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• Why so many vampires?

The other evening, I came home to two of my roommates tranced by the movie Twilight. What is with everyone’s infatuation with vampires? I haven’t seen such an aggressive pop culture obsession since the boy band years. At least Justin Timberlake is a member of the human breed. To me, girls drooling over vampires is just as absurd as being attracted to fictional werewolves or aliens.

And it’s not Twilight alone that is responsible for the resurgence of vampire folklore. There is the HBO series, True Blood, which has been just as guilty of tapping into this awkward genre of “paranormal romance” as Twilight. Then there was the thriller 30 Days of Night with Josh Hartnett following a more conventional vampire horror storyline and now a new feature, Daybreakers is on it’s way to the big screen dealing with a world in which vampires are the majority, starving for blood as the human race becomes endangered. Oh, and what about all those books? — Anita Black’s Vampire Hunter series, Richell Mead’s Vampire Academy books and Esdaile Banks’ Vampire Huntress Legends.

Why so many vampires? Last week I read a strange article in Esquire by Stephen Marche going as far to state that the vampire obsession is tapping into teenage girls’ desire for homosexual men claiming that “vampire fiction for young women ... create(s) an atmosphere of sexual abandon that is nonthreatening.” He draws parallels with the love story in Twilight, likening the character Edward to marginalized teenage homosexuals. Farfetched? Probably. He also notices how True Blood more explicitly foils pointing out that the opening credits includes a shot of a road sign reading “God Hates Fangs” and the series opens with a talk-show interview about vampires “coming out of the coffin” and “mainstreaming.” A little more convincing, but it’s a strange argument.

While I’m convinced that Vampires aren’t gay, I do think as the media pushes them to be less gothic and more like normal people, along comes some strange romantic undertone that is fusing with vampire fiction. It kind of creeps me out, but I guess that’s what vampires are supposed to do.