The World is a Savage Garden: Interview with the Vampire Reflects Our Age’s Broken Heart

By Lillian Lin, Edited by Cesar Serrano

Why do we as a population still need vampires? The answer to our undying cultural fascination with this mythical creature is discovered in its capacity to change in each reinvention, astonishing us with its malleable relevance. Every adaptation of the vampiric lore reveals the changing symptoms of the age that produces it. We all have a fundamental understanding of the Vampire’s character archetype, but it can be reshaped to mirror the woes of a particular era. Vampirism’s lure is often embedded in the invitation to seek revenge against a dominant order — reveling in not having to bow down to the majority, the powerful, and the oppressor, but also lurking in dark spaces as the outcast, never truly in power. A myriad of authors have freely expressed their versions of the vampire; most recently, AMC’s television adaptation of Anne Rice’s classic series, Interview with the Vampire (2022-), dares to refigure its vampiric protagonist, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), as an individual of black and queer identity in lieu of the novel’s original portrayal, a white plantation owner. The once decadent and transgressive gothic literature finds itself reimagined as a defiant tale in this particular rendition, where the immortal creature’s bloodthirsty desire awakens a sociocultural consciousness for unruly reparation. 

Vampires are the product of their era; their figurations ever-evolving and their woes reflecting the anxiety and desire of the generation that births them. Before we begin to dissect the contemporary nature of Louis de Pointe du Lac, it is critical to understand the on-screen history of the Vampire archetype specifically in regards to its human resemblance and the level of psychological alienation. In plague-ridden 1920s Europe, one of culture’s earliest media depictions of a Vampire was found in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), in which a foreign blood-sucking lord arrives in Germany on a rat-infected boat, spreading diseases across the once sanitized town. His eventual destruction in the bright sunlight, a trope that became a precedent for future renditions, solidified Nosferatu’s symbolic status as the morbid carrier of ailments; his bite caused incurable contamination and his only weakness was the sun’s cleansing. Then, in the aftermath of WWII, Britain reintroduced the classic vampire in color for the first time in Horror of Dracula (1958). By associating the character suddenly with the vibrant shades of red and black and downplaying his visual abnormality, this representation brought the vampire’s image closer than ever to humanity, rendering “the borderline between monsters and ourselves” ambiguous (Inoue 89). In a world still suffering from the fatigue of WWII and Nazism, it is unsurprising to find the wall separating monsters and men thinning and threatening to collapse.

Throughout its cinematic evolution over the years, the vampire grows in subjectivity as the monster through which we recognize the Other within ourselves — the abyss of evil that stares back at us when we look in the mirror. The embodiment of the Other in the horror genre, often manifested as the undesirable alter ego and the opposition to normalcy, alludes to what has been repressed in history. Through the most well-known media adaptation of Rice’s novel, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, the villainous vampire gets to be reinterpreted as a tragic hero on screen. Here, the traditional archetype’s rejected Otherness is placed in juxtaposition with the rich and nuanced sentience of the film’s protagonist. Despite bearing the gothic appearance of a pale corpse, the vampire is desperately alive. His relatability is exaggerated by the fact that he constantly suffers from a turbulent mind full of human sorrows. 

Around the same time, Francis Ford Coppola enticed the spectator to identify with the archetypal vampiric monster in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) by incorporating an opening scene from the point of view of Dracula. In offering the viewers a glimpse into the vampire’s sobbing backstory, Coppola’s screen acts as a mirror that invites the active spectator to see their own likeness reflected on a character who has been conventionally seen as the Other. After the subjectivized monster’s internal world opens up for audience scrutiny, it was inevitable in the narrative progression of the mythical archetype to investigate the conflict between the vampire's beastlike appetite to feed and their human moral compass. When the bloodthirst is presented as a choice, the desire becomes symbolic, and so does the refusal of the desire. The Interview with the Vampire franchise’s Louis de Pointe du Lac is notorious for embodying one of the first on-screen depictions of that denial to take blood. Since a vampire’s demand for blood is non-negotiable and exceeds all restraints of the sound mind, it works as the unconscious; thus, by Freud’s definition, the urge to quelch such desire must be the vampire’s consciousness that seeks to repress the unacceptable unconscious (Inoue 87). 

