House of R - Tropes Course: Vampires

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

This is the pod of a killer, Bella! Joanna is joined by friends and vampire experts Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs to give you an intensive tropes course on vampires (07:32). From ‘Twilight’ to ‘Dracula’ and familiars to fatal attractions, they are here to teach you everything you need to know about the eternal creatures of the night that are seen throughout fiction. Host: Joanna Robinson Guests: Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about the launch of our new YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. You can follow us right now on YouTube at Ringer Movies to get full video episodes of the rewatchables and the big picture. Plus, a lot of our archives with much more coming soon. To celebrate the launch, we're going live on Monday, May 13th at noon Pacific with our first ever live rewatchables with me and Sean Fennessee and Chris Ryan and Vian Lathen. Follow Ringer Movies on YouTube. don't miss at YouTube.com slash ringer movies.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com. slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to by weather tech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways. Catchup goes rogue ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing. Summer. Visit weathertech.com today. You heard about the dead guy, right? The dead guy in the locker? Yes. Because it's the weirdest thing.

He's got two little little holes in his neck and all his blood's been drained. Isn't that bizarre? Aren't you just going ooh? Is he, will he rise again? Who? The boy? No. He's just dead.

Can you be sure? To make you a vampire, they have to suck your blood. and then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly, they're just going to kill you. House of R, I'm Joanna Robinson. It is my absolute thrill and honor to introduce two very special guests today

for our all-vampire, all-the-time episode of House of R. Joining me today, they are, like, dear, dear friends of mine, co-hosts of Boffering the Vampire Slayer, of tremendous podcast. Current co-hosts of The X-Files podcast, it is Jenny Owen Young's and Kristen Rousseau. Hi. Oh my gosh. Hi, Joanna.

Hello. Hello. If you're listening to this podcast, you're like, wait, I thought I heard a rumor that Mallory Rubin was going to be here today. That was the rumor. And then Mallory was like, guess what? I don't know too much about vampires. Maybe you should talk to some people who do.

And guess what? I know a couple people who know a lot about vampires. Mallory will be listening to this podcast, and by the end of it, she will also know a lot about vampires. Let me just say, though, if you're like, listen, it's promised a Mallory and Joanna episode. I demand a Mallory and Joanna episode. Guess what? There's going to be three Mallory and Joanna episodes next week, three of them. One is very special surprise that I can't even talk about.

I can't even talk about it. Not even to you, not even to the people in this room. I can't talk about it to surprise. But then also we'll be covering the X-Men 97 finale. and also the Game of Thrones fifth anniversary of the series finale. I would like to check in with you, Jenny Owen Young. Does I feel like it's been five years? It feels like it's been five minutes and also 35 years.

Correct. Kristen, any sense of time that you would like to reflect upon? Yeah, no, I feel identically. I agree with that assessment. We have a very, very, very, very serious and academic, important vampire update to get to right now, which is the announcement we made on the pod earlier this week that we heard that Count Chocula was discontinued and we couldn't get it anywhere. And then we got a bunch of emails from listeners who were saying, hey, dummy, it's a seasonal affair. You can get it every Halloween.

Is that right, Kristen? What do you know about Count Chocula? No, no, I panicked that we couldn't get it anymore. And then as soon as you said that, I was like, oh, that makes sense. I can like remember Halloween-specific commercials, limited editions. I ate a box just this very October. Yes. Hold up.

I thought you were going to say this very day. And I was like, yeah, me too. Got all juiced up on sugar and vampire. So listen, a lot of you wrote in to say, fact check, that's incorrect. But more crucially, one of our listeners wrote in to say, hey, I have this unopened box from my pantry. And the expiration date is not too long ago. Would you care to risk it? Yes.

So thanks too bad. Bad Baby Kenny has put a box in the mail for us and I'll be in L.A. next week. So Mallory and I will be eating some count chocula together probably on camera for some reason next week in Los Angeles. I've never had some slightly stale count chocula. I never had count chocula. So this will be my first count experience. Jenny has a recent imbibir. It rips.

It still rips. It ripped when I was a kid and it. really holds up. What is the, what is the, like, count chocolate is another cereal that is just made chocolate, isn't it? Like, is it like kicks, but chocolate? Like, what's the base of it? It's kind of like a, like, a Lucky Charms-esque sort of thing where there's sort of like

a grain-based. Are there marshmallows? Are there marshmallows? Oh, I'm not going to like this. Okay. Well, that's coming next week. Also, speaking of the bad babies, I want to shout out our listener, Greg, who wrote in, we've got all these our listeners who are like vying for husband of the year awards and great it's

Greg's turn this this week Greg wanted us to wish Amy who's a fiancee not yet not yet the wife but the fiance a look at engagement gift just to say shout out Amy happy engagement she loves vampires Amy I hope you're enjoying this podcast happy engagement to you oh happy engagement Amy. If you want to send us life announcements, like two of our listeners getting engaged, very exciting, or boxes of cereal or whatever the case may be, you can email us at hobbes and dragons at gmail.com. We always enjoy that. Please subscribe to the pod, House of Our, wherever you get your podcast so that you can make sure not to miss, again, the very special mysterious podcast that's dropping next week that I can't even talk about it.

So secret and mysterious. And follow us on social. on Twitter, on TikTok. If you want to see what my face looks like when I eat Count Chocula, a cereal I'm sure to find disgusting for the first time, please find us on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. We're doing basically a vampire tropes course today, but mostly I just told Kristen and Jenny the prompt was, why vampires?

And they're born to answer that question. But I'm going to hit you with a very broad spoiler warning. I don't feel like we need to go into too much depth on any of these properties, but we could at some point hit upon Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Twilight, have you heard of it? The Works of Anne Rice. What we do in the shadows, both the film and the television show. Dracula, any version.

The Lost Boys. Only lovers left alive. Blade, the hunger, let the right one in. Dr. Michael Morbius. Fright Night, Dark Shadows, a girl walks home alone at night. Salem's Lot, being human, a discovery which is from dust till non, Renfield, Underworld,

Nosferatu, True Blood, the Vampire Diaries, slash the Originals. I put that last one on there just for Jenny. Nice. CW. Trash. All right. Let's get into vampires,

just broadly scope of the tropes or the way we like to start these tropes course episodes. When I say to you, Kristen Russo, what is a vampire? What is your answer? An incredibly sexy creature of the night that drinks the blood of humans sometimes because they'd like their blood to be drank and sometimes just to murder them. Jenny, anything to add any notes? Penetration, sucking slash slurping? Uh-huh.

I feel like Kristen, I would prefer if whenever you were talking about a vampire drinking human blood, you would say drinks deep of the blood of the living? Well, you're here, so I left it for you, because it's really, you know, your catchphrase. So, thank you. Sometimes they make more of their own kind from the bodies they have drained, and sometimes they don't. Depends on maybe, I don't know, hotness, general compatibility, uh, need for, you know, uh, vampire army for, you know, this task or another. often without soul, sometimes with soul, occasionally on a quest for redemption. Ah, we're going to get to redemptive arcs on vampires because we do love a character, even a vampire, on an arc.

I want to shout out the etymology of vampire. We got this input from a Czech linguist, and I don't know if there's anyone I'd rather hear from on the subject than a Czech linguist. but the source for vampire appears to be a Slovak verb, which is repeat, which means stick to thrust into. So in Czech, the archaic verb means to thrust violently. So etymology corner contains adult content, as will the rest of this podcast. When I first texted Jenny and Kristen, why vampires? Jenny's immediate hot, hot off the press's response was because they're hot. Like, that's...

Yeah. Yeah. We have a little bit more to say about it, but that's probably broad strokes, for sure. Yeah, yeah, you could stop listening right now, actually. We don't like to encourage people to stop listening to the podcast, but thank you so much, Kristen. I find reverse psychology really works, Joanna. The origin of the trope, we can, we go, there are versions of vampire. lore that go way, way back to any kind of demon you care to.

Most culture has some version of the vampire creature that has haunted them. But sort of our more modern idea of a vampire can be sourced to where else 18th century southeastern Europe, of course, the fertile crescent of vampirism. And I loved, I was listening to this. interview that Anne Rice gave this morning like you do. And she was talking about why vampires are so potently impactful on our culture. And she said, they're monsters that once were human, they can look like humans and have not so much supernatural gifts as preternatural gifts, depending on your version. So like, their lives are longer or they smell, like they can smell

things better or they can see things better or they can move faster. Like, it's not different for what humans can do. It's just better and more. Their hair is shinier. Their skin is paler. Like, whatever it is, but it is what we do but plused. Does that mean anything to you, Jenny? Do you agree with that, Anne Rice's assessment? Do you want to disagree with the Queen of Vampirism and Rice right now in a podcast? I would definitely never disagree with Anne Rice about vampism. I would say I think that, yes, those things are all like really interesting. I thought it was, it really stuck out to me that you went like, live longer, smells better. And then like faster, stronger.

I was like, Joanna's priorities, question mark. Well, I didn't mean that they like wear better cologne. I mean they can. No, no. They can smell you. Just like of all the, of all your senses to be enhanced. Like, I want. A more powerful nose, which, you know, is like, could be super valuable if you need, like, truffles or, um, blood.

You need to find blood real fast. Um, I think, I think I want to blame Stephanie Meyer for that. And also Robert Pattinson's, like, absolute, like, wretch face when he smells Bella for the first time inside of us. It is true. Listen, don't twilight into it. Then you could also say sparkles more. Yeah, you know, they all sparkle a little, but. Vampires. Keep oscillating fans out of science class is what I would say, number one. And number two,

I mean, I think there is also, yeah, like all of those things, extended life, but also eternal youth or eternal, like, wherever you were made vampire, that's kind of like the age you hang out, which is why there are so many stories about dudes who are 200, but are still like, I should re-enroll at high school again. I love high school. Over again. Kristen, do any thoughts on Vlad the Impalepaler? Often thought as like a historical... You know, so first of all, my most recent, I think,

encounter with Vlad was in the show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you know, Buffy versus Dracula. But what will surprise maybe no one, maybe everyone, is that I am just about to watch Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time. in a couple of weeks. I know. I know. I should, I probably shouldn't be on this podcast. But so I have like cultural absorption Vlad and Buffy Vlad, but I don't have, you know, the Vlad I think that is in

most of our generation's mind. There's a lot you could say about Vlad and plenty of people think Vlad has nothing to do with Dracula. So, you know, your mileage may vary entirely. I just did like this tidbit of good old Vlad who ruled in. Transylvania in the 15th century. According to legend, Vlad Dracoula enjoyed dining amidst his his dying victims and

dipping his bread in their blood. No big deal. Delicious. You know, just a little blood dip on your bread. Yeah. We just watched a I would say not that great

episode of the X-Files that centered on vampires. And They also drank blood, but they used veterinary needles and snake poison suckers to do it. And I was so angry, Joanna, because it took all of the sexiness out of the myth of the vampire for me. I think dipping bread and blood as a means of eating it retains the sexiness the vampires. I have a follow question. Yes. Can you describe a snake venom extractor?

