampire character can be, ‘romantic lead’ is only one possibility: a damned soul; a creature stripped of humanity; psychotic killer; an accumulator of wisdom; hunter; prey; stunted child; shapeshifter; addict; monster… You only need to watch Let the Right One In to see what can be done, so powerfully… and yet the romance is still there to an extent (enthralled human, manipulative vampire?).
I don’t doubt that the writers are out there producing a more challenging type of vampire fiction. The same goes for urban fantasy in general. In a recent comment to Torque Control’s post about the lack of numbers of women being published in science fiction, Richard Morgan made a comment that male writers just don’t want to write urban fantasy – but he is wrong: I know of several brilliant male writers of urban fantasy that have found it tricky to get picked up by the bigger publishing houses, and I can’t help but think it’s because those publishers can’t fit them to the new mould. We are tailgating Twilight now. As for vampires, I struggle to think who is getting novels published from the boys beyond Tom Holland and Simon Clark these days, as Dan Simmons seems to have made the transition to sf.
Market forces do have an effect on the direction that writers take, and romantic vampires beget romantic vampires, as we keep falling for those bad boy-blurbs. The ‘horror’ aspect is becoming diluted though, just as the shelf-space for horror in the shops is narrowing. But what I will take as a positive is that anthologies such as The Bitten Word did give us writers the chance to do something a bit different with the idea of the vampire.
Peter Tennant followed up his blog with an analysis of the gender of contributors to various horror anthologies. He concludes that for women to be better represented, the editor must be female, or the theme one of vampires, “a subgenre in which women are often strongly represented. In fact two of the three titles with more than half female complement were vampire themed.” Indeed The Bitten Word had the most women contributors at 59%, and yet the numbers are really closer to parity than absolute dominance. Flip that round, and it’s the least number of men – at 41%, still a lot more than the number of women in 14 of those 17 anthologies.
I think it’s important to remember that it wasn’t always thus: back in the 19th Century, there were not many female writers of vampiric fiction – there was Mary Elizabeth Braddon and I can’t think who else. I can’t help but pick up on a resonance that vampires are now a ‘women’s thing’, as far as publishers and marketers are concerned, and to a large extent now the reading public. It’s not, but with the saturation of the cultural material available for consumers to digest being overtaken by products aimed at tweenage girls, it’s a repeated message that now seems to be drawing this subliminal association to the vampire. And of course, by ‘women’s thing’ I mean vapid, uncomplicated, messy, emotional… and worst of all, not scary . Except, I don’t – that would be a lot of blokes who write comments at the bottom of articles like these.
My plea is to keep kicking against the imbalance - all of you.
Anyway, I’m off to work on some sf now.
I heard from an old friend last weekend, who’d chanced across a review of one of my stories and sent congratulations, which was very thoughtful of him. I haven’t seen said review, but there is an online blog referring to it, as it was in Black Static. What I was particularly intrigued by is this teaser statement from the tta blog:
Interestingly, out of the all the anthologies that I reviewed in Black Static #19, these were the only ones that had more female than male contributors, suggesting either that vampire fiction is a subgenre that appeals particularly to women writers or that women writers appeal more to these particular editors (as far as I can tell Evolve was open to submissions, but there was an element of 'by invitation' to The Bitten Word). I'll leave wiser eyes than mine to read the signs.
Okay, I’ll have a go at deciphering… and I think I find a question: is vampire fiction a subgenre that appeals particularly to women writers?
We’re playing Family Fortunes. I’ll be Vernon Kaye (shiny teeth)! Can you name a writer known for vampire fiction? Our survey says… well, top answer is probably going to be Bram Stoker, and these days, Stephanie Meyer has to be close to top too. Ooh, one of each. But who else?
Consulting my essential guide to vampiric fiction by Christopher Frayling, when Bram Stoker was writing at the end of the 19th Century, he was coming in following another boom time for the vampire in literature: Polidori and derivatives with their Satanic vampires; ‘fatal women’ like Lefanu’s Camilla; weird, invisible forces and Russian folk-vampires revitalized by the likes of Tolstoy – there were plenty of vampires about.
