Rant: I like vampires, am I a cliche?

So having spent a charming day trying not to catch a cold and buying copious numbers of pairs of socks, I can return to one of my pet favourite topics. Yes it's time to talk vampires once more. Why? Well last week's Radio Times contained a somewhat peculiar article extolling the virtues of the second series of the BBC's Being Human, which is certainly not a bad thing in itself: I loved the first series even if it didn't have quite the same quirky humour as the pilot. The article bothered me for it's vicious attack on the rest of the vampire genre (strange too since the series focuses as much on ghosts and werewolves as it does on the vamps, more of a supernatural fantasy in general than a straight vampire show) though mainly focusing on Twilight, or the bane of serious vampire fiction as I sometimes call it. It bothers me that people uninterested in a genre as a whole tend to point one example and assume this is the core of it, and the article did just that, saying explicitly that most, if not all, vampire fans are screaming fourteen-year-old girls (or at least women who act like them) who, to put it crudely, aren't getting any (the phrasing, if I remember correctly, was "why are women so interested in vampires? We're not if we're having sex"). Now, while I'll admit that the matter of sexuality often features heavily in the genre, there's certainly a lot more to it than pure eye-candy. Even if we don't count the many examples of vampire fictions which do not directly deal with sex (Salem's Lot to Perfect Creature are two that spring to mind), those stories that do will usually do so in an unconventional way: Stoker's Dracula shocked audiences with its hinted homosexuality, and anyone saying that the vampire character Eli in Let the Right One In was a sex object clearly needs their head examining. Even the much maligned Twilight series (I refuse to call it a saga, it has nothing to do with Norse poetry!) deals with sexuality from an unusual abstinence-only direction.

I can understand people claiming that Twilight fans are embracing their inner fourteen year old, but the vampire genre as a whole? Are Stephen King, Kim Newman, Brian Lumley, Richard Matheson and John Lindqvist screaming teenaged girls? No. Were their novels aimed at screaming teenaged girls? No. They were aimed at serious adult readers, admittedly adult readers with a love of gory horror, but adults nonetheless. There is far more to modern vampire fiction (and slightly less modern vampire fiction) than "paranormal romance".

But wait, dear reader, there's more. The writer of this cruelly generalised article is none other than outspoken writer Julie Burchill, who was behind the hit teen novel and two-season series Sugar Rush. Quite why she feels qualified to write about vampires I don't know, it seems that she was hired simply because both Sugar Rush and Being Human star Lenora Crichlow. Whatever the reason, Burchill finished her article suggesting that the popularity of vampire fiction somehow hampers LGBT issues. I'm not sure if this was some sort of strange veiled joke but it really has me beat. Evidently she hadn't noticed that every other vampire story in existence from the genre's inception deals in their own way with gender and sexual orientation. I already mentioned Count Dracula and his hold over Jonathon Harker, and most will be familiar with the more explicitly lesbian antics in Le Fanu's Carmilla, both using homosexuality as indications of the vampires' supposed deviance, but of course modern fiction is far more progressive. Whether it's the red-hot homoeroticism of Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls (Poppy herself is famously gender queer, referring to herself as a "non-operative transsexual") or the less attention-grabbing, but beautifully formed cast of supporting characters from True Blood (and of course originally from Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels), with a quick shout for The Hunger, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Lair and to the enormous number of "vampire-as-AIDS-metaphor" works out there too. In many cases the vampire is an allegory for progressive sexuality, seen as dangerous by ordinary society; some may be mere stereotypes, but as a whole they're not really getting in the way of the cause, are they?

I assume that what Ms Burchill means is that the popularity of Twilight is hampering the LGBT material aimed at the same (young adult) audience, and that's fair enough, but let's face it, Julie, not all kids are going to be drawn to such material. Children who read a lot will read a lot and happening to read a few vampires novels isn't going to get in the way of their social education. Kids who don't read all that much but have sort out Twilight, with its rather weak female lead and right-wing tack, sadly aren't the sorts of children you can sway to progressive thinking with a couple of cheery stories about teenage lesbians.

Oh and one final little irony, the very things for which Burchill praised Being Human (unromantic views on death, the boredom of immortality etc etc, all the usual twists on the conventional appeal of the undead) are, in fact, so common a variation on the genre they even appear in the object of attack, Twilight. Nice going there. Maybe some research would be an idea next time?

In short, I do wish the media would stop saying "vampires" when they mean "Twilight". Well, actually I wish the media would say what they mean in general, to be honest, careless use of words can cost dearly, but that's a rant for another day and is stretching the focus of this little rantling a little too far, methinks. This one's far too long as it is.