In the 2022 TV adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, Louis’s appetite becomes symbolic of the repressed collective consciousness that he also possesses as a closeted gay man of Creole heritage in early twentieth-century New Orleans. In the pilot episode, we meet a young Louis in a deeply miserable state. Forced to wear many hats to financially sustain his family, he hides his true nature to survive in the racist and homophobic Louisiana. Unlike the filmic adaptation, in which Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) is a white plantation owner who is at liberty to indulge in alcoholism and self-pity in public spaces without interference, Anderson’s Louis in the AMC series is restricted to console his tempestuous mind in private. As a black businessman in the Post-Reconstruction American South with an unusual amount of properties, any sign of vulnerability or incompetence could render him a target to the greed of his white opponents and subsequently expose his family to danger. While both versions of Louis appear debilitated by their depression, Anderon’s character faces an additional layer of persecution from the white and heteronormative dominant order that keeps his livelihood a hostage. The dominant powers of society demand his silence because they are the culprit to all of Louis’s sufferings. Both on the outside and the inside, Louis is haunted by the repression of his disadvantaged intersectional identities. His rejection of the self is both sympathetic and fear-inducing for the spectator, and the supposedly monstrous omen of vampirism becomes a liberating catharsis that has the power to elevate the oppressed above the mundane standards: not black or gay to the society, but a vampire. 

In the AMC series, Louis’ transformation scene is a “mirror of spectatorial desire” (Elsasser and Hagener 88), as it takes the cinematic lens into the private space of queer lovers and near the anguish of an exploited minority, proposing the question forthrightly: what would a victim of systemic oppression do with the vampire’s dark gift? Freedom and revenge are teased to Louis as well as the spectators who see themselves reflected in Louis’ misery. Such alignment calls attention to what often gets silenced by the dominant order, the rage and sorrow of the repressed. The vampire’s appetite serves as a popular cultural reaction to the void left by social injustice, as the abuse inflicted upon minorities in real life often sees no equal retribution and is here manifested as a supernatural desire to wreak havoc. In the sequence leading up to Louis’s vampiric transformation, his maker and romantic partner, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), is heard before he makes his appearance. His voice-over, which calls Louis to join him, overpowers the diegetic sounds of Louis’s surroundings as the latter tries to shut him out in vain (53:46-55:50). With Louis wallowing in shame and guilt at the funeral of his deceased mentally ill brother, Lestat’s entrance becomes an allegory of resistance against what Louis’s brother represents. Depicted as a fervent believer who considers Louis’s sexuality to be a sin, his brother stood as the heteronormative boundary in Louis’s life. Nevertheless, no matter how “unholy” Louis believes his attraction to Lestat is, his gradually waning of reluctance to evade Lestat’s calling is evidence that his rejection of identity is in the process of breaking down. 

In one last endeavor to eradicate Lestat’s voice in his head, the dilapidated Louis runs to a priest and confesses his sins, but soon the list of wrongs deviates into a cry for help. For the first time to another human being, Louis discloses that he has laid down with a man, and that man’s presence has overtaken his rational mind as if the devil himself has roots planted in him. The moment Louis mentions Lestat’s command over his consciousness, the priest is yanked out of the confession box at lightning speed by an unnaturally strong force, his scream tearing through the sounds of bones crushing and blood spurting (55:55-58:30). As horror theorists such as Robin Wood have mentioned, the symbol of the monstrous vampire is inherently queer-coded, thus the dark creature’s portrayal often invokes the concept of “surplus repression,” which describes the way that “those in control…keep all ‘Others’ subjugated in the dominant order’ (Benshoff 228). Lestat’s violence here can be seen as an uprising against the order, as his seduction acts like a chatter in Louis' mind when Louis is at his most vulnerable — his own family blames his unorthodox way of living for his brother’s tragedy and white business men feel entitled to scavenge the black man’s profit. Lestat isn’t an antagonistic influence, but a timely temptation reacting to Louis’s subconscious and urging him to seek retribution for his misery. Lestat seduces Louis to embrace his desire against normality, exclaiming that the dark gift could take away the sorrow that Louis thought was only defeatable by suicide, a symptom that haunts marginalized communities. The thirst of the vampire, being associated with homoeroticism through Lacanian psychoanalysis, threatens the established order by returning “as a symptom of the culture that would reject him” (Haggerty 9). Although fearsome and destructive, the violence is also emancipating for spectators who have tasted a similar sorrow. 