Sucker? Yeah. That's the sign to make. So it's like this little, well, according to the X-Files, it's like a little tube that you would, if you get bit by a snake, you put it over the snake bite and you can suck the poison out. I don't really know what it does to improve. But there's like sort of a vessel inside of the cylinder that like kind of retains the poison. So like you don't. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So they basically are tossing a house where a suspected vampire lives and they find a snake bite kit. ringed with blood on the inside. And they're like, oh, well, I know what this means. Naturally. Clearly vampires must live here. Yeah, well, that takes all the sexiness out of sucking venom out of a snake bite because, you know, usually that's an excuse to get up close and personal.

And what was it? Slurp, Jenny? Was that the preferred verb? Have you ever used the line? It looks like you just got bit by a venomous snake. Can I suck that out for you? Someday. That's what dreams are made in, Jenny.

File that away. There's various theories as to where this idea of, like, vamporism and fear the vampire comes from, and plenty of it has to do with some, like, medical potentiality in terms of people misunderstanding various blood diseases or the, you know, decay rate of a corpse. I am no corpse decay expert, so I could not. speak to any of that. I don't believe either of you are either. But just this idea that this, like, extremely romantic, sexual, tortured icon of fiction of storytelling comes from misunderstanding blood diseases is pretty delightful to me. So I just wanted to get it on the record.

Vamp lit. I have, like, a little mini timeline written down, but do you guys have any, like, vamp like what what do you think is other than bram stoker and then our girl aunt rice and then the philosopher stephanie mire um any vampire the true ranking it's in that order actually number one step um any any like sort of vampire um you know lit or film or tv show or whatever on the timeline that you think is worth pointing out in terms of um um you know lit or film or tv show or whatever on the timeline that you think is worth pointing out in terms of like, winner idea of what kind of character vampire could be changed? I mean, the nosferatu, like the 1922 nosferatu to then like the Anne Rice vampire,

I don't know where in that timeline the massive shift occurred, but those are definitely two different. Two ends of the spectrum. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Anne Rice was my immersion into vampire. So that's how I met vampires.

And probably, I don't know. I mean, there's so many important things on here. But I think that that's the one that sticks out the most to me is interview with a vampire. And kind of just like scanning the timeline of like landmark content. It's, Nosephratu really sticks out as the not hot guy. I feel like every other. They tried something new and they were like, maybe not this.

Let's get back to hot cape. Slicked back hair. Emerges from the shadows. Seductive, powerful. Yeah. Maybe not claw hands. Maybe claw hands wasn't the move. We're not too far.

There's enough to penetrate with. We actually don't need claw hands, you know? I just, I love, I love learning that. So like, Brandtsookris Dracula, 1897 is like, you know, a very important text. Carmilla, which comes out a few years before, is about, you know, lesbians and a female vampire. What? Yeah.

There's a bad movie that came out in 2020, but you should do a book club about Carmelah. I don't know why you haven't yet. And then 1819, this is like sort of the first Western canon, The Vampier, by John Polidori. And what I love about that is that John Polidori, I believe he was the traveling physician. It's either Lord Byron wrote this or it's written about, like, Ghost wrote this, or it's written about Lord Byron and it's making fun of what a gothic fuck boy he is. And I prefer the latter version. This idea that they're like, let's all make fun of Lord Byron and the way that he skulks about with his capes and thinks he is God's gift to women. And if that is an inspiration,

I do not know what is. Oh, you know what, Joanna, you just reminded me in our description of what a vampire was, that is the word we left out skulking. They are always skulking. Oh, I thought you want to say Gothic fuck boy. Yeah, I mean, same, same. The old skulk and slurp. Is that what you're saying? Yes, yes, exactly. But yeah, I think what's important about the timeline of, like, how the character has changed is that we had the, like, with the exception of Nesferatu and the claws and the, ooh, we had the, you know, the hot, sexual, slick back hair, cloak, seducer of young virginal.

women could turn into a bat or some mist, if you prefer, you know. Hell, yeah. Hell yeah. Bella Lugosi is here. Christopher Lee is here. Like, we are doing Dracula as the predator. And then we get Dark Shadows, which is this soap opera from the 60s, which I have never watched.

Obviously, they made a film version of it, ill-advisedly several years ago. But what I love about Dark Shadows is that this is a show that was just rolling along for a, it was like a daytime soap opera, rolling along for a full year before there were any vampires involved. It was just like, you know, Gothic historical occasionally. And it was described to me once at a party, some guy, I don't know why,

walked up and started to talk to me about Dark Shadows. And he wanted me to know that there was a character called Burke Devlin, but it is like very Gothic Southern. So it was like, Book Devlin, like that's a character on Dark Shadows. More importantly, there's a vampire that shows up. It's one year until this character shows up and then the show got popular

and then a year after that they used the word vampire for the first time. And his name is Barnabas. Great. This is like the history of queer, this is like the history of queer TV. You know, it's like they showed up

but they didn't say they were gay until a year later. Barnabas is our first sort of canonical like tortured vampire. The vampire who doesn't want to hurt people. The vampire who wishes he weren't a monster. the vampire that isn't like the predator or the villain who is the hero.

And then like fairly soon thereafter, Anne Rice writes interview with a vampire and you get Louis de Pontalac and like other other vampires who are that sort of tortured. I don't want to be a monster kind of vampire. But like that idea that we went from like predator to misunderstood sort of brooding, tortured monster, I think reflects sort of our journey from othering people to relating to the person who feels othered, sort of in our literature. What do you think about that, Krista Rousseau? I love that.

I love that. And like if you, I mean, just looking at the timeline itself too, right? You're looking at Dark Shadows in the late 60s, interview the vampire in the mid-70s, the is like a time when in our conversation, you know, here in the United States and in a lot of other places globally, we're doing that. We're talking about this othering that we've been doing. And surely it's still happening. But I think the timeline is really amazing to think about taking this idea of a monster and saying, but is this thing that we've said is a monster really a monster? Should we look at it more closely? Oh, they sure are sexy, you know, like that really

Surely they can't be that bad, obviously. Surely. Nothing that hot can be that bad. Got it. Yeah, that's what I've always said. Exactly. Jenny on Youngs, in 1997, a television series called Buffy the Vampire Slayer premieres on mid-season on the WP.

Oh, yeah. What does this television show do, if anything, to change our idea of what a vampire is? Great question. I think it's interesting to be asked that question when, like, so often the question is, like, how did Buffy the Vampire Slayer change the way that, like, your petite, blonde protagonist is portrayed and, like, what our expectations are of her and, you know, where is the power in that sort of dynamic? And usually, you know, I'm, like, ready to go with that answer. But how does it make us look at vampires differently? We're sort of, like, invited into this world, you know, Buffy is our P-O-V character,

we're automatically, like, aligned with her. And her mission, her gift is killing vampires. That is what she was sort of, like, chosen, capital C, chosen to do. And that's all well and good. You know, she's got the strength. She's got the speed. She's got the determination. She's got the stylish boots.

Yeah. She's got the ability to rip her semi-slid skirt up further to allow for higher kick. With a letter opener. With a letter opener. But what she was not prepared for is for the mysterious, broad-shouldered, brooding, hot as hell, young man who emerges from the shadows to give her tips about killing vampires to reveal ultimately, just after their first kiss, spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that he is, in fact, a vampire. So then we are sort of like, we're already invested because we are invested in Buffy and she is invested. in Angel and also because we have eyes and we can see what year one David Borianas as Angel looks like and we're like, yeah, please spread that on a cracker and feed it to me immediately.

But what's really excited, what I think is really exciting about Buffy is like it takes the sort of like tortured thing to the next level in terms of yes, Angel is a vampire, but he has a soul. He not only wants to do good and doesn't want to hurt people, but also spend 100 years as a soulless killer and has been forced to keep those memories. So he is like full of self-loathing and desperate to atone, but truly believes that he will never be able to. So like all he can do is keep trying. And he is in love with a young woman whose sole purpose is to kill his kind.

If that's not some serious ass Romeo and Juliet plus fangs shit, I don't know. what is. And as a side note, I would just like to say that while we, I know we're here to talk about all vampires, my truest goal of talking Tuesday is for somehow the result of this podcast to be that Mallory Rubin will watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's on the agenda. It's on the agenda. I made her watch all of Dr. Who last year. And I feel like maybe I have to take a year off before I make her watch. No, no, keep it while the strike while the iron is high. Wheels are greased, et cetera, et cetera. Let's go.

Greasing wheels, you say. Yeah. Well, I would love to trade something. Like, I would, if Mallor could come up with something that I've never seen that I could watch, and then it would feel like sort of more fair. So we'll see. But I agree. I agree.

I think Mallor would love it. I think our listeners, if they have it, see Buffy Bear Bear Bear Sler. And if you don't want to wait for Mal and you want to, like, go do a watch on your own, may I suggest a companion podcast that Jenny and Kristen posted? There's a song in every episode about every episode of Buffy Vampire Slayer and it's incredible. We can help. I think this idea of Buffy turning the vampires from not just like misunderstood or tortured

Louis or tortured Barnabas, again, incredible name. But this idea of like the lover boy, the vampire lover boy sort of trope that, you know, Stephanie Meyer then like runs away with, of course. Because like that's not how. I would describe Louis or Lestat in interview with a vampire. I would not describe they are lovers, but they are not like the, you know, the lover boy sort of figure. But we get Twilight, we get True Blood and, you know, a bunch of other stuff is going on. We've got Blade, which is a very important film for the entire existence of the MCU.

You know, Blade has a long comic book's history, but 1998, that movie coming out. and absolutely crushing at the box office in a way that nobody expected it to is a hugely important moment in, like, vampire pop culture. You know, vampire diaries, et cetera, et cetera. Lots of stuff is going on with the vampire in the 2000s. Kristen, you mentioned an interview with a vampire being your intro to vampires. Jenny is yours, Buffy, or do you have something that comes before that? Buffy is my sort of like my choice. Like that's the thing I was like, I want to first rent this movie and then later watch the TV series of my own volition.

But I do remember my mom watching dark shadows like when I was a kid. Really? So I like, and I don't even know how accurate this memory is, but I have like an image in my mind of sort of like, not to be like, it's so obvious, but a lot of shadow. So like all skulking all the time is what you're saying. All skulking all the time. I mean, it's like it's pretty, I was pretty small. I was like probably three or four around this time. So probably I feel like every time I talk about any television that or film that I saw before the age of 18, I'm like, I was probably too young to see that thing.