Stoker’s vampire really captured the public imagination, and in the 20th Century, its popularity was reinforced first by stage, then film interpretations. We got variations on Hollywood themes to follow: Hammer Horror picked up on a lot of the 19th Century tropes, but I imagine most people would not be aware of the enormous literary provenance behind these images that they may be more familiar with. But, back to the 19th Century, there was – as one writer has recently described the new wave of ‘fangbangers’ – a ‘glut’ of vampires in fiction – some of it more high-brow than others. Nothing new under the sun… or not under the sun, if you know what I mean…
But these days, it’s all different isn’t it? Vampires are now so popular that they’ve practically got their own shelf-space in Waterstones under ‘Dark Romance’ – all with those black and purple covers, and all of them authored by women, crowding in poor Mike Shevdon, there, with his urban fantasy books.
As labels go, this ‘dark romance’ one is both a help and a hindrance to encouraging newcomers to the dark chocolate box of vampiric fiction. It’s that word: ‘romance’. Humans tend to respond quite subconsciously to words, and give them certain associations. Ian McEwen found this with Enduring Love - fewer men were prepared to read a book with the word ‘love’ in the title, according to Mslexia. So, to market vampiric fiction as ‘dark romance’ is to say something very specific about the content that you want to use to influence a purchase.
‘Dark romance’ sits between horror and fantasy, and largely features a lot of female-authored vampiric fiction of a certain type. Well, they are there because they sell… because teenage girls want something to read when they’ve done with Twilight… because that’s the fashion: untouchable, troubled, cool boys with fangs.
As a seasoned aficionado of the Gothic, I don’t particularly want to read derivative, bad fiction any more than some of the decriers of the latest fad of fangbangers (‘semi-porn’, as another writer recently described it. Well, even Stoker has its erotic moments, though perhaps Dracula is more about the abhorrence of sex than the thrill of anticipation). However, there’s probably nothing very wrong with giving it a go (reading, not sex. Actually, sex as well); it doesn’t do any harm and it keeps the kids reading (definitely reading and not sex). After all, everyone reads trash from time to time and enjoys it. I used to like the Sweet Valley High books before I read the likes of Wuthering Heights or I Capture the Castle. Oh – and Wuthering Heights has sold four times as many copies this past year, simply because it got a mention in Twilight Next reads = good! It’s also worth pointing out that not every work of this kind is by necessity bad. And badness is subjective anyway.
So is this attraction to vampires a recent phenomenon for girls? I think to an extent you can argue this – for the sheer numbers in any case – but there is something about the subtle or not so subtle questioning about sexuality that has always appealed, especially to young novel readers… who are mostly girls after all. To succumb to vampirism is the ultimate taboo; that last vestige for potential of lost virginity… which hangs, and hangs and hangs with the latest teenage fare, to the point where the tension is no more in question. It is also an alien ‘other’ sexuality, and it’s this questioning about sexuality which keenly appeals to people who are basically just growing up… and those nostalgic for those innocent times.
Ah, the first time… it can be gory, it can be painful… you can be led astray by someone who knows too much about things that do you no good. Dangerous! Exciting! And… er, was that it? Not pregnant, not infected… not ruined for your future husband… to our modern sensibilities, there’s just so much less at stake with ordinary sex. So, yes, vampires! And werewolves sometimes, but we’re not too keen on the hair.
I have devoured lots of Gothic fiction since my teen years. As for the modern vampires, I had read Angela Carter and Storm Constantine before I read the 90s doyenne of vampirism – Anne Rice. I loved the deliberate coldness in the characterization of Tanith Lee’s Blood Opera books, and later discovered the complex and intriguing trilogy of Blood Wine books by Freda Warrington… I liked the various treatments these writers gave us of vampires (Anne Rice should have kept her editor, mind), though all had some element of romance either featuring quite prominently or sneaking in at the edges. However, if you compare the dynamics of the relationships between the vampire/human or vampire/vampire romances in the works of these authors and Stephanie Meyer’s books, there is a difference: the relationship between Bella and Edward is what Fword writer Caitlin Brown describes as “retrograde” one. She argues that TV (with Buffy) has subverted this dynamic to give strong female characters, but that novels have not. I agree, as many female vampire characters: Claudia, Akasha, The Lady of the House of Love all achieve vampiric power and skills (hunting; psychic powers; longevity) but are ultimately disempowered or vanquished as punishment for trying to reach beyond their place. Still, they are not dancing to the same tune as Bella: Edward’s sometime sycophant. The Lady tries to work against fate, while Anne Rice’s vampires are not exactly reactive creatures.
