Ooh, I know Frank Langella! By which I mean, I know who he is, and I met him once and he was very nice. He was really really really good in "Match", which was a short-lived Broadway play that I liked even if the reviews were mixed.
I am sure as I think about it that women were written as vampires because vampires were already perceived as sexy but evil and dangerous, rather than the other way around. LeFanu wrote, well, vampire stories - almost exclusively, I believe, and I think he also *slightly* predated Stoker, but - am I remembering any of this correctly at all? - there was a boom in vampire fiction in the Victorian period and slightly before, which is when both of them were writing. Which makes sense, because I think it also coincided with a boom in Gothic fiction? I don't know, I could be making that last part up.
It makes sense on some level that vampires would be perceived as sexy... the threat that they present is, as octobr31st pointed out, portrayed as dangerously refined. They *seduce* their victims; even in the instances when they aren't seducing them sexually, they draw them close with a sort of menacing charisma. And then the actual neck-biting is a form of penetration, of course. Then when they're done, they've "brought you over"; there's a mixing of blood and identity there which is also pretty symbolic of sex. I 'unno.
Goddammit, now I really do have to ask chavvah about this. I'm messed up on the history, and this stuff is what she's studying.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2005-07-27 02:52 pm (UTC)I am sure as I think about it that women were written as vampires because vampires were already perceived as sexy but evil and dangerous, rather than the other way around. LeFanu wrote, well, vampire stories - almost exclusively, I believe, and I think he also *slightly* predated Stoker, but - am I remembering any of this correctly at all? - there was a boom in vampire fiction in the Victorian period and slightly before, which is when both of them were writing. Which makes sense, because I think it also coincided with a boom in Gothic fiction? I don't know, I could be making that last part up.
It makes sense on some level that vampires would be perceived as sexy... the threat that they present is, as
Goddammit, now I really do have to ask