The Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb: The Girl and the Vampire
By Diana Campos
“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…” he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
”What a stupid lamb,” I sighed.
”What a sick, masochistic lion.”
Graphic by Nicole Nguyen
Vampires have haunted our imaginations for centuries, their shadowy presence woven deep into the fabric of Gothic fiction. When we picture a vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula often rises first from the mist, the classic image that has inspired countless Halloween costumes. We have our most recent thriller film featuring the old school figure of Nosferatu, a chilling and devouring take on a tale of the supernatural. But lately, the vampire has shed its monstrous skin to become an object of desire. This here is no skin of a killer here, folks. In recent years, figures like Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stefan and Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries, and most notably Edward Cullen from Twilight, have won the hearts of many teenage girls worldwide. Much tamer comparisons to our Gothic counterparts, but they bring their own mythos into the mix of the vampire. We see them for the wild charisma and sex appeal they ooze from the pages of the books we first read to the bright screens of cinema and our TVs. One has to wonder, how did this romanticization and humanization of the vampire come to be such a large collective that it has the girlies fantasizing about the vampire boyfriends in our media?
To dive right in, we have the mythos of the vampire and the teenage girl, who have been associated with tropes and complexities that come with adolescence itself. This connection between vampires and teenage girls pulses with the same intensity as adolescence itself. The most prominent metaphors we can observe are the emergence of a craving, a yearning for a transformation, a strong desire for forbidden romance and power, and a hint a rebellion during adolescence. Hopelessness tends to trail right behind us as teen girls, just craving for that erotic neck bite for utter power, distraction, and transformation. We see this prominently in the Twilight series, with the story unfolding between the characters Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.
Like so many teenage girls, Bella struggles with her identity, with her self-worth, and the strong urge to prove herself to be worthy of love and affection, trying not to be a burden. Bella can’t keep up with the demands of transitioning into adulthood, hoping to “freeze” herself in her youthful mindset as she begs Edward to transform her into a vampire. When she sees herself as an old woman in the flower fields during New Moon, it's shocking and terrifying, as she sees her reflection, that she won’t be able to stay in her youthful phase for her beloved Edward. She wants to stay eternally young and attractive for her love, something many teen girls struggle with in their early romances in life. Having Edward turn her into a vampire would give her the gift and solution that Bella and many other teen girls face: human limitations and aging concerns.
Bella views herself as the “outsider” just as vampires are seen as such in their human communities. Both vampire and teen girl are haunted by desires and cravings they can barely name, both searching for a place, whether physical or dream-like, to call their own, an identity to cling to. Teen girls tend to feel embarrassed about expressing their desires, fearing being taunted for thinking of such intricacies during their youth. With that, alienation and belonging strike us when we are teens, just as vampires are seen as society’s disposal. Just like in the initial film in the Twilight franchise, Bella can’t seem to connect to her human peers, whereas when she sees and becomes enamored by the Cullens, the desire to be like them comes into play. They are the mirror to the pain that ruptures within Bella, clinging to the thought of “you’re just like me, you’re the reflection of my internal pain”. They hold immense beauty, charisma, and the appeal and charm that so many teenage girls yearn for in their adolescent years. It’s that popularity we seek in our youth, a kind of adoration only the mystical vampire lover could offer to us in the dwellings of the safety of our bedrooms. To have that vampire lover shows the immense power you hold to have such superiority amongst the mortals of reality. It’s something really worth sinking your teeth into, drawing us into the breathtaking fantasies of our vampire lover.
The escapism vs. reality mindset plays a huge role in the realm of adolescence, romanticizing the fantasy that is to entering the world of the vampire, escaping from the trials of reality, just like Bella does in the series. Many teenage girls like Bella cling to validation, looking towards this as a way to desire the powerful agent that is the vampire boyfriend, i.e., Edward. We have become so enthralled with the vampire boyfriend, the whirlwind of an amazing fantasy, taking us away from the hurt and the pain of being a teenage girl, that we see the thirst for power. We see this especially in New Moon, Bella tasting the highs of the power of being with Edward, and the killing lows when she's not with her enigmatic lover. With power, one can shape their own role in their life, a craving never truly being satiated in teenhood. The temptation to create our own fantasy world becomes an armor against the harm of our real world during our youth. With power, we will never be hurt again, because the lust and fantasy of the vampire will just be crazy enough to keep us safe from the ridicule of the real world, like our own brand of heroin.
The allure of forbidden romance tempts the teenage girl out of her private world of longing, where danger and desire dance together in the shadows. The Cullens radiate an intoxicating mix of passion and mystery, awakening a hunger in the teen girl that she cannot ignore. Loneliness becomes the spark that draws her to someone like the enigmatic Edward Cullen, whose very presence is both thrilling and perilous. For girls just learning the language of love, Edward becomes a gentle guide into the unknown, making the idea of romance less terrifying. Adolescence is a time for wild dreams of unwavering devotion, the kind Edward showers on Bella, and it is this fantasy that has girls daydreaming, hearts fluttering, hoping for their own Edward. The love between Bella and Edward feels impossible in the real world, where such perfection is a myth. Yet, Twilight offers a taste of that flawless love; the vampire boyfriend is the ultimate wish, the secret craving, and his perfection is captured within the pages. The forbidden romance is the apple from the book’s cover, comparable to Eve taking the first bite of the apple in her tale, offered to the teen girl, inviting her to savor the sweetness of the unattainable and chase after that ideal in her own life.
Teen girls crave escape, and vampire stories and films have become their portal since the 2000s and beyond. The desire to both consume and be consumed is too wild for reality, but in the vampire’s supernatural realm, it becomes possible, even attainable. Ultimately, the vampire serves as a mirror for the teenage girl herself, blurring the lines between thought, reality, and fantasy until they all blend and form the fantasy that teenage girls thrive upon. Our books, our movies, our made-up vampire boyfriends, grant us the wishes of being seen as real people with real thoughts and motives in the real world. It’s a dream we wish to hibernate into, since life for the teen girl is as hard as it is and is going to get. But just like Edward saying sweet nothings to Bella at their prom, we are thrown back into reality and “Twilight, again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end.”
