"You Need a Vampire in Your Life": Vampiric Heroes, Female Empowerment and the Marginalized Other in HBO's True Blood

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“YOU NEED A VAMPIRE IN YOUR LIFE”:

VAMPIRIC HEROES, FEMALE EMPOWERMENT

AND THE MARGINALIZED OTHER

IN HBO’S TRUE BLOOD

by

JOYCE S. NIJHUIS

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature and Culture

at the University of Amsterdam

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INTRODUCTION

Vampires have been around for a long time. We have invited them into our homes and they have penetrated our lives. After the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula in 1897, the figure of the vampire became well known to the public. However, the history of the vampire in English literature goes back a little further. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “vampire” made its first appearance in the English language in 1734, although it was then spelled as “vampyre.” Over the course of the years, the vampire has taken many different shapes and forms and the figure has changed significantly. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, literature showed vampires developing dangerously close relationships with humans. Works such as John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, published in 1819, James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire, published in 1845, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, published in 1872, focus on the friendship between vampires and humans. According to Nina Auerbach, “vampires were not demon lovers or snarling aliens in the early nineteenth century, but singular friends. In those days it was a privilege to walk with a vampire” (13). This image of the vampire changed with the arrival of Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula is not a friend, but a dangerous enemy instead. Stoker’s novel was—and still is—immensely popular and has had a great influence on the vampire fiction and film that came after it.

Nowadays, vampires are hot business. The twentieth and twenty-first century have seen the release of hundreds of novels, movies, television shows, and even musicals that feature vampires, often in combination with werewolves and other supernatural creatures. A lot of these are adaptations of Stoker’s Dracula, but the twenty-first century has also seen the rise of vampire romance novels. Vampires have gone from friend to foe to friend again, and even lover. Romantic relationships between vampires and humans are a recurrent theme in

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contemporary vampire fiction, as well as the desire to become a vampire. This was already evident in Anne Rice’s novel series The Vampire Chronicles, of which the first novel was released in 1976, but the twenty-first century has taken vampire romance to the next level. The Twilight Saga, a book series written by Stephenie Meyer, has an enormous fan base that mostly consists of teenage girls, which became even bigger when the novels were turned into movies. It centers on seventeen-year-old Bella Swan, who falls in love with the sparkly vampire Edward Cullen. Furthermore, The Vampire Diaries, a book series written by L.J. Smith, also features a teenage girl who falls in love with not one, but two vampires, and they also happen to be brothers. Smith’s novels were later turned into a television show by the CW. These examples prove that vampires sell, and nowadays it seems like you cannot turn on the television or walk into a bookstore without coming across a vampire tale.

Most vampire romance novels revolve around a young woman who falls in love with a vampire or another supernatural creature, sometimes both. She has to face the problems that come with that, but in the end their love usually conquers all. Instead of being the villain, the vampiric boyfriends are the heroes of the story, and they save the heroine from many

dangerous situations. However, being in a relationship with a vampire is what usually causes these dangerous situations. The vampire has to keep himself from attacking the heroine and drinking her blood, although the heroine sometimes lets him. In contemporary vampire fiction, women prefer supernatural creatures to humans because they are the one ones who can give them what they desire. Vampiric boyfriends seem to have it all, because they have lived longer and have much more experience. They are old-fashioned gentlemen, and are “more manly than mere men could be or, perhaps, than we would want real men to be” (Mukherjea, “My Vampire Boyfriend” 14). Vampires are fantasy men, but the need for them is very real.

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What these vampire romance novels have in common is that most of them are written by women. These female-centered narratives often invite the audience to identify strongly with the heroine. Female empowerment is a big topic in the novels, and the author shows the reader what women are capable of. Women in vampire fiction have evolved from helpless victims to strong, fearless companions. There are of course exceptions to this, but a

significant change in female characters can be noticed when comparing nineteenth-century vampire literature with contemporary vampire literature. Over the years, women have gotten much more agency and are not so dependent on men anymore. They can defend themselves and they can make their own decisions. This is especially true for female vampires, who used to be seen as a threat to male dominancy. In Dracula, for example, female vampires are overtly sexual and seduce the men with their “voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 175). Dracula himself does not engage in sexual activities and has control over the female vampires.

Nowadays, male and female vampires are usually treated as equals, and they are both sexually active.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries—also known as The Sookie Stackhouse Novels—is another popular book series about vampires. The series was written by Charlaine Harris and consists of thirteen novels, of which the first one was published in 2001 and the final one in 2013. These novels have served as the inspiration for the television show True Blood, which will be the main focus of this thesis. The show is produced by the premium cable network and production company Home Box Office, which will from here on be referred to as HBO.

True Blood revolves around the telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, played by Anna Paquin, who falls in love with a hundred-and-eighty-year-old vampire named Bill Compton, played by Stephen Moyer. A striking difference with the rest of the vampire romance stories is that almost all of the characters in True Blood are consenting adults, and the show is meant for adults only. Instead of being banned from human society and hiding in

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the shadows, the vampires in True Blood have “come out of the coffin.” They have made their existence known to the public and demand equal rights. In order to keep the peace with the rest of the population, vampires have to survive on a synthetic blood called “Tru Blood.” Apart from vampires, the show also features other supernatural creatures, such as

werewolves, witches, fairies and shapeshifters. The show takes place in the fictional town of Bon Temps in Louisiana, and uses this environment in different ways.

What makes True Blood so interesting is its multiplicity. The show uses familiar elements from the vampire tradition, but it combines them with the sociopolitical context of twenty-first-century America. Unlike other works of contemporary vampire fiction and film, True Blood explicitly deals with current societal problems, such as discrimination and

violence against minorities, drug addiction, terrorism, the power of religion, the control of the media, and the struggle for equal rights. This makes the show an exceptional example of the relationship between historical moment, sociocultural context, and the genealogy of vampire fiction and film. However, True Blood is not the first vampire story that displays the

sociopolitical environment of the era it was written in. The figure of the vampire has long been seen as a stand-in for the fears, desires and problems of society. In her book Our

Vampires, Ourselves, Nina Auerbach investigates the figure of the vampire and demonstrates that “every age embraces the vampire it needs” (145). She argues that the transformations that the vampire went through can be connected to changes in society. Auerbach published her book in 1995, but the popularity of vampires has since then immensely increased.

In this thesis, I will build on Auerbach’s argument and extend it to the twenty-first century. I will argue that Auerbach’s theory can still be applied today and I will demonstrate that the modern vampire still serves as a mirror for contemporary society. I will use the HBO series True Blood as my primary text, because this show overtly exhibits the marginalization of minorities, as well as the need for heroism and the empowerment of women. In order to

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find out how the figure of the vampire has changed and which elements of the vampire tradition have been recycled by True Blood, I will first look at the history of the vampire figure in English literature and film. I will then analyze vampire-human relationships and the representation of women and sexuality in True Blood. Furthermore, I will examine how current societal issues such as homosexuality and racism are represented in True Blood and what they demonstrate. I will focus on the first six seasons of True Blood that have aired from 2008 to 2013. Each season consists of twelve one-hour episodes, with the exception of the sixth season, which only consists of ten episodes. The seventh and final season of the show will air in the summer of 2014 and will therefore be excluded from this thesis.