The original material by Anne Rice climbed out of the womb of grief over the death of loved ones, as Rice herself began writing the novel after the passing of her daughter. In a more faithful recreation of the book, the film adaptation’s Louis chooses vampirism after his wife dies in childbirth, which led to his withdrawal from society as a result of his inability to identify with past notions of normalcy. The absence of his rationality and productivity degrades him to a target of pity and renders his masculinity dubious. In the film, the vampiric transformation is also presented as an opportunity for the complete annihilation of mundane concerns, where grief ceases to be and youthful beauty is restored. Brad Pitt’s Louis eagerly jumps at the chance of supernatural salvation. But the Louis played by Jacob Anderson in the TV series chooses vampirism to seek a sense of freedom that would relieve but not erase his trauma: the death of a brother who considers him sinful in the eyes of God, the rejection of a family that doesn’t understand him, the exploitation of white entrepreneurs who feed off him like he is a slave, the pain of having to hide his sexuality, and the world’s mutilation and contempt for his people. After Anderson’s Louis tastes the vampiric blood, the close up shot lingers steadily on his face a moment longer, not to observe a paranormal return to youth and beauty as the film did, but to witness the opening of his eyes – his consciousness and his own confrontation with the self. Louis recalls his ascent to power in his interview, inferring that “it was then that [he] realized, the drum was [his] heart.” The ominous sound of heavy drumming that had been terrorizing him had in fact been a part of him all along (01:03:10-01:05:26). On that fateful night of Louis’ transformation, he finally listened to his own heart’s desire.

It’s worth noting that the series does not refrain from reminding us that the vampiric transformation is not always consensual, and that Lestat himself had no choice in the matter. The church sequence in AMC’s television series makes an effort to emphasize that Louis gives consent to be turned through a romantic parallel: he agrees to be Lestat’s companion by initiating a kiss. In the film adaptation, Lestat (Tom Cruise) drains Louis to the brink of death before teasing him with “are you sure,” knowing full well that Louis’s only options are either become a vampire or death at that point (11:48-12:32). This artistic choice seems to suggest that an otherwise upstanding, heterosexual white man willingly giving his consent to embrace “abnormality” must appear dubious, and is only possible if he had fallen for the insincere trickery of the devil. Tom Cruise’s Lestat embodies the period-specific view of homoerotic seduction’s villainy, as it threatens to steal masculinity with a forceful vampiric bite on the neck. Here in the film, Lestat’s invitation is depicted like a coercive scam rooted in the monster’s self-serving malice, while the series presents the invitation scene as the eruption of Louis’s deep-seated desire. During the film’s release, the display of homoeroticism remained marred by the creators and the era’s conflicted ideology towards queerness. The film chooses to accentuate the supernatural side of Lestat’s vampiric bite on Louis’ neck through the use of high-pitched instrumental music and dim lighting – cinematic techniques typically recognized in horror films. All of these seem to suggest the creators’ fear, at least explicitly, at portraying the bite as an intimate gesture, a kiss between two men. Thus, by downplaying the romantic atmosphere, the film covers a homoerotic scene about repressed desires with the veil of horror. Almost thirty years later, the TV series Interview with the Vampire welcomes the homoerotic connotation thoroughly and even celebrates its yearning to leave the subjugated space by allowing the kiss to happen not in a damp and shadowy cemetery, but right before a hanging statue of Jesus; an insolent and rebellious nod at the religious trauma experienced by queer communities.

“Your fall from grace has been the fall of the century…You reflect [our age’s] broken heart.” Armand (Antonio Banderas), the most ancient vampire, tells Louis in the 1994 film while caressing his pale face (1:28:21-1:29:00). The filmic adaptation of Interview with the Vampire revolts against the tough facade commanded by the masculinized America trapped in its wars. Its representation of vampirism, both feared and desired, strives to normalize grief and depression – a literal broken heart. But that sorrow is complicated in the TV series, where Louis' broken heart is the woe of America on the verge of waking up. This generation is both provoked to rebel against the system and numbed by its helplessness; the TV series’ Louis is a manifestation of that woe. His rage and repression are invisible, but the trail of bodies he leaves behind as a vampire renders them visible.

Works Cited 

Benshoff, Harry. “The Monster and the Homosexual.” The Monster Theory Reader, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, University of Minnesota Press, 2020, pp. 226–40. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctvtv937f.15. Accessed 6 May 2023. 

Elsaesser, Thomas and Malte Hagener. “Chapter 4: Cinema as Eye.” Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses. New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 82-107. Haggerty, George E.

“Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 32, no. 1, 1998, pp. 5–18. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1346054. Accessed 6 May 2023. 

Inoue, Yoshitaka. “Contemporary Consciousness as Reflected in Images of the Vampire.” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, vol. 5, no. 4, 2011, pp. 83–99. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1525/jung.2011.5.4.83. Accessed 6 May 2023. 

Interview with the Vampire. Created by Rolin Jones, season 1, AMC Studios, 2022. 

Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles. Directed by Neil Jordan, Warner Brothers. 1994.