Vampires reveal 'plight of the planet'

Vampires aren’t just a figment of imagination — they’re the expression of real-world problems. 

At least, that’s the opinion of Margot Adler, NPR New York correspondent. 

Adler spoke at the Whittenburger Auditorium on Monday evening for an event for the Unitarian Universalists at IU.

Adler, who has worked at NPR for 30 years, is also a pagan, which is one reason she spoke at IU. 

“I also spoke at the Unitarian Universalist church on Sunday,” Adler said. “I gave a sermon at 9:15 and 11.”

After Adler told the story about how she found paganism, vampires were the topic of the night.

She is currently working on a book about how vampires actually portray today’s culture and have for as long as vampire novels have existed. 

“Going back to Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ the vampire showed that England was afraid,” Adler said. “The monster was from Eastern Europe, and he was bringing disease into the country. At the time the country was worried about immigration.”

Fast-forwarding to the ’80s, Adler said vampires were then viewed as disease-carriers, an expression of the fear of AIDS in the United States. And after the ’80s, Adler began to look at the vampires of recent years. Edward Cullen of “Twilight,” Damon and Stefan of “The Vampire Diaries” and the vampires of “True Blood” are just a few of the names of the most popular vampire-related series.

“I started looking at names and trying to find the links between them,” she said. “Then I saw that all of them were desperately trying to be moral, just like us. They represent exactly who we are at the time.”

Adler said vampires are commonly thought of as extremely sexual, but that’s not the case. 

“They change when we change, and they show that our blood is oil, and we’re sucking it out of the earth,” she said. 

The work that Adler has completed relating vampires to contemporary social problems will hopefully be available this summer to the public, she said.

“Although it’s unclear what form it will take, the essay will hopefully be published this June on Amazon as a single, right before the new season of ‘True Blood,’” she said.