In the first chapter, I will trace the genealogy of the vampire in English literature and I will analyze the changes the figure of the vampire has gone through from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. I will do this in order to find out how True Blood has both recycled familiar elements from the vampire tradition and contributed novel elements to it. In the second chapter, I will focus on the figure of the sympathetic vampire and relationships between vampires and humans in True Blood. I will examine how vampires in True Blood act as heroes as well as villains and I will analyze what makes them such desirable boyfriends in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, I will look at heroic qualities in other, non-vampiric men on the show. In the third chapter, I will examine the representation of women and sexuality in True Blood. Women are still marginalized in modern-day society and there is a lack of strong female characters on television. True Blood presents the viewer with a diverse spectrum of female characters, some of which I will discuss in this chapter.

In the fourth chapter, I will examine the use of vampirism as a metaphor for the marginalized Other, and I will focus on the depiction of homosexuality and racism in True Blood. Besides dealing with these issues metaphorically, True Blood features several openly gay characters and deals with the problems they encounter. The series takes place in the

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South of the United States, which has had a long history of slavery. Racism is still a big issue there and this is portrayed in True Blood. In this chapter, I will discuss the explicit and implicit use of homosexuality as well as racism, and I will discuss several gay and African-American characters.

Overall, I will demonstrate what separates True Blood from the rest of modern-day vampire culture and what makes the show so captivating. By analyzing the representation of romance and heroism, women and sexuality, and social exclusion in True Blood, I will demonstrate how the show deals with the difficult relationship between sociopolitical context and genre tradition. Ultimately, I will argue that True Blood is a sociopolitical hybridization of two hundred years of vampire fiction and film.

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BACK TO THE BEGINNING: THE EVER-CHANGING VAMPIRE

When we think of the first literary vampire, our mind usually turns to Dracula. Bram Stoker’s Dracula surely is the most famous vampire story of all time and has spawned many adaptations. However, it was not the first English-language tale of vampirism. With the publication of his novel in 1897, Stoker turned the already existing vampire tradition upside down. As mentioned in the introduction, pre-Dracula vampires were not scary and vengeful enemies like Dracula, but rather intimate friends. Through the years, the figure of the vampire has undergone tremendous change. On this subject, Auerbach writes:

In England (at least until the coming of Dracula), vampires offered an

intimacy that threatened the sanctioned distance of class relationships and the hallowed authority of husbands and fathers. Vampires before Dracula were dangerously close friends. When they became charismatic stage performers, theatrical technology suffused them with a spectral aura, and popular

mythology bestowed on them mystic lunar affinities, safely dissipating the erotic implications of their intimacy. At the end of the century, Bram Stoker’s Dracula—animal rather than phantom, mesmerist rather than intimate, tyrant rather than friend—safely quarantined vampires from their human prey, foreclosing friendship and opening the door to the power-hungry predators so congenial to the twentieth century. (6-7)

As Auerbach notes, nineteenth-century vampires lost some of their distinctive traits with the arrival of Dracula, and gained new ones. What Stoker’s Dracula did at the end of the

nineteenth century, True Blood does today.

To demonstrate True Blood’s combination of familiar elements of the vampire tradition with new ones, I will examine the history of the vampire in English literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day. By discussing several works of vampire fiction, I will demonstrate how the figure of the vampire has changed in those two hundred years and I will indicate how some of these changes have manifested in True Blood.

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Nineteenth-Century Literary Vampires

The English public was introduced to the figure of the vampire through John William Polidori’s short story The Vampyre, which was first published in 1819. Its protagonist, Lord Ruthven, was based on Polidori’s former employer Lord Byron. According to Auerbach, “Byron in his most congenial mood modeled for the first literary vampire to captivate the popular imagination” (13). Byron was known for his extravagant life and his many sexual escapades with both men and women. Milly Williamson notes that he “had become a figure of shocking repute” and that rumors of “infidelity, incest, homosexuality and debt dogged Byron” (36). These issues are reflected in The Vampyre and, like True Blood, this short story connects the figure of the vampire to problems that society was dealing with at the time it was written.

The Vampyre revolves around Aubrey, a young Englishman, who befriends the mysterious Lord Ruthven. They become traveling companions and on one of their travels, they meet Ianthe, the daughter of their innkeeper. She becomes Aubrey’s love interest, but is later murdered by a vampire. Afterwards, Aubrey and Ruthven are attacked by a group of thieves and Ruthven dies. However, when Aubrey returns to London, he sees Ruthven again, alive and kicking. Ruthven becomes attracted to Aubrey’s sister and they get married. Aubrey finds out that his friend is not who he thought he was, but it is already too late. On their wedding night, Aubrey’s sister is found dead, drained of her blood, and Ruthven has disappeared.

The Vampyre presents the reader with an intimate friendship between a vampire and a human. This intimacy between vampires and humans is also evident in True Blood, but the show takes it to the next level by developing vampire-human friendships into romantic relationships. The show even features “fangbangers”: humans who enjoy vampire sex and

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allow vampires to drink their blood. However, in The Vampyre, Aubrey did not know that Lord Ruthven was a vampire when he befriended him, while vampires in True Blood are out in the open and their vampiric nature is not a secret.

After Polidori’s The Vampyre, it took a while before another vampire story was published. From 1845 to 1847, a series of “penny dreadfuls” by James Malcolm Rymer came out, titled Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood. These were weekly installments of a story that was eventually printed in book form in 1847, consisting of two hundred and

twenty-two chapters over eight hundred pages. The penny dreadfuls were marketed to young, working class men who wanted to read a sensational tale of adventure. Because the writer got paid by the word, these stories were often long-winded, repetitive and inconsistent. This is definitely true for Varney the Vampire.

The story starts off with an attack on a young maiden. Varney enters through Flora Bannerworth’s window, hypnotizes her and plunges his fangs into her neck. This is now a familiar image in vampire stories, but Rymer was the one who came up with it. Flora’s family comes to her aid but Varney manages to escape. A few days later, the family receives a letter from Sir Francis Varney, who wishes to buy their house. When they meet him, they realize that he is the one who attacked Flora. They accuse him, but he denies that he is a vampire. As the story continues, it is sometimes unclear whether Varney is a vampire at all. Auerbach writes: “Varney is haunting because no one quite knows what he is: a vampire at midcentury can be many things at once” (21). This multiplicity is also noticeable in True Blood. For example, vampires in True Blood are not either good or evil, but they are usually a combination of both.

Varney’s character is complex; on the one hand he is a ruthless killer, but on the other hand he also shows remorse, and despises his vampiric nature. He is the first example of the sympathetic vampire: a vampire who is afflicted by his own evil and is presented as a victim.