Every single thing you saw. Yeah. Was none of my business. And yet. So it's, it got in on the edges, I think, uh, prior. prior to Buffy. I think the Buffy movie is probably like my main introduction, but I do remember, I was just telling in front of mine that the first time I heard about Lestat, I was at, I was too young.

I was at the dentist's office and the like ladies in the office, the like dental hygienists, were like reading interview with a vampire and talking about the vampire Lestat. And so I had no idea really what they were talking about. All I know is that I was just, like, deadly curious. They probably did not know I was listening as they talked about, like, how hot and how wonderful and how interesting the stat was. And, yeah, it's the sexy factor that I'm sure pulled most of us in. Because interview with the vampire was, like, one of my first, but then also the vampire diaries, like the books, the vampire diaries. I read around the same time. Like, I was just...

And Buffy the Vampire Slayer of the movie. Like, I feel like at that time, there were so many varieties on vampires and they were all incredibly good looking. They don't really go away, but I do think it comes in, like, little cultural waves. Like, we're sort of at the tail end of the last wave, you know, like, because when true blood and vampire diaries and the Twilight movies and all of that was happening at once. Versus, like, we're going to talk about an interview with the vampire the TV show in a hot second. But, like, that that is, we're sort of in a wane. of an era. Jenny, do you have any thoughts or feelings about that?

Or dental hygienist talking about Lassat? Well, I was... So on theme for it to be the dental hygienist, too, you know? Well, you talking about the dental hygienists, talking about Lassat being hot and stuff, was just making me think naturally about sex. And I was thinking about just sort of, like, beyond the sort of, like, penetration and the, like, possibility for, like, you know, hypnotism or the, like, you know, hypnotism or like using, you know, like having you in their thrall or whatever.

I wonder, too, if there is a component to the appeal of vampires that is related in some way to when the brain is like kind of like fantasizing, right? The brain. Not a person. Just a brain. It's none of my business what my brain is up to. I feel like often, often fantasy, like sexual desire related fantasy, like veers into areas that are like, are like not necessarily like something that you're interested in actually happening.

You know what I mean? Like that like fantasy, the scope of your sort of like fantasy brain is outside of your reality brain or like even, you know, what's possible necessarily in the natural world. And I do wonder if like just vampires by virtue of being supernatural, they have like an added like plus three bonus for being something that could never happen. Yes. That we're aware of. I, yes.

Unless. And if you're a vampire listening, you can email us at Hobbes and Dragons. com and say, I exist and I would never use a snake venom sucker to get the blood from someone. But also, can you do thrall over email, let Joanna know? Yes. Or don't let me know, just do it. Do it. No, I think that that sort of, you know, I don't, I don't mean to make this just about women.

and men definitely have fantasies and enjoy like sort of certainly and enjoy, you know, those in their like power fantasies or any kind of fantasy, sexual fantasies. But like, I've heard mostly women talk about this idea of like, especially in the current like romantic boom, how like so many women are reading fantasy novels that have a lot of sex in them. And when they talk about those characters and talk about how wonderful it is to read about them And then someone's like, would you want your partner to ever do something? And they're like, absolutely not.

That would be absolutely repulsive if I met that in real life. Not talking about like the wings or anything like that, but like the behavior, the possessive behavior, the dominating behavior, like all that sort of stuff like that. It's something you want to like fantasize about or perhaps even like roleplay about, but you do not want it in your real life. And so this idea of like that it could go so far that possession, that forbidden, that whatever, that it's like life threatening, which is what the vampire. archetype provides for you, I think that's irresistible to a lot of people, for sure.

And also just sort of like thinking about Twilight, like almost immediately after Edward is completely repulsed by the smell of Bella, and they end up smooching and stuff. They enter a really rewarding relationship of him watching her sleep without her knowledge or consent. For months. I think for months. Yeah. Once they actually start smooching, it almost immediately comes to pass that there's some other vampire that, like, wants to kill her just because that's what he, because he's a tracker and he has to track her and blah, la la. And then, like, you know, her lover has to actually physically end the life of another of his kind in order to protect her. And that's just like another, like, sort of like heightened, like, oh, you want your partner to like have your back or like, you know, stand up.

for you or whatever. How about killing and then cutting into pieces and scattering the pieces around the globe? Would that really show you how much they love you? I think maybe it would. If he loved you, he would, you know? That's what I'm saying. I don't know who you all are with, but. All right. That brings us to sort of like our pseudo reason for the season why I have gathered us here today to talk about vampires in their hotness, which is interview with the vampire season two, which starts this Sunday, eight episodes of season two. It's available not just on AMC, AMC Plus, as it was last time, but it's just on good old Bezos.com, Amazon ski. If you've got prime, if you get toilet paper as fast as you want it on Amazon Prime, you too

can enjoy interview with the vampire season two. And while you're at it, maybe watch season one. I just want to really briefly. We're not going to get it too far into it because this is a broader talk about vampires. I'm going to some other things talk about. And if you haven't watched the show, I don't want this to feel like prohibitive. Like there's no barrier to entry to listening to us to talk about vampires. You just have to understand skulking, slurping, and shadows.

That's all. But interview with the vampire season one. I rewatched the pilot last night. I think is one of the best things I've ever seen in my entire life. and I don't understand why I think platform has so much to do with it, but I don't understand why it isn't a bigger show. It is based off of the book. So if you've seen the Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise's film or you've read the book, you have, I'm sorry, the Kirsta Dunn's film, or you've read the book, you have a sense of the story that we're telling. It is slightly tweaked and updated in various different ways.

On the one hand, it is much gayer. On the other hand, we have, like, slightly changed the setting of the interview, and that tweak is providing a lot of interesting fodder, especially in season one. And there's, you know, a few of the timeline changes and stuff going on. But, like, this is fundamentally the Louis Lestat, Claudia, found family, fucked up New Orleans story that you've come to know and love. I just want to ask you, Kristen, like, season one of interview with a vampire, what was your experience with it, what was your admiration for it, et cetera? I also loved it. I loved it so much. And I think, like, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, but really for me, it was Brad Pitt, right? Like, you could not, wishing for them to, like, actualize that on screen and make it gay was, like, a part of my youth, whether I knew it or not.

then and then later I knew it. And so I think that like it can go one of two ways when you actualize it, right? Like they could have actualized it and it could have been like, you know what? It was actually better when it was just tension and like they weren't saying exactly what was happening. And so I was so excited when I started watching the show because it was just as sexy, if not more sexy than I had wanted it to be. There were there are so many other reasons that I love it. But like that I really feel like could have gone one of two ways. Like I would have been happy that they actualized it regardless, but it's, it worked. And, you know, we're naming the thing now. It's, it's text, no longer sub. Jenny?

Okay. What I'll say is that, shame on me. It's on my list. However, I haven't watched it, but I have a child. That is the, you, you did not have a child when it came out. As a mother of children, I have yet to have. As a mother of children, um, you can't retroactively. blame this on your child. My television consumption pace is not my own any longer. I have seen all four hotel transylvania's about 7,000 times each, though, so that's where I'm getting most of my vampire content these days. However, in preparation for this podcast, I looked at some images, which I feel like is half the story. And what I can tell you is that I have a new boyfriend and his name is Sam Reed.

and he is so scorchingly hot. And furthermore, while I think that Tom Cruise's performances list at is like really great, I love him. I think he's just like so despicable and great and delicious. Blonde Tom Cruise? Question mark? No, he's simply, although Tom Cruise is inarguably hot, I think. He is not hot as Lestat. This guy looks like he's getting it all done.

It looks like they have found themselves a man who can do both. I'm guessing. Jenny, promise Joanna and I that you will text us at pivotal moments. One in particular that I am playing in my mind right now. I'd really like to hear your reaction. Okay. I hope it involves shirtlessness. Usually.

It won't matter. It won't matter. Tremendous. It is an incredibly horny show. It's also just like it is more than just. just, but that's enough, but it is more than just an incredibly horny show. There's a lot that they're trying. They've cast Jacob Anderson, who listeners might know as Grey Worm from Gambith

Thrones, as Louis, which means there is like, in terms of his identity as like a queer man and a biracial man in New Orleans, in the past, like, that's all wrapped up into the vampire metaphor. And it's done really, really well. it's very intelligent, very poetic. They are ripping lines directly from Anne Rice's book in the way that you want them to where you're like, good. There was no improving upon it perfection.

It was already there. But then changing things in a way that keep it really interesting. But yeah, Sam Reed as Listad is one of the most bonkers things I've ever. He's so good. The thing about Listat, his nickname is like the brat prince, right, of the vampires. like that. It's just like Sam Reid, who's doing this probably not accurate, but it's consistent enough that I don't care, French accent, and is just the worst, but also irresistible. And you're just like, that's what got the dental hygienist chatting about in the 90s, you know? So, yeah,

I really, really hope that if you trust my TV taste at all, not just you, Jenny, but anyone listening that you will check out interview with a vampire at least season like watch the first episode is one of the best pilots I've ever seen um so watch that first episode and if it's not doing it for you it's not going to do it for you but like I really think this is a show that I am just staggered that more people are watching um and I really need them to because if they don't we will not get a season three so please for joanna watch the show yes and for me and for me and for me, I would really like it to continue. All right.

As Jenny has indicated a few times, she has some expert opinions on hunks in general. As if we haven't already hammered home enough, the idea that vampires are sexy, we're going to talk about a little bit more. But I want to lead us off with this clip from the film, Edward. This is meant to be Bella Lagosie talking about the allure of Dracula.

Steve will you play this clip? The women prefer the traditional monsters. The women? The pure horror, it both repels and attracts them. Because in their collective unconsciousness, the blood. The blood is horror. You know I never thought of that. Take my boat for it.

If you want to make out with the old lady, take her to see Dracula. I'm sorry. It's just an incredible moment. Wait, the blood, the blood is what? Horror. Okay, I just want to make sure I got that right. Horror. West Craven, who knows some things about blood and horror, this is what he said about

Dracula. He said he's the seducer, bringing death and promising immortality. He embodies social ambivalence about sex and death. That's not only remained incredibly potent, it has remained relevant. So, Jenny, is there anything that you haven't already said about slurping and and sucking and skulking and cloaks and the overall sexual appeal of vampirism that you want to get to now.

Do you want to talk at length about the missed scene in Bram Stoker's Dracula, a movie that you have seen and Kristen is not? Joanna, can you do me a favor? Yeah. Can you remind me of what exactly happens in the mist scene? Because I have like a half memory,

but now my head is... I'm 65% certain that Gary Olman turns into mist goes under Winona Ryder's door and then just like surrounds her. Yeah. Okay. That feels right. I mean, imagine if you could turn into mist and surround someone.

