Enough with the sexy vampires

I’ve never been very interested in vampires, as a kid I never found them very scary and as an adult I never found them very sexy. It seems the attraction to the genre comes from one of those two (often with a sprinkling of fascination for immortality, which I also find intriguing but authors rarely have a good way of going about it). Most modern authors have completely leaned away from the scary vampire and into the sexy one.

In ‘Interview with a Vampire’, the concept of vampirism is used to highlight the homoerotic relationship between Louis and the male characters Lestat and later Armand. The emotion is barely never explicitly stated (I mean, Lestat turned Claudia to be their ‘daughter’ and Madeleine was turned by Claudia basically as a replacement for Louis’ attraction to Armand), but its close to being stated when viewed as a part of the vampirism.

The connection between vampires is often very erotic feeling, even if they never have sex. Even the character of the 5-year-old girl (Claudia) and Louis’ relationship sometimes feels very erotic (which is odd, considering the Claudia is inspired by Rice’s dead daughter). Note I call the relationships erotic and not sexual, I think Rice did this on purpose so she’d have plausible deniability against anyone saying she sexualized the relationships. Just barely she (and her readers) canvc claim all the relationships are platonic but ‘close’. I’ve read many middle age women readers (and viewers of the film) using this, claiming theres no subtext. Which yeah, okaaaay. But reading the books or seeing the movies (thought its been years since I’ve seen the movie) its pretty obvious that she’s leaning into the erotism of vampirism.

I do have some issues with Anne Rice and sexuality, specifically homosexuality, mainly because her erotic literature is pretty… suspect. A lot of rape and slave kinks. Both in the het and gay relationships. Yikes. This book to me sort of reads like a repressed version of her erotic stuff, which made it harder to take some of the deeper meanings seriously. I felt the mentality that makes her write the unfortunate erotic literature still exists in a veiled way in her non-erotic literature.

The movie ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’ was a LOT more interesting to me, because of the way the film maker used vampirism as a way to basically ‘reclaim the night’. The vampirism became less of a sexual/erotic thing and more of something feral. The Girl had a lot of power, she became a predator. Every scene she was on scene you felt her danger, but it was a sexual danger, which made it all the more intriguing. Her moments with the male main character were sensual, and had an undertone of danger (because up until the end, you never knew if she would kill him or not) but it felt more like the vampirism was the knife in the sleeve for a woman who lives in a world where she is constantly at risk of sexual assault. It felt like power fantasy in a different way ‘Interview with a Vampire’ did. In ‘Interview’, the victims of the vampires are prostitutes, black slaves (being preyed on by their masters! Ew!), and people the vampires wish to spend eternity with. Easy targets. It feels like the power fantasy comes from using power that already exists and just dumping fantasy on top. This has a bad feeling knowing the author writes porn about slavery and rape.

In ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’ the ‘victims are the people WITH power (with the exception of the homeless man The Girl attacks in a quick scene, a scene I personally think goes against the purpose of the film). The victims are the ones who spend the story scaring and terrorizing others. The power trip for this is that so many women wish they had a defense against the night. Even the title, ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’, creates a sense of fear for women. A girl walking home alone at night is a assaulted girl. A dead girl.

But in the film, she is the threat! She is the one to fear! She’s a predator and a threat, but only to those who try and hurt weaker people.

It’s a take on vampirism that I’ve not seen before and I would love more stories like it, I might find myself more interesting in the genre if that was the case. Less using the trope of vampirism as a thinly-veiled sexual symbol (something it seems really religious authors do— authors like Rice and Meyers— thats a interesting trend that should be explored). More vampirism as a tool to give weaker people power.

Is the Heroes Journey Overused?

As a film major and a creative writing minor, I have gone over the Heroes Journey SO. MANY. TIMES. Every version of it, and a few remixes (The Heroines Journey exists apparently). Now, I’ve never read the ‘Lord of the Rings’ books, but I’ve seen the films, and I’ve never seen ‘the Hobbit’ films, but I’ve now read ‘the Hobbit’.

Tolkien’s work follows the Heroic Journey like the formula was written for him. In ‘The Hobbit’, the first part of the Journey (the ordinary world, the call to adventure, the refusal of the call, the meeting the mentor, the crossing the threshold) are all pretty clearly laid out. The call is Gandalf (and the dwarves) asking Bilbo to join him, the refusal is Bilbo refusing to sign the contract, the mentor is Gandalf, the crossing is Bilbo running after the dwarves, etc. The ordinary world is the Shire and Bilbo’s home and the new world is the rest of the world.

The tests are mainly all the mini-quests that show Bilbo becoming the burglar that Gandalf and the dwarves were hoping him to become. Him stealing the ring from Gollum is what cements this part of him.

The coming back around is the hint of him being able to go back to the Shire and being accepted by all of the dwarves and as a part of the group.

The other smaller parts of the Journey are represented as well, and there really aren’t very many parts of the circle that aren’t in some way representing in this story.

On the topic of the Heroes Journey, there are some people who say every story fits this mould (they don’t) or that every good story needs to fit this mould (they don’t). Usually, my favorite stories are the ones that don’t fit it so closely, or that don’t fit it barely at all. I think the Call to Adventure part is the one most stories fit, because generally you want to see a main character go through change and we have to understand them before the story starts. That being said, there are a lot of good stories that start with a character who is either already a part of the other world who we just learn about their call to adventure or who willingly accept the call to adventure.