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In True Blood, Bill is introduced as a sympathetic vampire because he, like Varney, struggles with his nature and does not want to harm humans. Nowadays, the sympathetic vampire is a commonly used trope but it was a novelty in the nineteenth century. Williamson argues that the novel’s “depiction of the suffering vampire was the one that working-class Victorians would have been most familiar with, not the monolithic force of evil that Dracula will come to signify at the end of the century” (21, emphasis original). In Varney the Vampire, the Bannerworth family slowly begins to empathize with Varney and even protects him from harm. At the end of the story, Varney feels so remorseful that he throws himself into Mount Vesuvius. The reader finds out that he was turned into a vampire after he killed his son in a rage. He has died many times but was always resurrected. Because he cannot be revived after throwing himself in an active volcano, the story is finally finished.

Varney is not interested in sex but instead goes after the Bannerworth family for their money. He wishes to acquire status and wants to be accepted. Auerbach states that “Varney’s friendship, like his audience, is broader than Byronic intimacy; it embraces not a sole chosen spirit, but an entire society” (28). Unfortunately, that society does not welcome him with open arms. When the villagers learn of his nature, he is haunted and his house is burned down. Varney is a social outcast, much like Dracula, and is feared by the people around him. This is also visible in True Blood. Although the vampires in the show have integrated into human society, a lot of humans do not want to live alongside them. Like Varney, vampires in True Blood are outcasts, and are feared by most humans. Only a few accepting humans, like Sookie, are willing to look past their vampiric nature and take them to their hearts.

In 1871, the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu published his novella Carmilla. The novella is now considered a canonical masterpiece in vampire literature and its eponymous protagonist is Carmilla. She is a lesbian vampire who, unlike her predecessors, is interested in more than just friendship. Auerbach explains:

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Vampires make draining friends in the nineteenth century, but as we shall see, only when vampires are women do their friends become literal prey: [female vampires] leap from homoerotic friendship to homosexual love, but male vampires refuse to love their food. For most of them, the need to feed on women is an annoying distraction from their political or metaphysical

concerns. Vampiric hunger is incidental to men who have their most complex identities as friends. (18)

Carmilla is not only the first female vampire that the English public was introduced to, but also the first homosexual vampire. She “has all the agency of our male vampires with none of their erotic ambivalence” (Auerbach 40). True Blood also features homosexual vampires, which I will discuss in the fourth chapter.

Carmilla is in love with Laura, a young girl who narrates the story. Carmilla and Laura first meet when Laura is six but Laura thinks it was a dream and does not remember much of it. Twelve years later, the two meet again and Carmilla is invited to stay with Laura’s family. They become close friends, but Carmilla remains mysterious. She sleeps during much of the day and appears to be sleepwalking during the night. Laura has nightmares of a monstrous cat entering her room at night and biting her chest. She grows weaker and weaker, while Carmilla only grows stronger. Laura’s father takes her to Karlstein and they meet General Spielsdorf on the way. He tells them of his niece, who died under mysterious circumstances after becoming friends with a houseguest named Millarca. The General says that he caught Mircalla in his niece’s bedroom one night, biting her neck. He then attempted to kill her but she managed to escape. His niece showed the same symptoms as Laura and they become suspicious. The General takes them to Millarca’s tomb in

Karlstein, where they are interrupted by Carmilla. The General recognizes her and attacks her with an axe, but she escapes again. They realize that Millarca and Carmilla are the same woman and that the names are both anagrams for Countess Mircalla Karnstein. Baron Voldenburg joins them and takes them to Mircalla’s grave, where they find Carmilla. They stake her, decapitate her and burn the body, saving Laura as a result.

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There is a clear homosexual undertone in the novel and the reader is left to wonder whether Carmilla’s love is requited. Carmilla confesses her love for Laura multiple times but Laura does not respond. Homosexuality, as well as female sexuality, was a taboo in Victorian society and Carmilla is “one of the few self-accepting homosexuals in Victorian or any literature” (Auerbach 41). The male vampires that came before her did enjoy friendships with men, but never crossed the line to homosexual relationships. Le Fanu’s Carmilla also brings vampirism dangerously close to home. Carmilla is invited inside Laura’s castle and the two share an intimacy that had not been seen before at the time. While sexuality was implicit in nineteenth-century vampire literature, it is very explicit in True Blood. Nearly every vampire on the show, male and female, heterosexual as well as homosexual, enjoys sexual encounters with humans and other vampires. I will discuss this further in the third chapter.

After Carmilla, a few other vampire tales were published, again showing a close relationship between vampires and humans. However, none of them had so much impact on vampire literature as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which came out in 1897. The novel is written in epistolary form and starts with Jonathan Harker’s journey to Transylvania, where he meets Count Dracula. Dracula wants to purchase an estate in England and Jonathan helps him with the legal papers. Dracula takes Jonathan prisoner in his castle, where Jonathan is attacked by three female vampires. He finds out that Dracula is a vampire as well and fears for his life. Fortunately, Jonathan is able to escape Dracula’s castle but he later becomes ill. His fiancée Mina Murray travels to Transylvania to take care of him, and they get married. When he is recovered, they return to England, and find out that Dracula has arrived there as well. He has turned Mina’s friend Lucy Westenra into a vampire and later bites Mina too. With the help of Professor Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood, they manage to find Dracula and kill him by driving a stake through his heart and cutting his throat.

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The 1890s were a period of great social change in England. Like True Blood, Dracula exhibits the sociopolitical environment of the time in which it was written. Williamson notes: “the Victorian age which produced Dracula (and its author) is considered to be one of sexual repression and the vampire represents the return of the (masculine) repressed” (5).

Furthermore, “the 1890s were a time when male aesthetes and the ‘New Woman’ offered alternative definitions of what it meant to be male or female. Conflicting discourses circulated about proper conduct (sexual and otherwise) and gender roles” (Williamson 6). These conflicts are clearly represented in Dracula. While Carmilla was open about her homosexuality, the female vampires in Dracula are clearly heterosexual and prey only on men. Also, active female sexuality is feared and has to be destroyed. Dracula is not sexual like the female vampires and is, as far as the reader knows, the only male vampire. Auerbach writes: “turning women into vampires does nothing to mitigate his solitude: his mindless creations have too little in common with him to be friends” (82). He is thus utterly alone and a pariah in society. It is perhaps this exclusion from society that makes him want to take revenge.

Dracula is not a close friend to humans like the vampires that came before him. Instead, he is an evil enemy from the start and wants to rule over humans. While pre-Dracula vampires desperately try to fit in and pass as humans, Dracula clearly stands out. According to Auerbach, “Dracula’s disjunction from earlier, friendlier vampires makes him less a specter of an undead past than a harbinger of a world to come, a world that is our own” (63). Humans are only needed for their blood, not for friendship, and vampires are to be feared and destroyed. Unlike Varney, Dracula is not sympathetic and the audience immediately

identifies him as the villain. Although True Blood features vampires who want to be accepted by human society, it also portrays vampires who, like Dracula, see themselves as superior to humans and want to dominate them. I will discuss this further in the second chapter.