The object of your affection. Like, okay. It's one thing Edward Cullen to hop corporeally through a woman's window and watch her for several months at a time. And when she's like, do you do this off? And he's like, just the last few months as if that's just like a flash of the band. Just for him, it is. But I think it goes much harder to turn yourself into mist

and just vaporize your entire essence around the object of your affection. What do you think? Well, I think for Dracula, shapeshifting is actually not a big deal. Like, as far as the effort he's putting in, it's like, I'll be a wolf, I'll be some mist, I'll be whatever, it's fine. that just feels like Tuesday.

Is Edward hopping through someone's window a Tuesday? I think maybe not until now, not until he smelled the right girl. Wow. So you're saying that Edward tries harder than Dracula. That's your thesis statement? I don't know if that's exactly what I meant. I have an important Twilight Tanger that I need to go on.

Yes, great. Jenny, for one, seems awfully steeped in Twilight Lord. I do love that for her. but Kristen, do you remember her in Twilight how Edward has to bite his baby out of Bella? I don't know. Is that allowed? Are we allowed to talk about that in the airwaves? Is that? Yeah, I do. It's Renezme. I do. Renesme. I really do. That is nothing to do with

Anyway I'm glad that that fell under the sexy category You're like but one more tins Let's just talk about the way in which No I was I was trying to refresh myself On some Twilight because it's been a very long time since I watched it And I just forgot like how deeply Mormon and repressed it is And how like he can't like their first kissing scene

He like throws himself across the room Because he can't control himself Because of the way she reeks I suppose, so, you know. Yeah, she smells so bad. She's so clumsy and she smells so bad. Two of Bella's top characteristics. I do think we've largely covered hotness,

so I think we can take Bella as our cue into the next topic here, which I'm calling in honor of Kristen, but I'm a cheerleader. Nice. And it is about the trope of the various young women, and usually teenagers, and this is more recent, who are the one girl in all the world that appeal to these centuries-old men.

Are you telling me that Elena Gilbert doesn't have what it takes to capture the passion and desire of a 250-year-old dude? Is that what you're telling me? I could tell you, but I would much prefer that Pam, one of the most iconic vampires of all time from True Blood, talks about it. stevely play this clip i'm so over sookie in her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name

fuck sucky i've been with eric over a hundred years i've watched him seduce supermodels and princesses and spit out their bones when he has finished how can someone named sucky take him away from me that's pam my favorite um that's one of my favorite speeches in all of true blood about One Miss Suki Stackhouse, who has caught the attention of not one but two centuries old vampires as they tussle over her affections. Jenny, anything you want to say about Suki in general or this phenomenon? I, the thing that's, there are two things that, there are three things that stay with me from true blood. One is Alexander Scars Guard. Important.

Being so hot. one is Deborah Ann Wall being so hot and one is Bill saying like all the time the way that Bill says suck it I am vampire why your vampire is always in Louisiana is a question

worth asking Anne Rice is why yeah oh true all right we got this listener we got an email from listener Madison who thanks Steve

who was Jenny as a listener to the pod, how does it feel to hear the Ka in real time? I feel like I'm on the, like I feel like I'm taking like the like a studio tour in Hollywood. The universe actually just on King Kong. Yeah. All right.

So Madison, we sort of mentioned this trope in a previous episode. And our listener Madison wrote in to talk about this idea of like the teenage girl, sometimes ordinary. Atlanta Gilbert, pretty ordinary, or, you know, Buffy's a slayer, Suki is, in fact, a fairy, you know, like, whatever you prefer. But Madison said, obviously, this Trump's course discussion will not be able to avoid this super old boyfriend slash teenage human girlfriend dynamic that reoccurs across virtually all popular vampire stories.

This theme obviously plays into it as a result of our cultural's troubling fascination with over-sexualizing girls and young women. However, most popular vampire media is for women. So I would actually posit that this trend may be a reflection of the inverse, something that all women know to be true, which is that our boyfriend's, husbands, and other male partners could live a thousand lifetimes and still not be totally competent to maintain a mature relationship with even a teenage girl. Incredible stuff from Madison. I actually had a slightly, like, tangent take off of Madison's delightful email that I wanted to get to. But, Jenny, you were giving, I want to talk face. Well, I just want to say like sick burns Madison.

But also I think like, I think saying most popular vampire media is for women, hardstop might be a little bit of an oversimplification. I feel like there's a trend on TikTok right now or like forever where women will secretly film their male partners. And like the caption is always like him watching the show that. that he thinks is so stupid that I watch. And, like, he's gone down the stairway, like, on his way to the basement to do something with tools, probably. But he has stopped with just his eyes peeking over the floor level. And he is wrapped watching, like, whatever soap opera.

Yeah. She's watching. You know what I mean? I just feel like, you know. Love Island or, like, whatever. Exactly. It's not, I don't think that most popular vampire media is for women. I just think that men feel less comfortable feeling like it's for them.

Straight guys. I like that. Yeah, and also, I mean, I celebrate Madison's take. I love it. Horrious. It's fantastic. But it also, when I read that sentence about it's for women, my brain continued the sentence often made by men, you know, like even if, even if it's being like made for women, which is debatable, I think that they're, I want, listen, I want to celebrate the romances between centuries old vampires and young women just as much as everyone else.

But I do think that there's a little bit of this, like, heaviness in a lot of the stories, which is that the pen is held by a man who's writing the story. And so that troubling trope that Madison brings up is present. I mean, in some cases, but I think a lot of those, a lot of, like, our most recent vampire stories are, like, start with a female author. Like, you have Charlene Harris who wrote the True Blood Books, Lori Kay Hamilton, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer. Like a lot of these are like female authors writing these vampire stories, you know, and a woman directed the first Twilight movies. And then, yeah, like the showrunner, you know, winds up being a man, you know, or the director or what have you. And so it's like through the wash of the male perspective, but originates with some sort of like female fantasy. And I do think there is like something to be said about this idea of being like an ordinary girl and some immortal being who like, you know, to. to misquote Pam as like fucked princesses and supermodels and all the queens and all the world

and none of them made a dent, but you, on your way to biology class, are the one that will have him tear the world down or defy his very nature or do all this. It is a female

power of fantasy in that sense which I think, you know, like Madison's emo is funny, but I do think this idea of like, um, This is a female-centric fantasy of, I am so special, this immortal being would want only me. What do you think, Jenny? Don't we all want to be made to feel that way by a partner, maybe, that we are one girl in all the world? She alone can pull that hot vampire, that hot princess fucking vampire.

I was, as I often do with these tropes course, podcast, I was poking around the TV trope's website. And they weren't like super, super helpful on the vampire front. But I did locate this one TV trope that they identified, which is the Mayfly slash December romance to play on the May December romance. The Mayfly December romance meaning, you know, this one teenage girl, you know, unless you're Bella and you get turned on your honeymoon or by turn on, I mean. transported to a vampire or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, you're going to die within a human lifespan and your vampire lava is going to live forever. And it's not, you know, there are female vampires and young men, I'm sure, that they admire, so it's not always one way.

But, like, I thought that was funny. That is an out of attention. It's certainly something that Angel Buffy get, like, you know, anguish over in seasons, like, two and three of Buffy for sure. So I just wanted to, May Fly December romance is really funny. I wanted to mention. I love that. Incredible.

Yeah. The teenage aspect also, I think, plays into the thing we all three of us have a complicated relationship with Joss Whedon, but we all love Buffy Vampire Slayer, and that's just a fact. And Whedon's basic premise for Buffy, which is like, what if the monsters of your teenage,

what if those massive feelings you felt as a teenager, whether it's like, my mom doesn't understand me or, you know, the principal's out to get me or this, that, or the other thing, or my friend doesn't like me anymore, or my boyfriend had sex with me, and now he's being an asshole. What if those were all literalized into actual monstrosities? What if, you know, and what if you were allowed to feel, this is like, this is like the permissions let that Taylor Swift gives young women to, like, your feelings are the most important thing in the world. What if you being

not dramatic as we all were as teenagers about your boyfriend or your mom or your school or whatever, your friends. What was it valid because they are actual monsters? That's the premise of Buffy Vampire Slayer. And so I think that is another reason why it's so appealing to put a teenager in that role or so appealing for teenagers, be they men or young men or young women, watching it to be like my big emotions are valid. These things are as big and as life-threatening as they feel to me. What do you think, Kristen? Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. I mean, I obviously we've spent so many

years immersed in the world of Buffy, Jenny and I both. And like that power, it's not that you can't communicate that power to young people, young women, especially through literal stories. But once you take it to that place, you get to tell the stories in ways that I, at least I personally find so much more impactful and so much more resonance. So yeah, I love that. And I think it's, it goes far past Buffy, these like fantasy worlds in storytelling. I think let, not just young people, but we're talking about young women in this case, or I guess all young people. But it just lets you see what might be possible in a way that you can't otherwise. So yeah, I love it. Jenny, anything you want to say about that? you know when you like take a drive for the first like to a place a new place for the first time and you're like driving you're like oh my gosh this is taking what feels like forever and then when you drive back or you do that drive like another time you're like well that just flew by because your brain has already kind of like mapped it you know um you have like a to a degree like some amount of information about that path and therefore it feels like less taxing on your kind of like whole system and and and

And, right. I feel like when we are teenagers, we are not necessarily having the biggest feeling that we'll ever have in our lives, but we are having maybe the biggest feelings we've had in our life up to that point. And I think like using, utilizing characters that are in that place and then taking it like to the next level of literalizing their traumas, their fears, their dramas. the highs and lows, the high highs and the low lows of their day-to-day light. It's just like such a powerful way, because we've all, I mean, I hope you're not listening if you're not a teenager yet. Because this is an adult podcast. But I feel like, you know, we all have some kind of idea of like what those huge swings felt like, you know, no matter how far removed you are. like, or maybe you're, you know, we all have big feelings forever and always. But like I feel like

there's something really specific and core about the things that you feel when you're a teenager. And I think it's because you're just getting the hang of it. You're getting the hang of having gigantic feelings and like also like kind of gaining autonomy from your parents and becoming like your own person, an individual. And you're about to go out into the world and all that stuff. And I think that it's the pressure. She's not like other girls. and she's the perfect vessel for this kind of storytelling. Come along with her. No, I like your point about this isn't just contained to being a teenager.

This idea of like feeling the biggest feeling you've ever felt for the first time in your life reminds me of another thing that I was listening to Anne Rice talk about when I was listening to that interview this morning. She's talked many times about the inspiration and inspiration for writing interview with The Vampire. was she lost her daughter. When her daughter was very young, she was six. And so she was, she tried to write about it from a sort of memoir or straight fiction kind of place. And the feelings were so big and the grief was so strong that she could not, you know, engage with it on that level. And she had to take it into a fantasy world and a place where there are vampires because the feelings felt so big.

and alien to her, but the only place she could talk about them was in this heightened world. And Mallory and I talk all the time about when you talk about a fantasy world, be it Game of Thrones or Doctor Who or whatever it is, like it matters that there are dragons.

