I have a confession, I'm 24 years old and embarrassingly I've been drawn into the worldwide phenomenon of vampire mania. I am, of course, referring to the Twilight Saga that has captivated millions. And recently I was given season one of True Blood. Now these two vampire tales are completely different, one is virtuous and basically PG, hence the millions of screaming underage girls whereas the other is borderline pornographic and made for TV.
I'm a fan of both, nothing like spicing it up with a dark comedy/romance and a cheesy love story that's end can be readily predicted. But I started to wonder what the parallels were and why vampires, which, let's be honest, is a craze out of the 80's, are making a comeback? There has to be something just beneath the surface value of these stories that attracts people and keeps them glued to the screen, whether it be in a movie house or on their couch at home. Or sitting for hours on the street to get a glimpse of the actors who have lost their true identity to the character they portray.
So I have come up with a theory, don't get too excited, it's basic but as I'm sure Ive said before, the most obvious answer is usually the correct one. Women, despite what men might believe, are actually very simple creatures. We usually all have the same weakness for dangerous, mysterious men. Every good girl wants to be the catalyst of change for the bad boy, the one that free's him from his inner demons. Women nurture and I truly believe that this is instinctive. So here we have two stories with the tortured lost soul, who has an air of danger, thanks to the fact that he's dead and a vampire and we have the soulful, intelligent girl, who's different from the rest of the girls. Women want to feel special and they want the biggest badass to realize that and fall head over heels in love with them and change. That fact, is dangerous in itself. Because I'm sure many women out there have tried that and fallen flat on their face. But some lessons are harder to learn than others.
But this universal fact is what I believe makes these stories so successful, it appeals to the masses of women who want to experience that, be protected by a larger than life force that is mysterious, romantic and dangerous and feel special for changing his wayward behavior. But that brings me to my next point, a male colleague of mine lent me the True Blood series and him and many other men in the office have been chatting about it. I never paid any attention to what they were saying but when I was thinking about it, I realized that men are even simpler than women, sex and violence is a theme in True Blood and let's be honest men love that, hence the popularity with men. If I mention the Twilight Saga to them, the eyes begin to roll because it's more innocent.
I can't say with absolute certainty that this applies to everyone but I know that this is what appeals to me and many of my close women friends. So I say, revel in the land of danger and romance but don't let it carry you away, reality is just around the corner and it's a whole lot different.