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Vampiric Changes in the Twentieth Century

Dracula has had a tremendous influence on the way vampires were seen in the twentieth century. A popular vampire archetype that was used in the early twentieth century is the psychic vampire. Psychic vampires are parasites, and not only drink the victim’s blood, but also drain them of their energy or life force. They are found in works such as George Sylvester Viereck’s novel The House of the Vampire, published in 1907, and Fritz Leiber’s “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes,” published in 1949. The psychic vampire in Viereck’s novel embodies high culture, while the psychic vampire in Leiber’s work embodies popular culture. However, in both works, Auerbach says, “psychic vampires are the essence of cherished social images and beliefs” (104). Nowadays, the term “psychic vampire” does not only refer to literary vampires, but has come to stand for a person who exhausts the people around him or her. Psychic vampires wear many different disguises and “their defining characteristic is familiarity” (Auerbach 102). They infiltrate society and can be anyone around us: men, women or children. This type of vampire is not represented in True Blood.

Psychic vampires remain visible throughout the twentieth century, but they are not the only kind of vampire that flourished in that century. With the invention of film came the opportunity to adapt Stoker’s Dracula for the screen. One of the first movie adaptations was Tod Browning’s Dracula, which came out in 1931. It stars Bela Lugosi as Dracula and his Dracula is “the first who bears no monstrous marks: he is fangless, solid and elegantly human” (Auerbach 113). However, he does stand out in society because of his accent. Another popular movie adaptation is Terence Fisher’s Horror of Dracula, which was

released in 1958 and stars Christopher Lee as Dracula. In this movie—produced by Hammer Studios—the sun becomes lethal for the first time in vampire history. Vampires have since then been slaves to the sun and even the smallest beam of sunlight burns their skin. Auerbach

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notes that the sun “throws vampires into the pain of physical existence. But at the same time as the sun aligns vampires with mortals, it limits their access to mortal society” (122).

Although vampires already lived mostly during the night, they are now cursed to stay indoors during the day. This is also evident in True Blood. Vampires in the show can only go outside at night, and they will burn if they “meet the sun.”

Vampirism continued to spread widely among twentieth-century popular culture. In the 1960s, the Hammer movies turned Dracula into a particular archetype: The Vampire. The Vampire represented the fear of change evident in America in the 1960s and reassured the public that the future held no surprises. Dracula became a fixed figure and by the end of the 1960s, “like all authorities, he existed to be shattered” (Auerbach 131). The vampires in 1970s renewed themselves and were very different from their antecedents. In the 1970s, America was in crisis and there were no clear authorities. Vampires filled this void and became authorities themselves. In True Blood, vampires have to abide by the laws of the vampire community. Killing another vampire is forbidden, and will be punished. The vampire community in True Blood is ruled by the Vampire Authority, which oversees the vampire kings and queens of various districts, and enforces the vampire laws.

Apart from authoritarian vampire tales, the vampire romance also flourished in the 1970s. Feminists in this decade yearned for a sensitive man and this is reflected in the male protagonist of vampire romance novels. Auerbach says that in the 1970s, “sanctioned male authorities like husbands and priests take over vampires’ traditional role as rapists, while the lone loving vampire is a well of tenderness” (136). This vampire was monogamous,

affectionate and cordial, but nonetheless heterosexual. In True Blood, Bill embodies this type of vampire. Additionally, True Blood features several homosexual vampires, but homosexual vampires were still nowhere to be seen in the 1970s. In fact, Auerbach states that the “taboos

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that Stoker institutionalized in the 1890s held for almost a hundred years of vampire fiction” (153).

When Anne Rice published her novel Interview with the Vampire in 1976, the homoeroticism that was evident in pre-Dracula vampire literature was finally restored. Auerbach argues that by breaking this taboo, Rice brings “a special electricity” to the novel, which gives “its predators a glamour more socially engaged vampires lack” (154). The young and beautiful vampires in Interview with the Vampire are part of an elite society that has no clear rules or leader. This lawless and leaderless vampire society is also noticeable in Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. However, while Rice’s vampires are nice, King’s vampires are horrible. Additionally, King’s vampire society is not selective; anyone can become a vampire and join it. True Blood displays both nice and beautiful vampires like the ones in Rice’s novel, and horrible vampires like in King’s novel. However, unlike Rice’s and King’s vampire societies, the vampire society in True Blood does have leaders and laws, although not all vampires abide by these laws. Also, unlike in ‘Salem’s Lot, the vampire community in True Blood is selective, because turning a human into a vampire and thus becoming a maker is seen as a great responsibility.

The 1980s showed yet another kind of vampire. Ronald Reagan became President of the United States and the country finally had a leader again. However, while both vampires and humans longed for a leader in the 1970s, vampires did not live a happy life in the 1980s. As Auerbach states: “the vampires of the 1980s were depressed creatures. Constricted in their potential, their aspirations, and their effect on mortals, they were closer to death than to undeath” (165). Like their human victims, vampires in the 1980s desperately clung to the past because they thought they had no future. The past is also important in True Blood. The

audience is presented with several flashbacks to the vampires’ pasts, and learns what made them become the way they are now. Besides the vampires’ individual origins, the genealogy

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of the vampire race is also important. True Blood’s fifth season introduces the character of Lilith, played by Jessica Clark, who is believed to be the first vampire. Many vampires believe that God is a vampire and created Lilith in His image. This demonstrates that

vampires in True Blood, like humans, also feel the need for religion, and long for meaning in their lives.

In the 1980s, vampires lost many of their powers and struggled with vampirism itself. Vampirism was like a drug addiction they could not beat, and vampire stories were used as cautionary warnings against drugs. The AIDS epidemic that struck the United States in this decade also had consequences for vampires. They were already weakened, but now they became even feebler. Auerbach explains: “once the etiology of AIDS became clear, blood could no longer be the life; vampirism mutated from hideous appetite to nausea” (175). There are a few vampires in True Blood who are depressed and struggle with vampirism, but overall the vampires in the show are not as weak as the vampires in the 1980s. However, in the sixth season, several vampires are captured by humans and infected with Hepatitis V. This man-made virus weakens vampires and ultimately results in the “true death.” The sixth season finale features a news report in which it is announced that the Hepatitis V virus has spread nationwide and scientists have not yet found a cure. This reminds of the AIDS epidemic that held the country in its grasp in the 1980s. This epidemic was already reflected in the vampire literature at the time, and is now reused in True Blood.

Vampires retreated back to the shadows in the 1980s and stayed there until it was safe to come out again. Auerbach published her book in 1995 and did not know how great an impact vampirism would have on the twenty-first century. She ends Our Vampires, Ourselves with the statement “vampires need a long restorative sleep. They will awaken; they always have; as Stoker’s Dracula boasted, time is on their side” (192).