It matters that there are time machines. It matters, like, that these aren't just incidental aspects of the story, that the heightened part of it is a part of the way that we can absorb certain truths, certain lessons, certain realities that we can't absorb in straightforward storytelling. And so I like this idea of like, I don't like it, obviously, it's horrible, but this idea that Anne Rice had lived so many years in her life experiencing certain degrees of emotions, and then this truly horrible, she had never experienced it before things happens to her.

And she's not a teenager, but the emotions are so big. that she has to put them here into a fantasy space. And like to that end, I mean, that in and of itself is beautiful, but there's also some part of it that's like, what if there is no way? What if there is no way to communicate those feelings that she was moving through in a literal story, you know, like that that is also maybe one of the only pathways where you can communicate it because our words might not be able to, in completion and fullness or whatever?

Let's talk about God. Or Jenny? Do you know anything you want to say before we talk about God? Or Jenny? Which one? I feel like, you know, anything that I was thinking about is ultimately dwarfed by God as concepts. We should probably just head to the deity. A lot of – we're going to talk about sort of like a couple different religions and how they relate to vampism.

But, like, a lot of our main ideas or modern ideas of what a vampire is comes from Anne Rice. And Anne Rice was sort of trying to grab up. grapple with a lot of her own, understandably in that moment of her grief, complicated feelings about her own religion and religion in general. But I want to go to a different text. I want to go to Midnight Mass. Have either of you seen Midnight Mass? Yes. Kristen has. Okay. This is one of Mike Flanagan's sort of Netflix right around comes out right around Halloween. It's Mike Flanagan season shows. This is my favorite one. Spoilers for Midnight Mass. There are vampires in it, which is not necessarily.

something, you know, but hopefully, I mean, it's been many years. So I did not see that coming. I'm sorry that that is true of Midnight Mass. But I am obsessed with it. I watch it every year in October. I think it is just incredible. And I wanted to start with this clip from a sermon that, you know, the Islands preacher is giving in Midnight Mass, Steve.

That darkness, we wear it on our forehead today, just to speak. bunch of it, a smudge of death, of ash, of sin for repentance because of where this is all actually heading, which is Easter, rebirth, resurrection, eternal life, life that rises again, even out of blackness. The show slaps. It's so good. Just so you know. I had like bodily feelings listening to that clip. So so much of vampirism is bound up in Christian iconography, the crucifix, the holy water, the consecrated ground, all that sort of stuff. Back in the day when perhaps some people in Eastern Europe were confused and thought vampires were real and were like going around and staking corpses that they thought were not decaying fast enough in the grave.

They would use Aspen for the stakes that they were using because it was believed that. Christ's cross was made from Aspen. They would also put Aspen branches on the gray as reported vampires to prevent them from rising at night. This is a line from interview of the vampire. Lestat says it, but Anne Rice wrote it, right? God kills and so shall we indiscriminately. He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we?

So, I mean, this is a big question that is not easy to wrap our arms around. But I just want to, before we get to maybe another rule. religion. Like, I want to talk about either Christian or Catholic imagery and just this idea. Do we think the reason that there's so much relation between the vampire lore and religious iconography is because the idea of the vampire is so challenging to power structures in general? And then the church was like the main power structure for these several centuries, that the lore was turned into myths, was turned into literature, turned into theater, was turned into whatever.

Jenny, what do you think? When I think about the Christian iconography that's associated with vampires, that's all directly in opposition to vampires. Like, how do you ward them off? You ward them off with water that's been blessed by a priest. You ward them off with a cross, the symbol of Christ. I just sort of, my assumption has always been that, like,

where vampires, like the concept of vampires was being populated was just in areas and by people who were perhaps largely Christian participants. And so that definitely goes to power structures, but also just sort of like day to day, like, if you are deep in Christianity, that's, like, part of your everyday life. And so why wouldn't you think that these, these symbols and blessed water would be, like, the, the nouns of your faith, you know, like, why wouldn't those be the things that ward off vampires, which I think, you know, are viewed as demonic through the Christian lens. It's sort of like, well, naturally, if these are creatures of the devil, then they would fear the cross, fear being in a church, and burn when they are sprinkled with holy water.

Right? Yeah, that's, that makes a lot of sense. Kristen, over to you, how do you feel about the comp of Jesus to vampires that is made in the sermon in midnight mass? Well, I mean, you know, it's been a minute, because I have not. re-watched Midnight Mass since it aired. But inside of that show, the watching of that show, and just in general, back in my college days, I remember taking a class on sacrifice and religion, which was fascinating, because, of course, like we're talking about Christianity. If you practice in the Christian faith, I know in the Catholic faith, you go up and you receive

the body and the blood of Christ. Like, there are sacrificial rituals that are embedded in Christianity and in literally probably almost all, if not all, religion that are rooted in ancient practices of sacrifice and what have you. And so I don't know where that like, you know, wheel connects, but certainly yes to everything with repelling with the thing that you know and your religion is holy. But also there's just such a thread between this idea of drinking deep of the blood, Jenny, I did that for you, as a vampire, and also as a Christian question mark. So, you know, unpack that.

If you're a scholar, you can go and unpack that in more complicated ways. But I think that that overlap is pretty awesome. It feels like there are two kinds of eternal life. Yeah. But they both involve consuming. Right, exactly. The blood of living.

Yeah. Midnight Mass is, I don't need to go too deep into it. And I should say, it's not like the vampire twist is like, At the end, it's not, it's very early. It's not like a major spoiler for the show. It is a very different take on the seduction of vamprism, I think, as it sort of infects an entire town. And mass hysteria and all this sort of stuff. Mike Flanagan is often in conversation with Stephen King.

So it's a very like Stephen King-esque approach to this idea. and competing religions and all sorts of stuff that is happening. I just, I think that's, the vampire itself is so less important than the various, like, thralls and familiars. And we're going to talk about those a little bit later. But, like, what it means to be enthrall to this idea of immortality or whatever it is that you feel like a vampire is offering you, in addition to, like, shame and guilt and remorse and all this other stuff that's coursing through the community. Kristen, anything you want to? And Mike Flanagan, like, is a kid that went to Catholic school. Am I making that up, right? Yeah, because I remember I'm a kid that went to Catholic school.

And so I was, like, completely upended by the show. And then I learned, oh, Mike Flanagan, that's why he does such a good job with this. He lived it. Yeah. Kristen, anything you want to say about other religions and vampirism? Yeah, I had, you know, it's been really interesting because Jenny and I talked about Buffy for six years, seven seasons of the television show. but we were so immersed mostly in that story that we didn't do a lot of deep dives into the history of vampires like we are doing currently. And so a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about this episode of The X-Files, there is a scene in which a loaf of bread is put into the oven and it's filled with blood. And, you know, Mulder says like, oh, I've read that this is a way to ward off, you know, other vampires.

You're protecting yourself. And so immediately I run to Google my like top research assistant. and I'm trying to find this thing. Is this a thing? This was not in my television show Buffy Vampire Slayer. And before I found, because that myth does exist in the 1600s, that, like, baking a bread with the blood of a vampire could protect you from them. But all of the results that I got at first were all about anti-Semitism and blood libel.

And this concept that was, you know, propagated especially, you know, you're talking about Europe in, like, the 1700s, 1800s. 1800s, this idea that Jewish people were not only bad, but literally evil, that they would take the blood of Christian children and bake it into their Motsa bread. Like, these were, these were the stories that were told to make people afraid of Jewish people. And I've done a little bit more reading since then, and there really is a lot to unpack there. Because we talk, too, about, like, how we're used to the vampires that are, like, sexy with a cape and how, like,

no Sforat to in earlier iterations of vampires did not look like that. And a lot of that is because some of the imagery was based on this like stereotypical framing of Jewish people tethered to these demons, which, you know, I mean, vampires being tethered to Jewish people as a means of like, look, they're bad, like these demons is not the only time that a marginalized group has been tied to, you know, demonic imagery. But I just, I found it really fascinating. And there's this amazing academic Jack Halberstam who wrote a piece called Technologies of Monstrosity, Bram Stoker's Dracula. So if you're like a total theory nerd or what have you and you want to go deeper into it, it's really interesting in it. And it talks not only about that overlap, but like the queerness of it all.

I never heard any of that. I think that's – and then if you go back and think about like, yeah, Max Schreck as Nospheratu, that's – That is disturbing lens to put on that era. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques

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chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is Wittendenstasy. Watch only on Prime. Speaking marginalized communities. And vampires. We got an evil from a listener who wanted to talk about queerness and vampires, which is maybe one of many reasons I wanted the two of you on this podcast. I'm calling a section, Let's Go Bite Throats, LGBT for no reason other than it just came to me. I did not realize that it was the LGBT.

The acronym, Joanna, get out of here right now. Amazing. What an ally. That's what they always say about me. Steve Lee, please hit us with this clip from what are we doing in the shadows. Trust me. Gay is in. Gay is hot.

I want some gay. Gay it's going to be. All right. This email comes to our listener, Jack, who wrote, it could be my master's thesis on queer theory and contemporary fiction talking, but I've always been drawn to vampire stories because is they're inherently queer. From Dracula to the new interview with a vampire series, queer themes and aesthetics have always been inextricable from vampire stories.

