Vampire Fascination in Children and Young Adult Fiction

Vampires in Children's fiction and TV

This piece aims to look at vampires in children and young adult fiction and TV. I will mention the Twilight phenomenon and the obsession behind it.

Like most mythical creatures such as witches, fairies, dragons, ancient Greek creatures, werewolves, wizards, vampires etc, they were introduced to us as children and most of us were scared, excited and enjoyed it. Over the years fascination for those creatures grew as throughout our education and culture they were studied and mentioned in most great works of literature and media.

According to Jorg Waltje, 'the vampire has become a major expression of the imaginative projections of youth culture, this development  has only really begun to take place over the last three decades'.

The vampire in fiction during the 19th century was only reserved for adults really and then those adults chose to frighten children with vampire stories and this excited them as well. J. Gordon Melton points out that 'vampire fiction was exclusively an adult literature until the appearance of horror comic books in the 1940 s,'

 The first introduction of vampires in children fiction is unknown but it is clear that during the mid 20th century when media became more accessible to children as well as printed works, the business boomed. Comic books worked well in portraying super heroes battling monsters, villains as well as political ones. The portrayal of monsters was however heavily controlled in comic books with the arrival of the Comics Code Authority in the 50s. Its aim was to control the content of shocking material in order to not 'corrupt the youth'.

Thanks to the show 'Dark Shadows', the vampire character reappeared .

Today's children's and adolescent literature is filled with examples of bloodsucking characters and vampiric activities, such has the vampire proven its ability of adapting to different environments.

Today there is even a brand of cereals called Count Chocula. Though the character doesn't look very threatening or terrifying.

He is the brand symbol and name of a hearty breakfast or a sugar filled one. I sadly have not had a chance to find the cereal and taste it.


Vampires in children's TV and films

During the 70s the American censors became less stringent in the world of children's entertainment. The show 'Sesame Street' introduced a new character; Count von Count a vampire obsessed with counting, this plays around with a vampire cliche that vampires will count seeds thrown around them. The character borrows a lot of elements from the Bela Lugosi character, with the cape and accent. This character taught preschoolers numbers and counting. I greatly enjoyed watching the Count as a child, learning English and counting as well. Since then vampires could be found in children's storybooks as heroes or anti-heroes. In the 80s, then the 90s, the market extended towards teenagers. The vampire became the hero of modern fairy tales for young adults.

Here are some examples of vampire characters in children's TV programs and films.

         




 






Count von Count from Sesame Street. I like this character because I grew up watching him and learning numbers thanks to him.

Here is Maeven of the Eventide giving us a lovely story on the Count.

Here is Kermit biting the great Vincent Price who appeared on The Muppets.




























Count Duckula from the UK (ITV 1988) I only recently discovered this character and find it quite amusing, the program contains good British humour. This character was once a blood-drinking vampire but was destroyed. He came back through a dark ritual performed by his minions but instead of using blood, ketchup was mistakenly used resulting in his resurrection as a vegetarian vampire, yes he only eats vegetables.

Mona the vampire from Canada (1999). I've never seen this program and do not intend to, according to the program she only possesses magic powers.


















The Little Vampire (2000) I've never seen this film and don't plan to.

I'll let Maven of the Eventide review that movie.



In these programs and films the vampire characters seldom or not at all bite or drink people's blood. These are for young children, so vampires actually doing what they do best would have probably been too scary for them. The vampire characters seem to be more interesting and exciting in young adult novels and TV programs/films, because they actually drink blood and bite.

There is now an exception, the popular cartoon 'Adventure Time' has a vampire girl called Marceline. She likes to be called 'Marceline the vampire queen'. She has long black hair and dresses like a rock chick, she does sing and plays a red axe shape guitar. Though she sometimes drinks blood, she can  sustain herself by drinking the colour red. She possesses many powers such as floating, flying, invisibility and transforming into a bat. Her appearance can sometimes be scary when she gets angry or feral. She only goes out at night and can get burnt by the sun so she carries a big umbrella if she needs to go outside in the daytime. Overall the character is very cool, I particularly like her and for once think that she is a fair portrayal of a vampire in a kid's program. Her appearance and characteristics are not ridiculous compared to the other characters mentioned above. 'Adventure Time' is a program for children aged between 8, 10 and older because it contains material that is not suitable for younger children. The fan base today has extended to adults.