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Twenty-First Century Vampire Culture

It turns out that Auerbach was right; vampires have reawakened in the 1990s and are now immensely popular. According to Bernard Beck, “the contemporary version of the vampire figure is powerfully attractive, first of all to his fictional victims, and secondly to his many, real, live readers, listeners, and viewers” (90). Novel series such as Stephenie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries have all contributed to the enormous popularity of the vampire in the twenty-first century and their fan bases are immense. At the novels’ core is a love affair between a young heroine and a male vampire. Karen Backstein notes that today’s vampire “has transformed into an alluring combination of danger and sensitivity, a handsome

romantic hero haunted by his lust for blood and his guilt for the humans he killed in the past,” and argues that the modern vampire story is one “about self-control, about man struggling to master his worst impulses—perhaps even his essential nature—through whatever means necessary” (38).

The contemporary vampire is usually a sympathetic vampire and its ancestors are the pre-Dracula vampires that existed in nineteenth-century vampire literature. Williamson writes: “the ‘new’ vampire has ties of family and friendship, which locate it problematically in the realm of the emotions. This is a humanised terrain, which is more ambiguous in its depiction of good and evil” (31). Many twenty-first century vampires despise their vampire nature and try to hold on to their humanity. In doing so, they try to survive without hurting humans. In The Twilight Saga, Edward drinks animal blood, in The Vampire Diaries, sympathetic vampires get their fix from blood banks, and in The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a Japanese synthetic blood enables vampires to live among humans without harming them. Williamson notes:

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contemporary vampire tales share the themes of personalising and individualising moral dilemmas; only now the vampire is both innocent (because it has vampirism unwillingly thrust upon it), simultaneously glamorous and an outsider, and a victim of circumstances outside of its control. This vampire can thus be seen to personify dilemmas of the self: how to have meaning in the world which demands it, how to act in circumstances we did not choose, how to be a good human. (50)

This search for meaning in a world that demands it is definitely evident in True Blood. The vampires in the show have exposed themselves to human society in “The Great

Revelation,” and now they want to be heard. They demand equal rights to humans and desperately try to be accepted into mainstream society. Nan Flanagan, played by Jessica Tuck, is the president of the American Vampire League and says in the pilot episode: “We’re citizens. We pay taxes. We deserve basic civil rights, just like everyone else” (“Strange Love”). This is the basic premise of the show: the vampires’ battle for rights and acceptance in a society that tries really hard to keep them out. Sookie Stackhouse, the show’s strong-minded heroine, does not bear prejudice against the vampire kind, unlike her friends and family. When Bill Compton walks into the bar she works at, she is not scared like the rest of the people there, but rather fascinated. Sookie shows kindness and tolerance towards

vampires, while the people around her only show hostility and hatred. This demonstrates the show’s dominant message of hope for a better world; a world in which minorities are not discriminated against and people are accepted for who they are.

In this chapter, I have demonstrated what elements of the vampire tradition have been recycled in True Blood, and what elements have been added. I have shown that True Blood incorporates vampire archetypes from different eras and lets them co-exist. In the next

chapter, I will discuss the representation of the vampiric hero and the vampiric villain in True Blood. I will also consider the heroic and villainous qualities of some of the other—

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PARANORMAL ROMANCE:

VAMPIRIC HEROES AND OTHER SUPERNATURAL FRIENDS

As mentioned before, the twenty-first century has seen an astounding rise in romance novels that present the reader with a vampire in the role of the romantic hero. Their audiences consist for the most part of women, and the novels are usually written by female authors. The vampire has transformed from monster to object of desire, and as Beck states, “the monster movies that began as treats for men and boys were now the province of the female side of popular amusement. They have become ‘chick flicks’, so they are of doubtful interest to male audiences” (91). Millions of young women have fallen in love with vampires and favor them over human men. The desire for vampires also demonstrates what women yearn for in the twenty-first century. Feminism has brought women independence and agency, and they now want a man who is able to satisfy their needs. On the other hand, the vampire has flaws that need fixing, which is an excellent opportunity for the modern-day woman to demonstrate her ability to improve a man.

While the vampire used to represent those “who do not occupy the normative identity – white, middle-class, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, and successful” (Williamson 2), the modern vampire hero embodies exactly that identity. Ananya Murkherjea notes that modern vampire heroes are usually “sophisticated men who tend to live in mansions and tricked-out urban lofts and drive fast, shiny vehicles. Such socioeconomic privilege augments their supreme masculine dominance, along with their physical prowess, fighting skills, chivalrous manners, and eternal, gorgeous youth” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 14). They have thus come a long way from where they started. Although they were once social outcasts, vampires in the twenty-first century have been embraced by society and thrive on popularity.

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Vampires As Gothic Romance Heroes

Contemporary vampire romances often use Gothic romance conventions and tropes and are traditionally female-centered. Gothic romances were popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and often involve mystery and the supernatural. The Gothic heroine usually has to choose between two male suitors: a charming but boring man, and a secretive man who is haunted by his past demons. At the end of the Gothic romance novel, she always chooses the latter. The heroine of the vampire romance displays many of the characteristics commonly attributed to the Gothic heroine, such as bravery, intelligence and courage. Like the Gothic heroine, the heroine of the vampire romance falls in love with a dark, mysterious man, and tries to find out whether he is worthy of her love. Mukherjea says that “this unknowability is crucial for the Gothic romantic hero, whose true nature and intentions remain unclear until his heroine alone forgives, tames and reveals him to be a righteous man” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 112). The Gothic romance usually ends happily ever after, but the human heroine and vampire hero do not always get their happy ending.

In True Blood, Sookie has to decide whether Bill is the right man for her. At first, she is reluctant because she thinks they are too different. She says: “Why on earth would I continue seeing you?”, to which Bill responds with: “Because you will never find a human man you can be yourself with” (“Mine”). Bill’s statement touches on the question of what makes vampires so attractive. The answer lies in the fact that vampires are much stronger and have much more experience than their human counterparts. Mukherjea writes that vampires are “simultaneously very much of the past and of the future, but present in the present” and notes that a vampire can be “a vengeful and protective monster and also a sensitive, evolved guy and caring boyfriend” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 3-4). She states:

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Vampire boyfriends are usually expected to wear many, contradictory hats at the same time, to offer multiple expressions of masculinity at all times. They must be protective but also nurture the heroine’s independence. As the older, more experienced partners, they must be wise advisors and somewhat paternal but not to the extent that this seems untoward or that the heroine feels coerced. They must be capable of spontaneous and successful acts of violence in order to protect the heroine but also be extremely gentle by nature. They must be best friends, eager to talk for hours, but also masterful lovers who, though always interested and ready, are also in perfect control of their own sexuality and self-restraint. They are, in short, fantasy men – both very hard and very soft and fantastically flawless in a way that even very few fictional human men could possibly be. (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 12)

In the twenty-first century, this is what the heroine desires in her partner, and a human man cannot give it to her. The vampiric heroes in contemporary popular culture are old-fashioned, romantic gentlemen with good manners, but they also protect the heroine from harm when she cannot defend herself. They thus make for the perfect boyfriend. J.M. Tyree calls them “a new combination of undead chum and unnaturally attentive lover, a sort of guardian angel with fangs” (32). However, their relationship works both ways. Vampires have always been solitary creatures and they have longed for friendship since the early days of English-language vampire literature. Nowadays, vampires long for “an end to their interminable loneliness” (Tyree 37), and this is their main reason for starting a relationship with a human.

