Like Louise Miller’s tale in Teen Witch, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Teen Wolf, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Once Bitten, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all follow along with coming of age and discovering the unfathomable about yourself. But what exactly does unfathomable mean in this context? Of course it is unfathomable to become a witch or vampire because it is impossible, but what about discovering that you’re gay or pregnant or have an STD? The changes that the characters in these films face are not specific to the supernatural, they are specific to being a teenager who, for whatever reason, feels separated or different from their peers.
Love & Destruction
Most of the teenage “monsters” in the aforementioned films are subjected to the agony of unrequited love and/or unfulfilled sexual desire. The plots revolve around not only the supernatural changes the characters are going through, but also and most importantly, the impact that these changes can have on their sexual relationships. Teen Wolf’s Scott Howard distantly ogles Pamela Wells, aware that the dynamic of his one-sided relationship with the prettiest girl in school will remain static. Scott is only able to fulfill his desires with Pamela as “the wolf.” The monster/garden-variety teenager relationships are portrayed in a wholesome way, showing that werewolves are just like anyone else. Everyone has skeletons in their closet; some are just covered in fur.While the Teen Wolf universe offers no (lasting) negative repercussions, the world the vampires inhabit operates with stronger sense of consequence. For Once Bitten’s Mark Kendall and My Best Friend is a Vampire’s Jeremy Capello, the source of their mythical transformation is a result of sexual desire. Rather than their power acting as an enabler for desire, their desires enable their power. After the remarkably average Jeremy is seduced by an older woman his change occurs. With the help of a mentor figure and fellow vampire, Jeremy comes to terms with his “condition” and recognizes that being undead doesn't mean his life is over.
Like Jeremy, Mark endures a similar fate. He is frustrated that his relationship with his girlfriend has not reached the level of intimacy that he desires and so after succumbing to the pressure of his friends (and libido) he allows himself to be seduced by an older more experienced woman. While Mark doesn’t actually sleep with her, he believes that he did. After their encounter he notices several changes but brushes them off and thinks nothing of it. His super sleuth girlfriend discovers what is ailing him and she explains his behavior to his friends, telling them “Mark may have contracted some sort of disease.” When one of Mark’s friends asks, “like a venereal disease?” She replies “sort of.”
Mark is ultimately curable. He can reverse the process simply by losing his virginity, which he does when his girlfriend decides to sleep with him to thwart the woman who is trying to “steal” him away. Metaphorically, he had the syphilis of vampirism and all he needed was a shot of penicillin to make his problems go away. Jeremy’s condition, on the other hand, is permanent and subsequently he is perceived as much more of a threat. His best friend, Ralph, is afraid that Jeremy will “infect” him before he accepts and later exploits his friend’s new power. Jeremy's adversary, the Professor, brings up an interesting connection between the undead and the socially dead. Both are outside of normalcy and while they exist in discourse do/can they exist in reality? Judith Butler writes, "this problem makes itself felt in the uncertainty with which homosexual love and loss is regarded: is it regarded as a "true" love, a "true" loss, a love and loss worthy and capable of being grieved, and thus worthy and capable of having been lived?” Are the vampires considered socially dead? If they could be grieved, would they? The Professor believes that Jeremy and those like him are a threat to society as a whole. He does not, nor does he have an interest in trying to understand vampires and views them as emotionless creatures who aim to not only alter but destroy society on a global scale. The Professor’s proclamation that by his calculations, which he states are always correct, “20% of the human race will be infected by 1990” serves several purposes. It represents the arrogance of older “wiser” generations; he believes that he is always correct in terms of both his calculations and his perception of the world and what is good for it. It seems that throughout the film the idea of homosexuality and disease are interchangeable, and because of the time that this movie was made (1988) they could possibly even be contingent upon each other. Assuming that his statement is allegorical of homosexuality, it is suggestive of an unwillingness to accept and adapt. His argument, undeniably fallacious, is that the world should stay the same because that is how it has always been. If disease, AIDS in particular, are put into the equation the context changes but the solution still remains roughly the same. The Professor sees the danger of a possible reality and is justified in his desire to take preventative action, although the means in which he plans to accomplish this are flawed. He believes that he must destroy those who are capable, though not necessarily inclined, of destroying others. His lack of guilt brings up the connection between guilt and love. Butler describes guilt "as a stopgap against sadistic destruction, [it] signals less the psychic presence of an originally social and external norm than a countervailing desire to continue the object one wishes dead.” Guilt exists as a by-product of love. We feel guilt when we desire to harm an object of love and guilt preserves that loved object. When the Professor almost kills Jeremy's (human) friend he feels no guilt. His desire to preserve humanity does not come from love, rather a desire for destruction. In fact, his behavior is much more destructive than the vampires themselves. It seems that his assumed power serves more to repress him than anything else. He is no longer a part of the normal culture he seeks to preserve, rather is an outsider of his own doing consumed with an unsubstantiated idea.