         Marceline the Vampire queen in the cartoon 'Adventure Time'


Another exception I'd like to add is the character of Dracula in Hotel Transylvania (2012), the film itself is adorable and enjoyable for kids and adults. The character is not an evil creature, just a father of a young vampire girl named Mavis who is also pretty. She is the archetypal teenager who wants to see the world and he is the overprotective father. When he gets angry and mad he can look quite scary. It is noted that he does not drink blood, only a substitute. He fears humans because they were responsible for his wife's death many centuries ago, he protects Mavis because he's convinced that the humans are still dangerous. he realizes later on when his daughter falls in love with a human, that they have changed and actually admire him. This Dracula character, of course is a little cliched, emulating Bela Lugosi with the Slavic accent funnily voiced by Adam Sandler, but it's still good and well presented. The film is very funny and it includes other universal monsters. While watching viewers must consider that certain vampire conventions are broken such as; vampires can reproduce and don't drink blood, they still burn in the sun, turn into bats and use hypnosis. One scene even pokes fun at 'Twilight'.

In 2015 a sequel Hotel Transylvania 2 was released where Mavis and Johnathan the human get married and have a son named Dennis. Though Dennis looks like an ordinary little boy, Dracula is convinced that his vampire side will come out soon. In the sequel he becomes more of a meddling grandfather much to the disagreement of his mother Mavis who becomes 'momzilla' a very overprotective and overbearing mother. She wants to move out of the castle thinking that it's too dangerous for her son and Dracula is not okay with this. He also has to deal with his own father Vlad voiced by the funny Mel Brooks who is not very aware and open minded about the new trend of humans and monsters getting along. The casting of Mel Brooks is perfect as he directed and acted in one of his great parodies 'Dracula Dead and Loving it' in 1995. The sequel is just as hilarious and adorable as the first one. In one scene Mavis lets her dad babysit Dennis while she travels to California with Johnathan. While staying at her very open minded in-laws, she meets local friends, one is a monster and the other is mistaken for one as he has a lot of facial hair and corrects the parents that he is only a hipster. That scene was pure gold and so smartly written as a commentary on today's society.


Recently in 2018 the third installment of the series  Hotel Transylvania 3: Monster Vacation focused on Dracula and his family going away on a vacation on a cruise. Dracula is not impressed that a cruise is pretty much like a hotel on the water, he is also feeling lonely and depressed and is looking to get back into the dating game. On the ship he meets the Captain Ericka and falls in love with her. Unfortunately she is the great great granddaughter of Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing and she follows his plans to destroy Dracula and the monsters. By the end of the film she falls in love with Dracula as well and rejects her plans to destroy him. This film depicts for the first time Dracula with a happy ending.

Here is Dracula looking happy.

 Here is he is looking very angry and scary.

Here is Mavis, his daughter

                                        Dracula, his grandson Dennis and his father Vlad

                                                                  Dracula and Ericka







Recently I just remembered a TV cartoon show with the characters of the popular Archie comic books that I enjoyed reading as a child. The show was called 'Archie's Weird Mysteries' and came out during 1999-2000. The show was similar to the Scooby Doo show where monsters would lurk and the gang had to investigate but the monsters in this show were real and not people in costumes. At the time I found the show quite silly and not scary or funny, lazy and unoriginal. I will mention though the introduction of vampires in this program. A character named Scarlet Helsing is introduced as a student but later revealed to be a vampire, the gang in the show are aware of vampires and able to defeat them. The vampires are portrayed as having white skin, red glowing eyes and can fly. The character of Scarlet wears a normal teenager clothes, is a bit sexy, while the others wear punk/biker garments because it is oh so cliche. They do have the typical weaknesses such as aversion to garlic and sunlight, though to hide her nature Scarlet wears a lot of sun cream in daylight. A magical amulet called the sun stone wielded by Veronica is able to weaken them or destroy them. Throughout the episodes, the character of the master is introduced. He looks ugly and a bit scary with a face like an actual bat and heavily modeled on the 'master' from Buffy The Vampire slayer. In the show the vampires have fangs and are able to bite humans in order to turn them, though the biting process is never shown as that would be 'too scary' or 'shocking' to children. Instead a close up of the open mouth and fangs are shown and cut to black. The newly turned character is introduced in the next scene. This show is effective in showing vampires finally doing their jobs and being scary. The scenes where the other characters try to fend them off are silly but interesting especially when garlic water is sprayed on them and they itch uncontrollably. In one scene a vampire is destroyed by having the boys, who ate garlic burgers, breathe onto the vampire until he turns to stone and crumbles away, the master dies in a similar way exposed to sunlight. When you think about it, they couldn't really stake the vampires as that wouldn't be appropriate for young viewers. Typical motifs from the comics are used when Veronica or 'Vampronica' befriends the master and Scarlet grows jealous so she asks the gang for help. Anyway the show is no longer running but Archie comics did recently take a very dark turn when they introduced zombies in the series that is very similar to 'Night of the Living Dead'. Similar with Sabrina the Teenage witch as well.