A Combination of Good and Evil

Unfortunately, vampiric heroes do not only have good qualities and their bad sides still surface from time to time. Bill already warns Sookie in the pilot that “vampires often turn on those who trust them” (“Strange Love”), because they do not have human values. Helen T. Bailie says that the vampire’s “real challenge is the internal battle with himself”

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(144), and also notes that “the vampire’s predatory nature is never completely vanquished” (146). The heroine usually prevents him from acting out but she is also forced to deal with the evil side of vampirism. In True Blood, Sookie learns that Bill is not as good as she

thought he was. During the show’s six seasons, their relationship goes through many different stages and develops from solid to questionable to broken. In the fifth season, Bill struggles with his identity and wants to find meaning in the world. Torn between wanting to be good for Sookie and succumbing to his evil vampiric nature, he turns to religion. In the sixth season, Bill drinks the blood of the first vampire Lilith and becomes an indestructible villain. This makes him a fallen vampire hero. In the season six finale, Bill tries to redeem himself and saves the vampires by offering them his magical blood. He tries to make things right with Sookie and tells her: “I've changed Sookie. I can be trusted again” but Sookie replies with: “That’s the thing though, even at your best, I could never really trust you” (“Radioactive”).

This distrust is formed early on in the show, especially when Sookie discovers that Bill spied on her for Sophie-Anne Leclerq—the Vampire Queen of Louisiana—played by Evan Rachel Wood. In the second season, Sookie becomes aware of the evil that resides in vampires when her friend Lafayette Reynolds, played by Nelsan Ellis, is locked up in a basement and tortured by Eric Northman, played by Alexander Skarsgård. In the following piece of dialogue between her and Bill, she discusses her changed feelings towards the vampires:

SOOKIE. I used to get so mad when people judged vampires just for being different. It’s like they were judging me too. I told myself their fear was nothing but small mindedness. But maybe that’s what I wanted to believe. ‘Cause the more open my mind gets, the more evil I see. BILL. Sookie, most of us, vampire, human or otherwise, are capable of both

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Most vampires in True Blood are never completely good or completely evil. As Bill says, there is both good and evil in vampires as well as humans, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although Sookie initially sees Eric as a form of pure evil, she comes to care for him during the course of the show and they even share intimate encounters. This demonstrates the influence Sookie has on the men in her life: she improves them. This is also what Mukherjea sees as the dominant message of vampire romances: “the notion that loving a very good (young) woman can save even an extremely ‘bad’ man” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 8). Sookie brings this message across by getting through to Bill and Eric, and succeeds in making them more caring and more humane.

There are, however, evil vampires in True Blood who cannot be redeemed. Russell Edgington, played by Denis O’Hare, is the Vampire King of Mississippi. In 900 AD, he butchered Eric’s family and Eric gets back at him by murdering his lover, Talbot Angelis, played by Theo Alexander. This makes Russell completely crazy and he wants to take revenge. In the third season, he goes on a rampage and murders a newscaster on live

television. Leaving behind a trail of destruction, he is eventually destroyed in the fifth season. According to Bailie, the difference between the evil vampire and the vampire hero is that “the evil vampire makes a deliberate choice to embrace his darker nature, while the vampire hero not only struggles against the temptation but will sacrifice himself rather than succumb to it” (143). This makes the vampire hero a sympathetic vampire.

Evil in True Blood does not only reside in vampires. In fact, in the first season the main villain is a human. René Lenier, played by Michael Raymond-Jones, has developed a strong hatred for vampires since their coming-out, and murders people who associate with them. Mukherjea notes that the show “locates the worst evil in the most mundane characters,” and says that True Blood slowly reveals “that almost no one is who she or he seems to be” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 110). In the first season, René murders Sookie’s

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grandmother and targets Sookie as well. He almost kills her in a graveyard but Sookie manages to save herself by hitting him with a shovel, resulting in his death.

True Blood also shows how cruel humans can be. Vampire blood, commonly known as “V” in the show, has hallucinogenic properties and enhances the human libido. Because of this, vampires are attacked and drained of their blood. In the first season, Sookie’s brother Jason Stackhouse, played by Ryan Kwanten, becomes addicted to V. His girlfriend Amy Burley, played by Lizzy Caplan, is also a V addict. Together they decide to kidnap the vampire Eddie Fournier, played by Stephen Root, and use him for his blood. Eddie is a sweet vampire who lives peacefully among humans and wants to do them no harm. His kindness confuses Jason, who previously saw vampires as evil creatures. Jason starts to sympathize with Eddie and wants to free him. However, Amy stakes Eddie before Jason is able to let him go. His death is truly a sad moment in the show and demonstrates the cruelty of humans.

True Blood uses the figure of the sympathetic vampire in different ways but,

according to Stacey Abbott, “vampires become sympathetic in True Blood, not because they are struggling against their condition and resisting the thirst … but because they are victims of prejudice” (34). It is true that the audience sympathizes with the vampires because they are judged for who they are, but Bill does struggle with his condition. In 1865, Lorena Krasiki, played by Mariana Klaveno, turned him into a vampire against his will. He had to leave his wife and children behind, and was forced to participate in killing sprees with Lorena. He started to resent her and threatened to kill himself if she did not release him. After his release, he became a more humane and compassionate vampire. He chose to live a solitary life

instead of living in a nest with other vampires, because this kept him more in touch with his humanity.

When Sookie comes to Bill’s house in the first season, she encounters other vampires there who, unlike Bill, are malicious and want to suck her blood. Bill explains: “When

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vampires live in nests, they become more cruel, more vicious. They become laws unto themselves, whereas vampires such as I, who live alone, are much more likely to hang on to some semblance of our former humanity” (“Mine”). After Roman Zimojic, played by Christopher Meloni, orchestrated The Great Revelation and made the existence of vampires known to the general public, Bill chose to mainstream and integrate into human society. Within the vampire community, there are mixed attitudes towards mainstreaming. Some vampires did not want to come out of the coffin at all and think of mainstreamers as traitors. They see themselves as superior to the human race and want to subjugate humans instead of co-exist with them. The vampires at Bill’s house are against mainstreaming, which becomes clear in the following dialogue:

DIANE. Not everyone wants to dress up and play human, Bill.

LIAM. Yeah, not everybody wants to live off that Japanese shit they call blood, either. As if we could.