Unlike the other films, Jeremy’s supposed deviant behavior/homosexuality is not only implied, it is actually addressed. His parents are suspicious that something is “not right” and suspect that their son might be gay. Of course he is not, as Kenneth Kidd puts it, the teen protagonist is returned “to the safe enclave of the heterosexual family after mimicking the codes of gay disclosure.” Scott Howard’s wolf is more ambiguous. He too mimics homosexuality but at the same time retaining a staunch masculinity. When Scott is about to reveal himself as a werewolf to his friend, Stiles, he says, “look, don’t tell me you’re a fag because if you tell me you’re a fag, I don’t think I can handle it.” Scott responds by reassuring that his friend that “[he’s] not a fag. [He’s] a werewolf.” This seemingly superfluous exchange serves to first denounce the idea of being gay and acting on those desires and secondly by denouncing that lifestyle it promotes a sense of masculinity. Judith Butler makes a similar argument about the United States Military’s regulation of homosexuality and how that regulation forms the masculine subject, “one who consecrates his identity through renunciation as an act of speech: to say ‘I am a homosexual’ is fine as long as one also promises ‘and I don’t intend to act.” When Scott comes out to Stiles and proves himself by becoming the wolf he breaks that promise. His situation within this idea is complicated, but it asserts that to be masculine, one must also be heterosexual. Can a gay man not exhibit strength or aggression? Further more, can a woman?
Power is in the Word
Sex and gender in the female films are handled quite differently. Their femininity is never doubted and their sexuality is never questioned. Even Buffy the vampire slayer is distinctly feminine despite her “masculine” abilities. Buffy though, especially in her televised form, is very different from Louise and Sabrina. Rather than complying with what all of the other characters fall victim to, Buffy and her cohorts are resistant to the social standards of gender. Interestingly, Buffy represents the idea of a strong and liberated female figure, while she as an individual is confined by a predisposed obligation to forfeit any existence she may desire outside of her present situation.For Louise and Sabrina their desire is not as blatantly sexual and has more to do with the idea of romanticism. They don’t necessarily want to fulfill their sexual desires as much as they actually want to be sexually desired. Teen Witch introduces Louise as she is dreaming about being romanced Brad. This seems to apply to almost all of the female characters in these films. They are as guilty of objectifying women as men are. Like Samantha Stevens and Jeanie, Louise allows herself to be repressed by neglecting her own desires. Samantha and Jeanie were held down by societal (i.e. masculine) ideas of how women should behave. Jeanie's relationship with Tony Nelson is based more on a servant/master relationship than a romantic one. Bewitched and Teen Witch are saying that it's okay for women to have power, as long as they don't use it. The purpose of Teen Witch seems completely contradictory to me. When I watched it as a child it felt empowering, and gave me hope that someday maybe I would have the power to turn my brother into a dog. The film gives just enough power to Louise to convince its young audience, but holds enough back because women can't have too much power, otherwise who would do the laundry?
Peter Parker’s power may have come with great responsibility, but for these female protagonists, their power came with great repression. According to Roberta Trites’, “Foucault points out that power can be simultaneously repressive and enabling because those who are complacent are often less empowered than those who gain power by struggling.” Buffy, Sabrina, and Louise do not work for their power, it is handed to them by destiny. Louise uses her power to influence her classmates’ perception of her to gain popularity but by doing so she also represses herself because she cannot be honest with her new friends. Brad tells her that she doesn’t “play games with people to make them like [her] more.” It seems that the thing that gives her autonomy also holds her back.
Under the guise of campy entertainment, these films still speak volumes about the adolescent experience. I remember watching them as a child not really understanding the subtleties of what was being expressed. These are not just about some wacky supernatural creature during their awkward years; they are about change and how that change is handled. You don’t necessarily have to be magical to experience what they are experiencing. Adolescence is a difficult time and it can hard to figure out who you are and what you want. As Kidd appropriately writes, “There is too much to be afraid of, including werewolves, vampires, and assorted human villains, but the scariest thing of all is adolescence itself.”
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