                                        The vampires in the series with the master in the center.

                                                     The newly turned 'Vampronica'

Of course this show was aired at the same time as Buffy The Vampire Slayer which was more popular with more mature teenagers. I won't need to talk about it here because I have so much praise for such a classic cult show that greatly fed my love for vampires.

In today's children media, there is hope for vampires and how they are portrayed.


Other mentions:



Here is Maeven of the Eventide reviewing Batman versus Dracula.

Children's literature

The earliest example of a very adorable vampire in children's literature was "Bunnicula' a vampire rabbit from a series of books by Deborah Howe from 1979. The story is told from the perspective of Harold the dog of the Monroe family who adopt the rabbit who was found abandoned near a cinema where the film 'Dracula' was showing. The story is funny and tongue-in cheek as it borrows evident and popular cliches from vampire films and fiction. The vampire rabbit sucks the life force of carrots and poses no threat to humans but nevertheless the dog sees him as a dangerous threat and tries to find a way to destroy him or get him out of the house. The series spawned a TV film as well as cartoons and a stage play.

I find this cute but not scary and a bit silly as the general idea of a vampire would be to suck blood or life force from other living things not vegetables, well for the vegetarians' argument, vegetables can count as living.

Another author who introduced a vampire character in his popular series of horror children's books is R. L. Stine with his series 'Goosebumps'.

In the book 'Vampire Breath'  (Goosebumps number 49) Freddy and Cara two 13 year olds left alone in the house explore the basement and find in a section of the basement a bottle of 'vampire breath' and a coffin with an old sleeping vampire named Count Nightwing. The vampire awakens, tries to bite the children and realizes that he's got no fangs. He can't remember where he's put them but his bottle of 'vampire breath' will help him. He uses this bottle to store his vitality and can use it to revitalize himself instead of blood but only for a short time. The children find themselves transported back to the vampire's time in a castle,and seek a way to escape. The novel contains the conventional motifs, dark basements, cobwebs, a vampire's castle, a coffin and a very stereotypical vampire with a silly name wearing a cape. The story like most of Stine's wok ends with a twist when Freddy realizes that the vampire is actually his grandfather and that his entire family are vampires. The grandfather very funnily finds that he left his fangs in a glass in a cupboard, isn't that typical of grandfathers?

This novel gave everything that children craved: an interesting story full of cliches, stock motifs that satisfied that craving for the fantastical. I myself enjoyed reading those books as a child, and I think that Stine borrowed some elements from the Hammer films without making it 'too scary'  for the young readers. For example when Freddy and Cara are trapped in the castle they befriend a girl named Gwendolyn who introduces herself as a human prisoner who is forced to clean the coffins. She tells them of a secret passageway but reveals herself as a vampire and tries to bite Freddy, Count Nightwing arrives in the nick of time and fights her. This scene is exactly like in the Christopher Lee film 'Horror of Dracula' when Harker is approached by a pleading young woman who says she's a prisoner but tries to bite him and gets interrupted by Dracula who barges in.
As a kid I enjoyed this book, but today I must brush it off as silly children's fiction, because it no longer excites me but it excites children. Although the scenarios and narrative structures in this fiction borrow from stock characters and plot elements of horror literature, the vampire himself is unable to do his 'job' because his fangs are gone. As mentioned before vampires in children's literature and visual media are 'fixed', 'tamed' or had their fangs pulled out.  Of course if the vampire were to bite anybody this might give the children nightmares, so no biting can be shown just references and mentions.