BILL. We have to moderate our behavior now that we are out in the open. MALCOLM. Not everybody thinks it was such a great idea and not everybody

intends to toe the party line. Honey, if we can’t kill people, what’s the point of being a vampire? (“Mine”)

When Sookie is in danger of being attacked by the vampire Longshadow, Bill comes to her rescue like a true vampire hero and stakes him. However, this is a serious crime in the vampire community and Bill has to come before the Vampire Magister of North America, played by Željko Ivanek. The Magister tells him that the usual sentence for killing a vampire is “five years in a coffin, chained with silver, during which time your body will waste to leather and sticks” (“I Don’t Wanna Know”). However, because Bill revealed that Longshadow had stolen money from Eric and says that he killed Longshadow to protect Eric’s wealth, the Magister decides that Bill has to make up for the loss of a vampire by making a new vampire. Bill is then forced to turn the innocent seventeen-year-old Jessica Hamby, played by Deborah Ann Woll, into a vampire or else they will both be killed. He

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resents himself for turning her, but Eric’s progeny Pam Swynford De Beaufort, played by Kristin Bauer van Straten, tells Bill that turning a vampire is “the ultimate gift” and that if “you’re a maker, you’re a hero” (“To Love Is To Bury”). He adopts a fatherly role as Jessica’s maker and the two become close. As a new, teenage vampire, Jessica gets herself into trouble more than once but Bill always saves her. She makes him a more sympathetic character and even when he embraces his bad side later in the series, she stands by him.

While Bill changes for the worse during the course of the show, Eric changes for the better. Bill falls off his pedestal and loses his status as vampire hero, but Eric slowly takes up that role. Eric is the vampire sheriff of Louisiana Area 5 and is more than a thousand years old. The viewer is introduced to him in the first season, when Bill and Sookie visit his bar Fangtasia. At first, Eric is evil, ruthless, powerful, sarcastic and intimidating. Sookie hates him and does not believe there is any good in him. However, it is slowly revealed that Eric has a great capacity for loyalty and is affectionate towards those he cares about. His progeny Pam means a lot to him, as well as his maker Godric, played by Allan Hyde. When Godric decides to “meet the sun” and kill himself in the second season, Eric is heartbroken and says that he cannot live without him. He falls to his knees and begs Godric to change his mind but Godric does not want to live as a vampire anymore. He commands Eric to leave and asks Sookie to look after him.

Sookie makes good on her promise in the fourth season when Eric is cursed by a witch and loses his memory. Without his past to haunt him, the amnesia brings out Eric’s true nature: gentle and sweet. He eventually learns of the things he has done, which leads to the following dialogue between him and Sookie:

ERIC. Did I really do all those terrible things your friend said I did? SOOKIE. Yes.

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SOOKIE. Because there’s more to you. I always knew there was decency in you. Even when you were a smug sarcastic ass, I still knew it.

ERIC. Whether decency is in me is irrelevant. I’m clearly capable of extreme cruelty.

SOOKIE. You were, but I wouldn’t be here with you right now, I swear it, if I didn’t know in my heart you could change. I’ve seen you change and I like it. I like you. (“Me and the Devil”)

Sookie has seen him transform and likes this new and improved Eric. She develops feelings for him and they start a sexual relationship, which makes Bill very jealous. According to Mukherjea, Eric shades “his masculine dominance with feminine sensitivity” and is transformed “from a man who is simply dominant amongst his peers (minimum

requirements) to someone who also has the potential to be promoted to romantic hero – although, importantly, still not fully knowable or trustworthy – for Sookie” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 112). When Eric’s memory is restored, Sookie is unsure about her feelings for him and reveals that she still loves Bill. However, when she is forced to choose between Eric and Bill in the season four finale, she rejects both of them, saying: “This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make but I know it’s the right one for all of us so please don’t try to stop me, either of you” (“And When I Die”). In the next two seasons, she seeks comfort in the other supernatural men in her life.

Non-Vampiric Heroes

Vampires are not the only supernatural creatures that inhabit the world of True Blood. The show also features werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies, ghosts, witches and a maenad, and enables some of them to take on the hero role. Alcide Herveaux, played by Joe Manganiello, is a werewolf and has fancied Sookie from the first time they met. He is a strong, buff and tall man who would do anything for the people he loves. His sensitivity and contempt for

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chemistry and they even share a kiss in season five. Alcide is a brave man and although he is not as strong as the vampires, his werewolf nature enables him to protect Sookie and keep her out of trouble for the most part. In final part of the sixth season finale, the show skips ahead six months and it is revealed that Alcide and Sookie are finally a couple, much to the

disliking of Bill. The following dialogue takes place after Bill finds out that they are together:

BILL. You need a vampire in your life Sookie, more so than anyone else here. You need protection.

ALCIDE. She’s got me.

BILL. You’re not good enough. You can growl all you want, bright eyes, but it doesn’t change the truth. [to Sookie] I’m offering you my protection. SOOKIE. And I appreciate that, but I’m gonna take my chances all the same. (“Radioactive”)

Bill knows Alcide is no match for him but Sookie does not accept his offer. Instead, she chooses to face the danger the future has in store for her with Alcide by her side.

Sam Merlotte, played by Sam Trammell, is a shapeshifter and is therefore able to turn into an animal. He is the owner of Merlotte’s Bar and Grill where Sookie works, which makes him her boss. Sam has had feelings for Sookie for a long time but she only thinks of him as a friend. He dislikes vampires and is not happy with Bill and Sookie’s relationship. In the first season, he wishes for “Buffy or Blade or anyone of those badass vampire killers” to come to town and kill Bill (“Mine”). He tells Sookie that she does not have a future with a vampire but she cleverly replies with: “They don’t die, I’ve got nothing but a future with one” (“Sparks Fly Out”). Sam is as loyal as a dog, which is also happens to be his favorite animal to turn into. He does not have supernatural strength like vampires or werewolves, but his shapeshifting ability does come in handy from time to time. For example, in the second season Sam is able to trick the maenad Maryann Forrester, played by Michelle Forbes, into believing he is “the God who comes” by turning into a white bull. This results in her destruction.

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Mukherjea argues that while “Sam’s charms are sometimes tempting and comforting for Sookie, … they are insufficient to hold her attention for long” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 118). However, in the sixth season Sookie tells him that part of her always thought that they would end up together. He says: “You have always known how I felt about you but you never cared. You kept me waiting in the wings because there was always a more

dangerous guy in the picture” (“Dead Meat”). He hits the nail on the head with that remark and rejects her because his girlfriend is pregnant. At the end of the season six finale, Sam is revealed to be the new mayor of Bon Temps and urges the people to find a vampire for protection. He has changed a lot since the beginning of the show and now sees the good in vampires. Murkherjea claims “Sam is almost a gothic hero in the landscape of True Blood, but he functions primarily as a counterpoint to the Gothic vampires” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 119, emphasis original). Although he exhibits bravery, he is not a real hero.

True Blood also features humans who act heroically. Sookie’s brother Jason transforms from a vampire hater to a vampire lover. He might not be the smartest person around, but his good looks and strong, athletic body get him all the girls. Jason is not afraid to attack the people who hurt his loved ones and demonstrates his bravery multiple times. In season five, he is part of a rescue mission to save Jessica and Pam, who have been captured by the Authority. Dressed in black and armed with multiple firearms, he manages to kill all vampires that stand in his way. In the sixth season, he successfully infiltrates the vampire camp at which vampires are being studied and tortured in the name of science. Jason has come a long way from the man he was in the first seasons of the show. He demonstrates exceptional courage and fortitude and shows that you do not have to be supernatural to be a hero.