In fact, I disagree with Caitlin Brown when she writes: “Meyer’s insistence on perpetuating a power imbalance in her novels means that any claim she may eventually have to feminism in the texts is entirely shot to hell.” Power imbalances are for kicking against. If it were Meyer’s intention to inspire her readers to think and achieve things for themselves, then it only seems right that she should show them a protagonist they can identify with at the beginning. We can’t all be kick-ass from the word go.
What does concern me is that the things Bella strives for seem so… shallow. I don’t know if this is a huge problem (at least one of the SVH twins was a swot), but it’s like she’s following a lead… she’s a WAG, a wannabe X-factor contestant singing karaoke love ballads. It’s only reflective of our current culture, but that doesn’t mean I’m entirely comfortable with it.
When we think about all the things a vampire character can be, ‘romantic lead’ is only one possibility: a damned soul; a creature stripped of humanity; psychotic killer; an accumulator of wisdom; hunter; prey; stunted child; shapeshifter; addict; monster… You only need to watch Let the Right One In to see what can be done, so powerfully… and yet the romance is still there to an extent (enthralled human, manipulative vampire?).
I don’t doubt that the writers are out there producing a more challenging type of vampire fiction. The same goes for urban fantasy in general. In a recent comment to Torque Control’s post about the lack of numbers of women being published in science fiction, Richard Morgan made a comment that male writers just don’t want to write urban fantasy – but he is wrong: I know of several brilliant male writers of urban fantasy that have found it tricky to get picked up by the bigger publishing houses, and I can’t help but think it’s because those publishers can’t fit them to the new mould. We are tailgating Twilight now. As for vampires, I struggle to think who is getting novels published from the boys beyond Tom Holland and Simon Clark these days, as Dan Simmons seems to have made the transition to sf.
Market forces do have an effect on the direction that writers take, and romantic vampires beget romantic vampires, as we keep falling for those bad boy-blurbs. The ‘horror’ aspect is becoming diluted though, just as the shelf-space for horror in the shops is narrowing. But what I will take as a positive is that anthologies such as The Bitten Word did give us writers the chance to do something a bit different with the idea of the vampire.
Peter Tennant followed up his blog with an analysis of the gender of contributors to various horror anthologies. He concludes that for women to be better represented, the editor must be female, or the theme one of vampires, “a subgenre in which women are often strongly represented. In fact two of the three titles with more than half female complement were vampire themed.” Indeed The Bitten Word had the most women contributors at 59%, and yet the numbers are really closer to parity than absolute dominance. Flip that round, and it’s the least number of men – at 41%, still a lot more than the number of women in 14 of those 17 anthologies.
I think it’s important to remember that it wasn’t always thus: back in the 19th Century, there were not many female writers of vampiric fiction – there was Mary Elizabeth Braddon and I can’t think who else. I can’t help but pick up on a resonance that vampires are now a ‘women’s thing’, as far as publishers and marketers are concerned, and to a large extent now the reading public. It’s not, but with the saturation of the cultural material available for consumers to digest being overtaken by products aimed at tweenage girls, it’s a repeated message that now seems to be drawing this subliminal association to the vampire. And of course, by ‘women’s thing’ I mean vapid, uncomplicated, messy, emotional… and worst of all, not scary . Except, I don’t – that would be a lot of blokes who write comments at the bottom of articles like these.
My plea is to keep kicking against the imbalance - all of you.
Anyway, I’m off to work on some sf now.