Oh by the way, all the Goosebumps books were adapted into a TV series, I used to watch some growing up but watching them again today I find them so dumb and poorly adapted. Though the movie 'Goosebumps' that came out October 2015 was good.
Here's a link to the episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmBKLvl7RWQ



Let's end this piece with a mention of Twilight.


Young adult fiction and the fascination with Twilight

Twilight is not only a vampire story, it is above all a love story. What is interesting and fascinating in Meyer's novel is the subject of abstinence. Thus the subject of sex is not very present or mentioned but only suggested. It only appears after marriage. This prohibition of intercourse, the wait and then the act itself being done in the first half of the fourth novel, makes this novel series even more compelling. It is not surprising when we learn that Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon, her religion promotes abstinence. Bella falls in love with a boy who could be dangerous if she's not careful. Edward is of a dangerous nature but he is careful.

The Fascination

Mankind has always been haunted by blood sucking creatures of the night. They can be found in Assyrian and Babylonian legends. Mythology is full of such creatures such as the Lamias and the Styrges. However these creatures were not only feared, they were mostly worshiped as deities and divine tragic lost souls.

The vampire has a tendency to become popular during a period of crisis. For example during the plague epidemics, the supposed cases of vampirism would multiply. During the publication of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula in 1897, England was undergoing an industrial revolution. There was a massive urbanization and an influx of immigrants, this triggered a strong xenophobia in the country. The novel portrays these fears that gripped Victorian society. Dracula is an immigrant who traveled from Transylvania to England with intentions to 'contaminate' England. The novel 'I am Legend' by Richard Matheson, written in 1954 during the Cold War about a sole human survivor during a vampire epidemic, symbolized the fear of a third world war.

The vampire evolves according to the centuries. The character of Dracula created by Stoker becomes a very fascinating and attractive creature. Though he is the representation of evil he is still admired. The other characters are not regarded the same and are not so compelling. In a Gothic novel there must be lethal female vampires, for example Dracula's brides, Lucy and Carmilla by Le Fanu.

During the 20th century the vampire became almost more human, before that he was always considered as the 'dangerous outsider' or 'foreigner'. No one knows what's in his mind. Then Anne Rice gave the vampire a voice, her novel Interview with the Vampire' about a vampire who tells his story to a journalist, sparked a new movement of adoration.

                                            The typical fan girls of Twilight aptly named 'Twihards'

Why are vampires such fascinating creatures, especially for teenagers?

The vampire is an incarnation of the fantasy of immortality. The desire of immortality is common in the life of a young person. Teenagers see themselves as immortals and invincible. That is why they enjoy taking risks. They have their whole life ahead of them, this gives them a feeling of complete power. The vampire is also very narcissist, much like teenagers. The vampire is beautiful and charismatic as well. Young people feel they are unique, that the world revolves around them. The vampire is in some way exceptional, what we aspire to be. To grown ups, he symbolizes this desperate dream to stop the aging process and death. Vampires are beautiful and stay young forever, something humankind desires above all. We could say that humans are jealous of the vampire, it is not fair for him to possess those powers. Humans want what he has.

The vampire symbolizes many things in the subject of sexuality
The vampire represents forbidden love, we cannot fall in love with him but we cannot resist. The vampire serves as an allegory to passion and romanticism. Like in Twilight, there is a unique eternal love but with the wrong kind of boy. He represents the wild and dangerous side of sexuality, this may frighten some or make others obsessed.  This is only suggested. In the vampire world there rarely is sexual intercourse, Buffy, True Blood and the Vampire Diaries are exceptions. The act of biting and sucking blood with the mouth is already very sexual. This is why young girls are attracted to these characters.

What does the bite represent?
The bite and the blood flowing from it, represents the loss of virginity, it is a doorway to another side, a rite of passage. The bite also represents the frightening and sometimes painful act of sex. In sex there is often a predator and a prey.

References

(Josephine Lebard, Jean Marigny, Sophie Cadalen from the French Magazine Muze November 2009)

Waltje Jorg, (2005) Vampires, Serial Murder and the Popular Imagination