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In this chapter, I have demonstrated the attractiveness of vampires in the twenty-first century and I have shown that there is both good and evil in almost all of True Blood’s characters. I have also demonstrated that the heroes on the show are not always vampires and that heroism is displayed in the courage of some of the other characters as well. In the next chapter, I will discuss several female characters that are featured on the show. I will also reflect on True Blood’s depiction of sexuality, which has been connected to vampires for a long time.

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STRONG AND (IN)DEPENDENT: WOMEN AND SEXUALITY

Vampires have had a longstanding but difficult relationship with women. In the early days of vampire literature, women were portrayed either as helpless victims, unable to defend themselves against the dangerous monsters that attacked them in the middle of the night, or as aggressive and voraciously sexual vampires, robbing men of their masculinity. Brave men were needed to destroy these vampires and women were only passive bystanders. This image of women has held up for centuries. However, when women were regarded more rights in society, they also got more agency in vampire tales. Vampire romance novels written by female novelists are now extremely popular and present the reader with a strong female protagonist. Backstein defines these novels as “female-centered narratives that strive for audience identification with the heroine—with her strength, her extraordinary capabilities, her status as an object of desire, or a combination of all these traits” (38). These qualities make her irresistible to the male vampire that crosses her path. Their love story revolves around her acceptance of his nature and her ability to make him a better man and vampire. Also, instead of the vampire having dominance over the heroine—as is usually the case in other forms of vampire fiction—in women’s vampire fiction “there is no hierarchy of power where either the male or female are the dominant figures but instead a partnership based on equality is

formed” (Bailie 142). This is evident in True Blood as well, because Sookie demands to be treated as an equal.

However, not all female characters in vampire romance narratives are portrayed as strong as the heroine. Also, although the heroine is determined to fetch for herself, she is often still dependent on vampires or other supernaturals for protection against evil forces that put her in danger. This is part of the reason why Backstein states that although they center on a woman and are “driven largely by female desire and the female voice,” not all vampire

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narratives “are necessarily feminist” (38). Mukherjea claims that the human heroines of vampire romances are torn between two ideals. They “want both the approval and security of performing femininity well and also the augmented independence and options that feminism has brought many people” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 3).

Women nowadays have to perform many different gender roles and, as Mukherjea argues, “if the contemporary, heterosexual woman finds herself flummoxed in the face of all the various roles, often at odds with each other, that she must play – professional, partner, mother, never-aging vixen, moral leader, etc. – then it only makes sense that her fantasized mate must also negotiate a highly convoluted personality” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 11). This is why Mukherjea claims that the “issue most at stake in these stories … is not the uneasy instability of changing masculinity but of changing femininity” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 15, emphasis original). Because human men are not able to give her what she wants, the heroine turns to vampires to satisfy her desires.

Sookie Stackhouse’s Irresistible Charm

In the case of True Blood, Sookie is the heroine that turns all the men’s heads. Every man around her is enchanted by her looks, charms and smell. She has had a troubled past and lost both of her parents when she was young. Sookie is irresistible and intoxicating to

vampires because—as is revealed in the third season—she is part fairy. This makes her vulnerable because a lot of vampires want to suck her blood. Pam tells her: “With what you are, faerie princess, you need to be somebody’s or you won’t be at all” (“You Smell Like Dinner”). When Bill tells her what she is, she is not happy about it and says: “I’m a fairy? How fucking lame!” (“I Smell A Rat”). Her fairy nature allows her to hear people’s thoughts, but this is usually a burden to her. Apart from that, Sookie is able to zap people with her fairy

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light. Like the vampires, her abilities make her an outcast in the small town community of Bon Temps. According to Boyer,

Sookie is situated within the monstrous framework in the series; she threatens to cross the border between normal and abnormal by her sheer existence. The town folk are fearful of her and known to think (if not verbally admit) that she is a freak; Sookie has resigned herself at the beginning of the series to a life of loneliness because of her ‘ability’. (32)

Sookie is not afraid to speak her mind and, as Bill says in the first season, “Sookie doesn’t take kindly to people making decisions for her” (“Cold Ground”). This leads to a lot of confrontation between her and the rest of the characters. She is sometimes torn between her human side and her fairy side, which is something Eric notices in the following dialogue from the fourth season:

ERIC. There are two Sookie Stackhouses. One who still clings to the idea that she’s merely human and the other who’s coming to grips with the fact that you are better than that.

SOOKIE. And what do you think’s gonna happen when I do come to grips with it? Do you think my legs are just gonna magically open for you? ERIC. Well, that was saucy. Must have been fairy Sookie talking. I like when

she comes out.

SOOKIE. And I’m already sorry I said it.

ERIC. Don’t be. The more you let her speak for you, the more likely you are to go on living. And you want to live, don’t you?

(“You Smell Like Dinner”)

During the course of the show, Sookie embraces her fairy nature, but she sometimes longs for an ordinary life as a human.

When Bill walks into Merlotte’s for the first time, Sookie is intrigued and says that she has “been waiting for this to happen ever since they came out of the coffin two years ago” (“Strange Love”). She is surprised to find out that she cannot hear his thoughts because he is dead inside and has no brainwaves. It is like a breath of fresh air to her, and this is part of the

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reason why she is so attracted to Bill. Because she associates with vampires, speaks her mind and can hear other’s thoughts, she does not fulfill the gender expectations that society has set out for her. Her friends and family are less accepting towards vampires and judge her for consorting with Bill. They think she will get herself into trouble and make no attempt to hide their displeasures. Tara Thornton, played by Rutina Wesley, has been Sookie’s best friend since childhood and thinks it is just “trouble looking for a place to happen” (“Strange Love”). Despite her loved ones’ objections, Sookie pursues a relationship with Bill. However, because of their differences, they fight a lot. For example, after Sookie takes Jessica to see her family in the second season, Bill is angry with her and she steps out of the car. Although their relationship is explosive, they truly love each other and most of the times they make up. But in the end, as it turns out in the sixth season, they are too different. Despite the fact that loving Bill is in her blood because he was her “first everything” (“Who Are You, Really?”), she does not want to be with him anymore. She even stakes him to save Eric in the sixth season, but he does not meet the true death because drinking Lilith’s blood made him invincible.

During the course of the show, Bill and the other supernatural men on the show have to rescue Sookie multiple times. However, in the pilot episode it is Sookie who saves Bill. When Bill is captured by Mack and Denise Rattray and drained of his blood, she attacks them with a chain, which magically wraps around Mack’s neck, and scares them off. After she has removed the silver chains that kept Bill down, she says: “I reckon you’re not too happy about being rescued by a woman” (“Strange Love”). This highlights the sexism and gender

stereotypes that still exist in our modern-day society. Bill saves Sookie in return when the Rattrays take revenge on her and almost beat her to death. He kills them and heals Sookie by feeding her his blood. This creates a strong connection between him and Sookie. In spite of needing protection, Sookie does not want it. She wants to be able to fend for herself and says:

"You Need a Vampire in Your Life": Vampiric Heroes, Female Empowerment and the Marginalized Other in HBO's True Blood