There's the issue of the dark shadow itself that one becomes when they're turned, the sexual desire reflected in blood, less, and violence. Even the mentoring relationship between vampires and those they sire. I think about Angel, Spike, Darla, and Drusilla as an insane queer-found family all the time. And let's not forget that Edward Cullen sparkles. Finally, as someone who works in public health and HIV, I'm thinking a lot of about vampire stories and HIV allegories. Not only how many of the fears and tragedies around vampires reflect public fears about HIV,

but also how people living with HIV form, community, fight oppression, and literally have to manage our blood. P.S., I'm a gala apple girly, and I cannot eat bread and butter pickles. So thank you, Jack, for signing that with your apple preferences and pickle preferences. So something I loved love. It is ongoing. just had a prom event around your Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast. Something I love about your podcast is not just it's an incredible, fun, funny, musical exploration through one of the most important TV shows of my own lifetime, but the community that you formed with your listeners, some of whom I've had the absolute privilege to meet, and how it became this very safe space for young queer

people, not just young queer people, but certainly plenty of young queer people to find connection with each other and find connection with you. So do you want to talk about, talk to me about either just Buffy and queerness or vampirism and queerness in general, maybe starting Kristen? I mean, I think there's so many ways in to look at vampires or demons in a queer way. I mean, Jenny and I talked so much just about the question of, is the relationship of, is the relationship between, you know, Buffy and Angel is the relationship between Anya and Zander, are those queer relationships because they, one is a demon and one is a human? Like, where, where do you draw the lines around queerness? There's an entire scene in the second season of Buffy,

the Vampire Slayer, where she is the Slayer, but she hasn't told her mom that she's the slayer. And, you know, her mom is like, have you tried not being the slayer? Is it something I did? Like, all of these classic one-liners that, you know, if you're queer, you've probably heard from a parent or another. And so, you know, there's this idea that you're doing something that can't be shared with the larger world around you, which is, I think, one of, like, the foundational pieces of it, you know, for Buffy is not a vampire, but she's a vampire slayer. She can't say that out loud. And for any of the vampires who are walking around, they're needing to pass, basically, which could be a whole conversation on transness as well. But you, you,

you basically have to keep a part of yourself secret to be accepted in the larger worlds around you. So I think that that's, maybe I touched on Buffy and vampires in general, but I think that there's just a massive otherness there that if you're queer or othered in so many other ways, we just talked about Jewish folks. If you, you know, if there's a part of your identity that you feel or have ever felt that you might need to keep hidden so that you can be accepted, then you feel sort of a kindredness with a vampire in these stories. Jennifer? Kristen and I are in a fight because she just said everything that I was thinking,

which honestly was rude. I'm sorry. I would maybe take it one additional step further and say, not only might you feel a kindredness with vampires, but also with other people. who are drawn to those stories. And, like, there is kind of all of this cross-connectedness, I think, in our community because people come to the podcast or, like,

love Buffy because they have an experience like that. And they're able to connect with other people who have either a very similar experience or often a very different experience that intersects with theirs in a way that, like, is so beautiful. I love them. They're so special. Yeah, it's like testing. It's like testing the waters.

You're making me think of like early season one Mulder with aliens. Like there were all these scenes in the first few episodes of X-Files where like Mulder would be standing next to somebody else. And he would sort of slowly be like, so. And would like suggest perhaps maybe something otherworldly had happened to like gauge if they were. And if they were like, oh yeah, something weird's going on. He'd be like, so aliens. immediately throwing a file on their desk. Yeah.

And I think, I mean, I'm just kind of echoing what you said, but that there's like a trust, like a, you know, you can't just blindly trust anyone who likes a vampire story. But like as a queer person, if you meet someone and you're talking about Buffy, you're like, I might be able to also like talk to them openly about the rest of my life and meet with acceptance. Yeah. I love what Jack said about the dark shadow self. Yeah. I feel like as maybe as time continues to move forward,

it feels like it is a lessening part of the queer experience, but still present in something that, like, you know, feels very resonant to me. It makes sense that that would be like that Buffy, that would be the 90s version of that. And when you compare it to the clip we just heard from what we do in the shadows, where in a not show, an incredible show,

show. Everyone is like pansexual. And the way, and it's not a big deal. And it just is. No big deal is made of it. Everyone just is. And the showrunners have given interviews where they talked about like, how could you possibly live for centuries and be and limit yourself to like, why would you? That makes no sense whatsoever. And it's just sort of like. At the very least, eventually you'd get bored. Yeah, exactly. And just sort of like, what else is there? What else is there? Yeah. Well, I mean, we've already talked. about like the penetration and the drinking of blood being incredibly sexualized. And so, you know, in what we do in the shadows, they are like literally, uh, pansexual in a overtly

sexual way. But vampires throughout history have been drinking the blood of any gender they so please. And so they're kind of just like canonically bisexual, you know. I was watching an interview with, um, Jacob Anderson, who plays Louis and Sam Reed, who plays Lestad on an interview with vampire. And they were talking about this idea of like, making this. subtext of Louis Lestat in the book, the more overt text of Louis Lestat in the show. And Jacob Anderson gave this quote that I really love where he was like, we relate to monsters more. This creature is being treated the way that I've been treated.

I've been ostracized. I've been marginalized. I've been treated this way. And Sam Reed says that he was like, vampires live by their own rules. They create their own spaces, their own spaces outside of the normal flow of society. And again, then that is like, hopefully something we're moving away from that, you know, that queerness means I need to not be in the mainstream necessarily. But like, unless I want to be in my own other space. But, you know, that I'm welcome everywhere if I want this other space.

I have this other space. But not like I have to only exist here outside of the, you know, day-to-day flow of society. Can we, Steve, can we listen to an interview with vampire clip here, please? It is difficult to explain how his words disarmed me, how efficiently succinct and impenetrable his argument was. All my conceptions, even my guilt, and my wish to die seemed utterly unimportant. And I completely forgot myself in the barbaric scene that surrounded me. For the first time in my life, I was seen. Be my companion.

Be all the beautiful things you are. And be them without apology. Laterity. Fellas, is it gay to entwine with your bestie? And I don't know, like levitate or something into the atmosphere as he drinks deep. of your blood and you drink deep of his? No, I mean. Yes.

Who says? Yes and no. This idea that in that scene, which is in the pilot of interview with Vampire season one, where Lestat turns Louis, this idea that the seduction is not just, this is an incredibly hot man with a fairly dodgy French accent, it's like, this is someone who sees me, all of me, sees my queerness, sees the way in which. I am being mistreated for, you know, being biracial, like all this or stuff like that. And embraces and welcomes me and tells me I get to live without shame.

And not only that, but I get to be more powerful than all the powerful people who have been stepping on my neck for my whole life. That's as seductive as, I believe, Lestat's face is just like smeared in blood in that scene that's part of it too. As a church, you all have to watch this show. As a church literally burns around them. So just to set this scene. Okay.

If you're not having sex like that, what are you doing? What are you even doing here? What are you doing? I have one more interview with the vampire quote to lead us into the next session, which is this idea of, to quote, the philosopher's queen who wants to live forever. The loneliness of an isolation of immortality. that comes with a vampire character. Steve, he plays clip, please.

I know the Emirates are big on privacy, and that's probably important to you, but I've got to ask, what does it cost this having aged in half a century, killer views in all directions, anonymity? Quite a lot. And here's another question.

That's the sun out there. Where's your coffin? You're standing in it. It shows so good. His whole, your whole life is a coffin If you can't go out in the sun, right? Like you're forever locked in your coffin coffin. For a closet, a good Freudian slip.

That's what they say in true blood coming out of the coffin, right? Wow. Again, to make the, Alan Ball, you know, a queer man was like, let's take these sexy trashy vampire novels that Charlene Harris wrote, and I'm going to make it the thinnest queer allegory. you've ever seen in your entire life. God hates fangs was like a slogan in one of the seasons. Fang bangers.

Oh my God. Jenny. What do you want to say about immortality? That it seems like a good idea probably until a certain amount of time has passed. Until you have to re-enroll in high school again and again and again and move to Move to Forks where it's always cloudy. Not trigonometry. I can only play baseball when there's a thunderstorm.

Boo. I think, like, I mean, this is probably, is there a more intoxicating, you know, idea in the human imagination than the possibility of living forever? And vampires just do that as, like, part of their, it's just their deal. That's just what you get, you know? Like, we're obsessed with,

time and youth and vampires just get that they just it is you know those are two of their gifts and the cost of course is drinking deep of the blood of the living um but you know potential like loneliness right sure yeah but you can always make a new friend you can literally make a new friend Jenny is signing up for emmore mortality. I'm ready. Okay. But let's say, Kristen, you're an adorable little girl with a tight perm.

And you get turned to a vampire and you have to stay that young forever. As does poor Claudia as portrayed by several actresses, including Kirsten Dunst. Who wants to live forever in that sense? No, that's, that is. I mean, who wants to, honestly, who wants to live? Honestly, who wants to live forever in any sense? I guess Jenny. No, we now know.

No, I'm good, actually. But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of extenuring circumstances. I know that we're talking about vampires, but one of the first things that came to my mind when I thought about living forever, even though we are talking about vampires, is the movie Death Becomes Her, which I feel like is its own situation. But even in the vampire, it's like we're told the vampires stay young forever. But in nearly every text I'm familiar with, there's something. thing that happens, maybe like two, three, five, seven centuries in where then like there's cloven hooves or there's, you know, like aging of some kind starts to happen to the most ancient. Do you remember the master that? Make a more. Puttmouth. He did not look good anymore.

But yeah, I think regardless of the form and shape, you're going to get bored. I mean, isn't part of the like thrill of life that you are going to die at some point? Things matter because they end is something that we talk about a lot. Yeah. When we're talking about IP franchises. And it's so, it's so interesting because the vampire myth, the living forever, like Jenny was saying, it's like connected to like we want to stay young. You know, there's industries built on our desire to stay as far away from the idea

that we might die as possible. But a vampire is so funny because a vampire is, is that, is embodying that through death. Like they are literally dead and they are. And the way that they stay alive is by coming like face to face with death, you know, on the daily or at least on the weekly. I don't know how often your local vampires feed. But, you know. I think it just varies depending on what IP you're in, how often you have to feed. I do like seeing in, you know, like true blood and also in Hotel Transylvania, much is made of blood substitutes.

Yes. You know, near blood, blood, blood beaters, true blood, the titular true blood. Yeah. Margo Adler, who's this wonderful journalist who wrote this book called Vampires Are Us, basically what happened is her husband passed away, and in order to deal with that grief, again, this is a common theme. She just started reading all the vampire books that she could get her hands on, and she read, like, hundreds of them.

And, you know, and she wrote this book in the era of True Blood and Vampire Dires and Twilight, blah, blah. Why are we so obsessed with vampires? right now was sort of the premise of that book. It's an incredible book. But she was talking about immortality. And she wrote the following. She wrote, they have near immortality and yet are tragically frozen in time. They cannot grow and change like the seasons or in most descriptions birth, new life. And they have superpowers and strength and often the wisdom that can come with extreme age, an often cynical, jaundiced view of life. Humans want to be part of nature. And yet we still want to push the edge of the envelope seeking to be more. Vampires let us play

with death and issues of mortality, they let us ponder what it would mean to be truly long-lived. They allow us to ask questions we usually bury except in science fiction. What does one value more and what does its own value less with a short human life? Is the vampire's frozen, quote, life sterile? Does life only mean something when it is part of a cycle of birth, growth, decay, death, and the birth of new life? Is there a beauty that comes only from the cycles of the seasons of which we are apart? So the cost of immortality.

But Jenny's like still sign me up. You're ready. No, no, no. I mean, it sounds fun. But I think she's making some great points. I think that, as you just said, moments ago, things matter because they end. And, you know, that includes our existence and our, you know, every part, every aspect of our lives. is to some degree, I think, informed by and imbued with value because our lives are not permanent

or guaranteed really for any particular amount of time. Jenny has her beautiful series voice on, so I'm going to completely ruin the mood by the next segment that I'm calling. That looks familiar, aka the spider-eating butt monkey in honor of Xander Harris. Steve, we play this next What We Do in the Shadows clip, please. Being a vampire familiar is like being a best friend who's also a slave.

