I think it is one of the most encouraging things of the past 100 years – that young women are so into vampires. That the iconography of vampires is mainstream and archetypal. It is known.
Of course, it doesn’t work so well in the beginning – when you get into vampires for the unlikely love stories. When you’re on Dracula’s side in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, thinking the yearnful Gary Oldman deserves Winona Ryder; or you’re invested in the whole Edward/Bella thing in Twilight. When you think vampires are just essentially unfortunate, compelling, well-dressed men who were unlucky enough to be born with a disease – which the love of a good woman could relieve, or cure, if she gave enough of herself. That’s