Nick's Blog
I Vant To Drink Your Blog
06/9/2009 @ 23:08
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Right, it's time for another in our occasional series where I lay into a media sacred cow. This time, it's
SACRED COWS: VAMPIRES
Vampires were once the preserve of old B movies but now they're on TV in prime time series such as "Being Human" and...erm...that cop show where the cop or someone like that is actually a vampire and there's loads of sexy vampires hanging around. Yes, Vampires are in and apparently they're cool and sexy.
ONLY THEY'RE NOT!
Why on earth would anyone think that these characters are cool and sexy? Vampires are just leeches who hang around in the shadows waiting for the unsuspecting before pouncing on them and keeping them enthralled whilst they drain them of their life force. I'm sorry, that's not a cool monster, that's someone who owes you money.
What is so appealing about these pasty faced bloodsuckers with overdeveloped fangs and an aversion to light? No, I don't mean Goths (although they all have a kinky fixation on Vampires for whatever reason) but can anyone explain why Vampires are supposed to be cool?
Time was, and I'm talking 1930s movies and Hammer films here, that Vampires were the bad guys, the evil ones and they had to be stopped. Suddenly, we've got "Interview With A Vampire" and all those other godawful Anne Rice novels with the fangmeisters all mixed up and misunderstood. Sorry Anne, but Lestat just isn't a reworked James Dean; he's a pasty faced, ruffled shirt, vainglorious leech who thinks he's a celebrity just because he's bitten a few virgins over the years. I think you'll find that Keith Richard got there first.
And it hasn't stopped there since. "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and all the recent vamp movies all try to present vampires as sexy but what is so sexy about them? They bite necks and drain blood...this is beyond love bites or cute nibbles to warm your partner up; it's about draining people so what is so seductive? I tell you; nothing! It's a pretty mixed up situation where draining blood out of young women is seen as seductive whereas in the real world it's taken as preferable to pump liquids into them in the act of making love.
And apparently immortality is seen as something wonderful...a "gift" in the parlance of some of these shows. And what have the vampires done with this precious gift of immortality? Found a cure for diseases? Ended wars? Built rocket ships that can take us to the stars? No. They either sit around in dark isolated castles or else hang around in seedy nightclubs picking up underaged girls. So again, what's the appeal people?
My sympathies have always been with Van Helsing or Captain Kronos. Put the stakes into them and burn the feckers! These guys have the right idea; vampires are leeches, worse than mosquitoes and need to be put out of their misery before they start floucing around in capes and listening to The Smiths at antisocial hours. One of the best shows about Vampires was Channel 4's 1990s show, Ultraviolet, where you were firmly on the side of the elite vampire hunting team all the way! Vermin to be exterminated was their byword.
People complain that there are too many TV shows about doctors or cops. Soon we'll be in danger of there being too many shows about vampires. Let's have one about vampire hunters...they get the cooler kit.
Blog Is The Name Of The Game
03/9/2009 @ 16:20
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I heard about the death of the TV presenter Simon Dee a couple of days ago. I never saw his show live and was merely a toddler when his ground breaking show, "Dee Time" went off the air but I've heard about his career and how it all ended and the years of obscurity that followed: In fact, you couldn't avoid hearing the name "Simon Dee" without also hearing the phrase "fall from grace". And add "a commentary about the nature of fame", "showbiz hubris", "the fickle nature of celebrity", etc etc.
In fact, all talk about Simon Dee is dominated by his fall from celebrity grace and it reveals a lot about the way the British media thinks that they focus on his departure rather than his arrival. Very little time has been spent reflecting on and talking about his talent; what got him to the top of the British TV industry in the first place. This hasn't been helped by the fact that the BBC have wiped all but two complete episodes of "Dee Time". Ahhh, the BBC and that moment of madness in destroying their classic TV output, they'll never quite live that one down but that's another story.
But back to Simon. I find it odd that so much time has been devoted to holding him up as an example of a dramatic evaporation of fame and not looking to his work. This guy was the original hep DJ in the UK. He was the precursor to Jonathon Ross, Chris Evans and Graham Norton and if you're wincing at the mention of those three names might I remind you just how good Ross was when he hosted "The Last Resort" and how good Evans was with what might still be the ultimate game show, "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush". Dee had all that and more when he hosted Dee Time and that laid back, trendy, free wheeling, anything-can-happen, style was his first. Add to that a nifty cameo in "The Italian Job" (we won't mention the cringeworthy "Doctor In Trouble") to an acting CV and you had a pretty able all-rounder capable of wit and style.
So instead of using him as a cautionary tale about fame and ego, let's celebrate who he was at his best. But I will say one thing about his fall...and it's a kind of elephant in the room scenario that none of the media commentators on his career will mention. He didn't just fall out of love with the British public, he was cynically disposed of by the TV networks. He wanted more money and perks, they said no and he was ejected. There was no time on the fringes for him before a rehabilitation, unlike Ross and Evans, he had the floor pulled out from under him. Maybe if he was a little humbler, not so demanding and could sway TV executives it might have been different, I don't know, I never knew the guy so I can't guage if he was a total jerk or not. In my opinion though, Simon Dee isn't a cautionary tale about the fickleness of fame, it's a tale of just how powerful a network is in making and breaking someone. The TV lords giveth and the TV lords taketh away.