Tomorrow night marks the 10-year anniversary since I started working for my master. I think he's playing something pretty special. I think he's going to make me a vampire. Guillermo, one of my favorite fictional characters of all times from what we do. Sweet Guillermo. In the shadows.

We want to talk about familiars. We got an email from listener to Luke who asked for us talk about familiars. Luke was talking about Midnight Mass. We already sort of addressed the Midnight Mass aspect. But in that show, the main familiar is a priest who has a tremendous amount of sway on the community. And that is like a really interesting aspect of that whole story. But Renfield, who is the most famous familiar of all time, that is Dracula's a Familiar a familiar.

I think I was like, why, why is the familiar interesting? Why does this come up? Not just like logistical storytelling reasons of how does this vampire operate in a world, pre-internet where they can't like door-dash things or whatever. You got to have someone to bury the bodies, I suppose. But I was thinking also this idea of like the familiar as the cautionary tale, the other side of the seduction coin is just sort of like, okay, if you're a young maiden, if you're Mina, if you're

Sukey, if you're Buffy, if you're whatever, we understand the appeal of the vampire. Usually, not always, but often the familiars are men to these male vampires, and it's like, the seduction is the promise of I will make you like me

not in a you know, psychosexual way, but just sort of like you two can have this power, but almost always, and this is certainly the case with Renfield, that promise is broken and the familiar is disposed of. So this idea of, you know, the walking, talking cautionary tale of it's not all sexy, neck-sucking,

sometimes you just eat bugs and it's all for nothing. Jenny, anything you want to say about familiars? Yeah, this feels like standards and practices injecting itself rudely. What I'm just trying to have a nice horny time. They're like, but what am? It could be sexy and cool, but also you might have to eat bugs and bury the bodies. And I don't care for that reality check myself. No, thank you.

Well, also, like, if the familiar dates back to the origin almost of vampires, then it's sort of like this two-gendered, like you said, cautionary tale, right? You're cautioning the women of your society don't fall in love with these bad, bad people. is this is what will happen to you and then you need something for the men. So don't think that these guys are so cool that you want to hang out with them and do their bidding because they're never going to do

what they promised you, you know? All right, yeah. Don't fuck the darkness. Don't serve the darkness is what we're saying. Yeah, yeah. Turn away from the darkness. But damn, doesn't it look good? Maybe you should go closer.

Maybe the bugs don't taste that bad with a little season. And if you, like, gross them. Power fantasy. here at last we hear from the myth the legend the icon

Mr. Edward Cullen Steve will you play this clip you're beautiful beautiful this is the skin of a killer belt it's a camouflage I'm the world's most dangerous predator

everything about me invites you in my voice my face even my smell As if I wouldn't need any of that. Except you could outrun me. In what way is glittering skin camouflage is my first question? For what?

At the glitter store? Sparks is really, really glittery. That clip was almost like three times as long because that whole sequence is the funniest shit you've ever seen. As if you could outrun me, as if you could fight you. me off as if he is he's like ripping roots out of trees and like just doing all the extra things one can do in a foggy Pacific Northwest Forest. Just one of the heights of cinema, this is the skin of a killer Bella. Vampire is predator. Sparkly or no. Kristen, what do you want to say

about it? Am I choosing? Sparkly or no? I'm choosing no. I choose. No. I choose. I choose. No, no sparkles with my vampires. I mean, in what sense, I guess, like the appeal of this or the appeal of the threat of them? Is that? I guess it's just sort of this question of the, like there's the, we've talked at length and we could do it for many hours more about the seductive nature of the vampire or the cautionary tale, the familiar, whatever, blah, blah. But there's this idea of, okay, what?

What does immortality make you think of and feel? What is being at the very top of the food chain do to you as a person, right? Like you lived your life in fear, perhaps of death, or, you know, if you're William the bloody AK Spike and Buffy Vampire, just searching for that perfect rhyme and iambic pentameter, you know, but like you were, you were less. You were looked down upon. You were victimized. you were all this sort of things.

And I guess perhaps we addressed this when we were talking about shame and queerness with Louis and LaSat. But like, you are physically, you could just eat anyone who gets in your way. Honestly, like, I would not take immortality, but I would take being this powerful.

Because it does. It's, I mean, it's thrilling. It's also, I mean, I think that we were talking about like our fear of death and how that's, you know, embedded into everything and what have you? When you shed that, who do you become? And then what do you do? Like, what do you do with that strength and with that power?

And also, this is a power that anyone can have. Like, it doesn't matter your gender, your race. Like, this is, if you find the right vampire who's going to sire you, you can have that power to, which I think is very appealing. Jenny, first and foremost, sparkles or no? No. It's a no for me, dog. Okay.

It's a no for me, dog. I'm team Jacob, actually, which we don't have to get into, but... Are you? Your team Jacob? Wait, what are you, Joanna? Well, I'm team. I don't like Twilight, but, like... Okay, God.

I was like, if you tell me that you are Team Edward right now. No. I mean, I'm Team Jacob and telling you, like, imprints on a literal baby, and then... Well, yeah, I mean, let's not... Every problematic fave has his most unfortunate moments. But just from like a life-size cardboard cut out in your office kind of standpoint, you got to go Jacob. Am I right? No.

I like Edward is like consumptive and I like that about him. But yeah, sure. I think Robert Pattinson is canonically hotter than Taylor Lautner, who is a fine slab of grade A beef. but just in terms of the I can't extricate Robert Pattinson's face performance looking just ill all the time from like the concept of Edward

even though I think Robert Pattinson is very handsome can I say I'm sorry I just watch so many Twilight clips in the last 24 hours and can I just say that like The absolute miracle of two phenomenally great actors being that bad in something is just one of the truths that we live through as a culture. Have you ever heard Robert Pattinson talk about what he was like what he was trying to do, like the place he was going to in those moments where he's like smelling Bella and looking absolutely repulsed? Yeah, his like sort of pull quote is I was going for a few.

50-50 mix of constipation and extremely stoned. Nailed it. And he nailed it. Master of the Craft. Robert Patton talking about how much he hates Twilight is one of my favorites in the whole world. Robert Hudson talking about what a monster, Edward Cullen is. Hell yeah.

10-0-10. No, no, it's genuinely. If you're listening to You're a Twilight lover, I support you. It's, I mean, it's a root and tune good time. There you go. And if you're listening to this and your team Bella's dad, there are a lot of people who think Charlie. Okay, sure, sure.

Yeah. If I'm choosing between the three I picked Charlie. Sure, for sure. Yeah. I think that like the idea of sort of like, as you mentioned Joanna, the rise of William, the bloody awful poet to spike the wicked hot vampire with the amazing abs. Like that sort of I was a loser that I became a vampire and now I can like do anything and, you know, just destroy anyone, eat anyone, whatever, is not so far removed

from the idea of the, she's not like other girls, high school girl who, you know, is elevated in some way by pulling the hot vampire. I also think, just thinking about the food chain, you know, like, it's interesting for me as, like, I think we as humans love to think about ourselves as the top of the food chain. We've become very comfortable, I think, with that concept. But if there was something suddenly introduced above us, you know, be it vampire, werewolf, the predator, the Terminator, the Freddy Kruger, whatever.

Nice. We're always dreaming of stuff that. The species of Freddy Krueger's. I love that. we're always dreaming up stuff that could pose terminal threat to us as a species. And I think, I don't know, that seems healthy. It seems healthy to always, like, be cultivating just, like, a little bit of fear to try to keep us, you know, on, like, on our toes. The thing that I love about Spike, again, if you're listening to this and you haven't, I'm sorry, the thing.

Many things. But if you have never watched Buffy Vampire Slayer, if you've never listened to Chris and Jenny's podcast, you've never been to a live show in San Francisco where Jenny did an impression of Spike jumping off some crates. He's a very cool guy. He's a real famous point. That's the point about Spike is that his loserness actually never leaves him. And he is like, you meet him and he is this Billy Idol looking coolest, hottest shit guy. and then you find out that he's still that insecure human loser that he ever was, you know, inside. I love him for it, you know.

Yeah, no, I know. But, like, that's an important part of the vampire story is, like, you know, in the Whedon version, there's various versions of what happens to you when you turn. But in that version, you allegedly lose your soul and you become a demon, a demon living inside of the, you know, skin suit that was a, you know, the human, et cetera. But like how much of your own personality do you retain? How much of your own like trauma and psychology else or stuff like that? So I think this idea of like you can do anything. You are so powerful.

And then you are still to go back to like what Anne Rice was saying about like the power of the vampire as a iconography element is, was human, is human, like is still retains that. humanity inside the monstrosity. I think that's compelling. You can't escape yourself. And I think the most compelling and fascinating vampires in film, television, and literature are the ones who still, in spite of their incredible power, their strength, their top of the food chaininess, managed to show us deep. cutting mortal wounds. They maintain these vulnerabilities and soft spots in spite of their supernatural or

preternatural gifts, you know. Let's talk about angst, as you mentioned. We are almost done here. We've done a great job. The last thing I want to talk about, and this goes back to Barnabas and Dark Shadows, or Louis in an interview with a vampire or angel and eventually Spike or whomesoever you want to talk about in terms of I don't want to be this monster that I have become rather than relishing the power relishing. This is the opposite coin of like I am the apex predator, the opposite of Lestat being like you're a killer, Louis, be a killer, you know, like all this sort of stuff like that. I'm calling this good, good vamp, bad vamp, or insufferable vegetarian vampires or addiction metaphors.

And I pulled a vampire diaries clip just for Jenny. Steve? My head is pounding. I feel like my skin is on fire. I have this hunger inside of me that I've never felt before in my entire life. And all I keep thinking about is how I promise that I would never keep anything from you. And so I'm telling you. this. It's okay. I need you to tell me these things. But I don't want you to see me like this.

I don't want you to know that this side of me exists. Did that tell anyone listening on the show? This is that's very, that's it. This is Stefan and Elena in her teenage bedroom talking about addiction through the lens of bloodlust. We did get a listener email Hila who wanted to talk about because I had, we were talking about throuples. And I was talking about the idea of the vampire love triangle and how usually there's like the good vampire or the boring safe vampire and then the bad boy vampire be it angel and spike or bill and eric on true blood or stephen and damon salvator on the vampire diaries and then she was like well actually let's talk about stephen salvator and addiction right um and she was saying um he lies to the people he loves who worry about him one drop of human blood is enough to set him off the edge and he

often uses human blood as a means of escape from his more complicated emotions on the on the show this throws a wrench in the idea that Stefan is the, quote, safer option for Atlanta, who is a terrible character in person, but that's a whole other thing. It also makes me wonder whether there are other examples of pop culture where vampires and their bloodlester uses metaphors for people who struggle with addiction. Yes, this is a huge element of the vampire trope. Kristen, anything you want to say about that? Well, I mean, I had two questions that are really not related. One is, is Stefan the one who drinks his blood? out of a whiskey class?