I’m always concerned when the Heroes Journey is taught like an end-all be-all of storytelling, because you should NOT try and write a story to fit a step-by-step method like this. At most, you should aim for the ‘exposition, rising action, climax, falling action’ mould. Anything like the Heroes Journey is VERY limiting, and it why there are so many fantasy stories that are forgettable. They are trying to tell a story by putting it through a writers ad-lib instead of just writing a story the way it feels right and possibly hitting some of these points by accident.

‘The Hobbit’ was unintersting because of how many times I’ve seen it and the Heroes Journey ripped off. And while both were original at some point, because I never read it while I was young or before I saw the things inspired by it, it now just feels cliche.

Asian vs Western Horror: What Makes a Story Scary?

I’ve seen a few of the asian horror films, such as ‘a Tale of Two Sisters’ (and its American remake, ‘the Uninvited’) and one thing I find interesting when putting the films side by side is how horror is portrayed. Asian horror films are often.. softer, I suppose? There aren’t jump scares and the focus is more on the relationships between the people. In western media, we lean heavily on jump-scares. We want more of the fear in the moment than the longer lasting uncomfortable feeling that comes from Asian horror. The reveal in 'a Tale of Two Sisters' is MUCH different from the way it's revealed in 'The Uninvited' despite them being the exact same reveal.

For instance, in ‘Pulse’ the shot of the ghost peering over the couch struck me as just as terrifying as anything in western movies, BUT the way they showed it was much different. Particularly in the music and cutting. In a western movie, that shot would have been a hard cut to the face already over the couch, accompanied by some very loud and dramatic noise meant to force the viewer to jump. In ‘Pulse’ it was instead a slow reveal of the face, and the music odd and creepy rising vocals. ‘The Woman of the Snow’ did similar things. Obviously, some films don’t follow these trends (for instance, the American home invasion film ‘The Strangers’ almost never uses musical cues when the baddies are on screen or in the background, and yet somehow makes the moments all the more terrifying) but it is interesting just how different the styles are.

In the written versions of 'Kwaidan', ‘The Story of Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi’ wasn’t really scary by western ideals. Asian stories often seems to have spirits being grey area, similarly to how older mythologies showed their gods. In this short story, the spirits just wanted Hoichi to play for them, but then once he stopped they wanted to tear him apart? Generally, not 'evil' like how we usually portray sprits in western stories. ‘Diplomacy’ it read more like a joke, with a punchline and everything. Only the fact that it involves death and the possibility of a ghost being enough to call it a horror, I suppose? ‘Of a Mirror and a Bell’ also felt more like an oral story, jumping around quite a bit.

Overall, the horror stories we read felt more like a piece of mythology than a story meant to scare. Or at least, not to scare in the Western sense. We usually consider scary stories as something that keeps us up at night and makes us look over our shoulders. Something more active. A serial murder breaking into your house, a vengeful ghost inhabiting the house you just moved into, a demon possessing your child to ruin your life. Written Asian horror stories (at least the ones we read for class) often seem more passive, just unfortunate people who cross the paths of random sprits and make it out alive by some odd series of events. Truly, they have more in common to me to Greek myths then to American horror films.

I should note, there is a possibility that the age of these horror stories are why they aren’t as scary, because conceptually the newer Asian films I’ve seen are deficiently scarier ('Pulse' had it's moments and everyone knows 'The Grudge' is just as intense as it's American counterpart). I know of at least one modern Asian horror writer whose work has left me terrified. Junji Ito, who creates horror mangaka. I wouldn’t say his work scares like a western story would, but they have the ability to unsettle like any horror should. They have the tone of some of the Asian stories, but the body horror that usually comes from some western stories (but also without the gorey-ness of western stories?) BUT the content is more like the Asian horror stories we've read. Grey-area spirits, unexplained natural phenomena, and reading a bit like a cautionary tale. Basically, I think that his work may be a better representation of modern Asian horror than something like ‘Kwaidan’.

The Social Outcasts and the Witches

Historically, women (and men) who were called witches were those who weren’t ‘normal’ or who refused to go with the status quo.

The single, old women who spoke their minds, the people who didn’t stay involved with the local community. Often these people were the easy targets when the witch hunts would start. I doubt many of them (at least in european cultures) were actually in anyway practicing witchcraft, but they were the ones being burnt for it.

In a lot of cases in Europe, witchcraft was the accusation thrown on anyone who didn’t participate in Christianity the same way that the rest of the group did, or as a way to scare populations to change their beliefs during times of reformation. If you look at the statistics of people who were accused and tried for witchcraft throughout human history, the majority of the people accused were lower class women, two modern historians claimed: “[the] typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural laborer or small tenant farmer, and she was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature."

Particularly interesting to me is how in history, being different is what causes people to be accused of witchcraft. In 'Akata Witch', the author leans into this, and uses it to give the witches their power. Sunny is albino, and struggles for it. But this albinism alludes to her true ability, making it a narrative reclamation of her differences. Orlu’s dyslexia suggests his powers (something other authors, such as Rick Riordan, have done as well), Chichi lives in a run down shack and is poor (by choice, but still), and Sugar Creams scoliosis alludes to her shapeshifting. In short, what makes them different makes them powerful. A marginalized group narratively retaking something that society says makes them less and making it their power. Even the title does this. Akata is seen as a slur (in the real world too), but it is made into the title.

It’s an interesting take on the archetype of the witch, taking the things that historically killed them and making them their strength. There’s also something to be said by applying this narrative choice to a real world marginalized group (something 'Percy Jackson' sometimes did and 'Harry Potter' never did enough for me).

Historically, women attempting to gain power— or even just women who don’t fit to the current power structure— are made into witches and killed. In 'Akata Witch', they are made into witches and that keeps them alive.