Is he how... Oh, do he drinks whiskey and blood? That's Damon. They both drink whiskey all the time. They're drinking brown liquor, round the clock. Okay, okay, okay. And then, I mean, my first thought was not vampires as a vehicle for addiction, but magic is a vehicle for addiction, which is sort of same, same.

It's like this thing that you can't stay away from this thing that you have to do. Oh, you're referencing the best storyline that ever happened on Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Yes, yes. The dark willow. of the toll. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing that I find really, because I was, I saw this and I was trying to think about how

I feel about vampires as a vehicle for addiction. And it's complicated because vampires need blood to live. So the metaphor gets a little wiggly for me. You know what I mean? Like it's, and I mean, it does not to spoil you for season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it gets wiggly with magic too. It's just, it's, I could see how perhaps you might want to use this as a way of telling that story, but it's tricky because it's a necessary component for life.

Totally. I agree. You can't go necessarily cold turkey on blood. There are a number of narrative vehicles for this across various properties. There is, as Jenny mentioned, like these synthetic blood substitutes or vampires who only drink from, you know, blood bags they got from the back door of the ER or vampires who only drink animal blood. you know, like there's like, what are the alternatives to drinking deep from the warm neck, the warm throbbing neck of a human?

I can't believe we haven't said throbbing one time until now. Wow, wow, this feels like none of my business. You know what I mean? Also, it's not just like, it's like, let's just say drinking deep of a badger versus drinking deep of a human being like a difference. Amy. Yes, I guess that makes sense. The difference here. Jenny, what do you want to say? Throughout the history of cinema and television, various creators have told many a story in which they have used, you know, something as a stand-in for addiction. And horror, fantasy, and sci-fi, like all of these genre spaces are, like, incredible places to explore and kind of like,

say the thing without saying the thing. It's like pushing on walls. You can just like get away with more. But also I feel like, you know, you really have to stick the landing, you know, it just feels like a very sensitive topic. And I don't feel like necessarily well-versed to be like, hmm, is Stefan's situation? Like, does that feel like a bullseye or does it feel like maybe kind of crumbly. With love and respect to the many, many hours that I have spent of my life watching both Vampire Diaries and some of the originals, I don't know that anything on that show is a

bull's eye. Or it's enjoyable. Except the scene where he rockets up to the top of the Ferris wheel. That's a bull's eye, joy. Yeah. It's literal bulls. Well, it's not to love. I was going to say, too, because we, I mean, I brought up Willow and that arc, like that

addiction arc that exists in Buffy. And one of the things that we did during that time was that we talked to someone who was an expert on addiction about that story. And it was a really fascinating conversation. And I think what makes it even trickier is that the conversation around addiction is also shifting. You know, it's not this linear thing, you know, the concept of like, Cold turkey, I think, is what you used, or like nothing is the only way.

Like, these concepts are shifting and there's some more nuance and what have you. So it's a tricky thing to talk about. And I think it's probably best done by folks who know what they're doing and or outside of, like, a vampire in blood space. But, you know, I'm not going to fight you if you disagree. I think it's fine to take five steps to the left from making this a straight addiction. conversation and talk about, I think, a bit more, a very famous quote from interview of vampire that Anne Rice wrote is, evil is always possible and goodness is eternally difficult. Not to put a value judgment in the addiction space, but like just to say this idea of like

the vampire, the vampire themselves becoming seduced, right? Where it's like this idea of like, okay, we talked about the seduction powers the vampire. But what if you're a vampire and you have to resist something? Be it the odd-smelling teenager in your science lab or sex before marriage or whatever it is that Iber Coulton's up to. Or, you know, drinking deep of the warm neck of, you know, the passerby, right? You know, it's just sort of like that is seductive. You know, we talk about like people in the thrall of vampire. But like oftentimes in these filmed versions of vampire stories, you'll see the vampire themselves get this like, I guess, half, constipated, half stoned or just like, you know, drug, just stupefied, looked on their face.

You hear on the soundtrack the throbbing of the blood in the veins as they are like, all they can focus on is the blood. Again, if you want to take five steps to the left from talking about that as a straight addiction metaphor, that is fine. but it is this like seduction or how do I walk a straight and narrow path when I am permanently in a world that is dominated by, I suppose, sin or death or, you know, power or whatever it is. Jenny? I think it must be really hard to be a vampire. You know. To be that hot forever? To be that hot forever.

To be so thirsty all the time. to look so good in every shade of velvet, not just the jewel tones. Wow. Not to mention that it's so hard to keep your shirts button, you know? I'm thinking about in Only Lovers Left Alive how these two, just two unreasonably hot vampires are partners. They live in different parts of the world. They have to fly at night. It's very complicated when they want to visit each other.

And they're on a quest for blood always. And blood, like humans, and the blood of humans is actually kind of like almost a threat because humans have become so unhealthy that vampires can't just like feed willy-nilly. They have to like find a source or like enthrall somebody who works at a high. hospital to ensure that they can get a supply of like blood that has been cleaned and is ready to be like, you know, transfused into someone because we as a species are so polluted, which maybe kind of like dovetails into what we're talking about. Not that I like to think about Fentanyl, but like it feels very relevant to yeah what's going on in this moment in history

with Fentanyl because in that version of a vampire story, vampires can perish if they drink the wrong blood. Only Lovers Left Alive is an incredible vampire story. The particular hot vampires that Jenny was talking about are played by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hibelson, two of the hottest people, sexually fluid people of all time. Incredible. There is a scene, I almost clipped it,

but there's a scene where Mia Wasakowska plays a younger, less cultivated vampire, less experienced vampire, whatever. And one night they leave her alone with Tom Hiddleston's familiar, his thrall, and she drains him. And they find her sort of sprawled over him, And she's got just like blood, like all around her mouth. And Tilda Swinton's like, this is the 21st century.

We don't do this. What are you doing? He's in the music industry. She's like, I feel sick. She's like, what do you expect? He's in the music industry. And then Tom Hiddleston walks in and he goes, you drank Ian. You drank Ian.

It's just an incredible movie. And I really, really like that. But yeah, that movie is a lot about. what are your alternatives in the blood space? Also, fantastic blood popsicles in that particular movie. Last or not least, I just want to do a rapid-fire vampire fiction recommendation section in case there are things we hadn't hit that you guys wanted to recommend. It doesn't have to be a book, but I did want to play this last clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Steve can you play this? Right. You can't just go. Libram and cinderay And except Sam, I don't speak Latin in front of the books I have some books to recommend Our listener Sarah wrote in to recommend

Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian which is a book I loved And I really recommend Good old Vlad the Impaler Makes an appearance So that is a really, really good one I also want to recommend The Christopher Moore trilogy

Bloodsucking Fiends You Suck and Bite Me Those are San Francisco Vampires they're amazing. One of my favorite scenes from one of those books is, like, in the early 90s, it was really popular to go to this Safeway, particular Safeway in San Francisco and pick single people up. And so he sets a scene there where they're like vampires are trolling for their meals at that Safeway. It was just like really cracks me up. Carpe Jogulam by Terry Pratchett, incredible vampire comedy book, and Sunshine by Robin McKinley, which is a vampire story that is really stuck with me. I love Robin McKinley. Anything either book, TV, movie that we haven't talked about that you want to recommend, Jenny? There's a short story by Karen Russell called Vampires in the Lemon Grove, which I would highly recommend.

Anything by Karen Russell, really. That whole collection. Yeah, yeah. Great one. I want to have something. But what I learned when I saw this prompt is that of all of the books that I read in the sci-fi fantasy world, they're all like magic otherworldly. There were no vampires. Do you want to talk about the Lost Boys, which we haven't talked about, but I know is very important to you?

Oh, the film The Lost Boys? Yeah, well, I mean, listen, Spike, the Vampires. is sort of like the, when we see Spike in the 80s, it's like he was probably friends with the Lost Boys. The Lost Boys is like a specifically 80s vibe sexy vampire movie. Kiefer Sutherland, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I was going to say that the thing that sits in my mind most is the carousel. Like every time I see a carousel, I think about 1980s vampires just riding it in

dark. Definitely see the Lost Boys if you haven't. It's fantastic. Joanna, do you know that there is a musical adaptation of The Lost Boys in the works? One of my buds is one of the people working on the music and she rocks, so it'll probably be pretty cool. It is my dream this summer to both go to the Lord of the Rings musical that is playing in Chicago and the Boulder musical that is playing in the fall. We shall see. All right. Well, on that note of vampires riding horses in the dark, I just will recommend a few more

things. We haven't talked about The Hunger, which is an iconic vampire film that I just want to shout out. A girl walks home alone at night. Yes. Super wonderful, vibe, moody vampire movie that I really, really love. And we didn't talk a lot about or at all maybe about being human, which I know is a show that Mallory loves and has, at least in the UK version, one of the all-time great hunky vampires,

tortured vampires. And that's, oh, and let the right one in, or in all its iterations. Oh, yeah. Also great. Can we get Mal to watch Buffy by suggesting that one of our vampires in Buffy is sexier than her vampire on her show that she likes? Would that be? I know, she's probably listening to it, so I blew it.

Um, yes, it's a high bar, uh, I will say, uh, you know, as loyal as I am to the Buffy Vamps, it is a, it is a high bar, uh, to beat Adrian Turner on being human, but we can try. We can always try. Um, all right. Where can folks find you, the pair of you if they enjoyed your ruminations on sexiness and immortality? My name is Jenny Owen Youngs, and you can find our podcasting works by searching in your feed for buffering the vampire slayer or the X-Files. That's the E-X-Files. I like the way you pronounce that, Jenny. Yes. Well, I don't want to just be like, you know, the X-Files because I've got to really pronounce the E. Jenny Owen Youngs is also an incredibly talented musician. Please listen to all her music.

It is so good. She is the best. Kristen, Rousseau, anything else you want to promote? Yeah, Jenny Owen Youngs.com. And yeah, when I'm not talking about vampires with you, Joanna, or with you, Jenny, I work with and for LGBTQ communities. So you can learn about that by using my really easy to spell name, Kristen Nolene. that's K-R-I-S-D-I-N-O-E

Wonderful. Thank you so much. You two are the best. I love you forever. eternally, immortally. And if I'm ever become a vampire, I will turn you so we can all podcast forever. It would be the one reason I would accept immortality, Joanna.

Eternal podcasting, eternal youth. eternal glory. Thank you to Steve Allman on the soundboard and keeping all the clips straight and just being the best as always. Thank you to Arjuna Runga Pau for his production work on this episode to Jomi Adiniran on the social

to Malay Rubin in absentia and we will see you all thrice next week. Get your Game of Thrones nostalgia or disappointment ready. It's coming. All right. Bye!