Van Helsing as a Protector: The Role of the Vampire Hunter the Present-Day Vampire Culture
Abstract
The vampire culture grew out of the Gothic genre and became extremely popular throughout the world. The first and most famous representative of the vampire cast is Dracula, who first appeared as a protagonist in Bram Stocker’s book with the same name. Dracula was created as a predator that hid within his threatening castle, and attacked helpless women. The author also introduced Van Helsing, the hero who acted as a protector of women and fought to destroy the monster. However, Van Helsing remained a less popular and well-known character as compared to the monster he hunted. In Sommers’s film version, the focus shifts for the first time from Dracula to Van Helsing. His character however is transformed to reflect not only the shifting of masculinity ideals, but also the transformation of the vampire culture in the contemporary western society. As the vampire threatens the entire humanity now, rather than women only, Van Helsing becomes the ultimate protector of mankind, an unwilling hero whose motivations draw from humanistic principles, and a desire for repentance and self-discovery.
Synopsys
In the film, Van Helsing is the secret agent of a religious group who fights against evil monsters in the Western society. Accompanied by friar Carl, Van Helsing is sent to Transylvania to help the remaining members of the Valerious family, Prince Velkan and Princess Anna, to defeat Dracula. Van Helsing agrees to help, particularly because he seems to have a connection to Transylvania and Dracula. Once they arrive, Van Helsing engages in a fight with Dracula’s wives and wins the respect of Princess Anna. Princess Anna and Van Helsing try to help Velkan who became a werewolf. They follow him to the castle were Dracula is trying to breed a new generation of vampires. Van Helsing finds that he and Dracula are related in some way, and the experiment conducted by the vampire fails, much to his dismay.
Subsequently, the two characters make a plan to attract the brides and kill them, pretending to leave by carriage to Budapest. However, during this operation, Valkan, as a werewolf, bites Van Helsing and is killed afterward. In addition, Princess Anna is kidnapped. Eventually, Van Helsing learns of a secret passage from Anna’s home to the castle. Carl also finds that the werewolf bite is the only possible way to kill Dracula.
Van Helsing becomes a werewolf as a result of the bite. As Van Helsing fights against Dracula, he bites the vampire who dies. Subsequently, Anna gives Van Helsing the cure she took from Dracula, and helps him to recover. However, while still a werewolf, Van Helsing attacks and kills Anna. As he returns, he is grief stricken by his deed. At the funeral, Van Helsing notices the spirits of Anna and her family rising to the sky.
Part 1: The Traditional Vampire Hunter
(p. 1). The changing image of the vampire in literature and film is justified by the change in the western societies’ attitude towards other races. The fascination with monsters drove the interest in Gothic horror, and gave birth to several themes which remain popular in literature and film, such as coexistence of good and evil in the same body, as in Dr. Jekyll or the return from death, as in vampire stories and Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Published in 1897, Dracula embodies the society’s fear of monsters, and the need of the Victorian people to feel safe from this threat. During the scientific revolution in Western culture in the 18tcentury, priests and professors in Germany tried to discover if vampires truly existed, thus engaging in the Great Vampire Debate. This debate influenced the emergence of the vampire in gothic literature. Vampires are central to discussions of otherness because they “link racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism” (Knewitz 122). This means that the vampire expresses a series of fears and discriminative ideas of the Western societies in the industrialization era. The vampire expresses the societies’ fear of other races, or of the feminist movement, for example. By having a vampire sucking the blood of young helpless women, and men who are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to save them, the narrative reinforces patriarchy and the belief in family values. However, today, many filmmakers and novelists ask the audience to identify with the vampire, not with the victim or with the vampire slayer. This is part of the subversive tendency which has been characteristic for the past 50 years. Gradually, the vampire has been accepted as a fictional representative of another race, rather than a demonic creature who transgresses against the divine and natural order.
(p.2) The vampire culture is strongly associated with particular symbols which continue to inform vampire stories. Thus, most vampires in film and literature are afraid of sunlight, which causes their death. Because they are creatures of darkness, vampires thrive in the shadows, but are easily destroyed by the natural light of the sun. Traditionally, vampires are damned creatures who have lost their souls and are cursed to walk on earth as living dead. Consequently, much like demons, they are the enemies of God and cannot stand religious symbols, such as the cross, or holy water. However, in contemporary vampire culture, the representation of vampires changes in that “they no longer burst into flames or turn into dust if exposed to sunlight; garlic and crucifixes cannot scare them” (Knewitz 121).This shows that Vampires are less associated today with traditional ritualistic elements which remind of the devil. The flames and crucifixes are direct representations of Christian beliefs, whereas the sunlight suggests goodness. Because vampires have been perceived as evil, they have been associated with the dangers of the night. In the works in which they are not scared of these religious artefacts, the vampires are themselves less scarier, because they do not represent Satanic evil but on the contrary, they are perceived as a different ‘species’, with superior powers to humans, and even superior wisdom.
(p.3) Furthermore, traditional vampires have been perceived as lonely creatures, as predatory animals usually are, but this vision has evolved as well in the past years. The image of the lonely vampire fits the idea of the vampire as a predator, who hunts for helpless women. The traditional vampire is perceived as an animalistic, or barbaric being, whose anti-social behavior reflects the societies fears regarding the racial others. For example, Knewitz shows that “Dracula was solitary, acting alone on his quest to take over the city of London” (243). This lonely conquest also suggests an abnormal state, because humans are social beings, and they live surrounded by friends, relatives, and larger communities. However, Dracula not only lives alone, but he is also ready to conquer an entire city by himself. This makes him appear more powerful and impressive. On the contrary, contemporary vampires live in vampire families, and can act normally in the society. They can love and show their support to their fellows. They are integrated in larger communities of humans, and they are perceived as either harmless to humans, or as a vigilante, killing ‘bad’ humans only.
(p.4) The character of Van Helsing necessarily has to fit the ideology of audience and so, his character and role in the story has evolved as well. In the novel, Dr. Abraham van Helsing represents the ultimate monster hunter while Dracula is the nightmarish being that everyone should fear (Duda 8). Stephen Sommers’s 2004 adaptation “Van Helsing” changes the focus of the story from Dracula to the vampire slayer, the eponymous character who has been ignored by the vampire culture in the past decades. Here, the filmmaker not only restores the character to its well-deserved place, by placing him at the center of the story, but also transforms the character so as to embody more of the contemporary masculine ideals, which have changed to a great extent since Victorian times. This shift occurred at the same time with the larger transformation of the vampire culture, which reflects the major cultural transformations of the past two centuries.
(p.5) Dracula’s antagonist, Van Helsing, has been neglected by literary criticism and the audience alike, because Dracula’s character was so strong that it attracted all the interest. In Stocker’s work, Van Helsing is bestowed with the ideal qualities of Victorian culture, being both knowledgeable in scientific domains, and a spiritual man, both a good person and a man with a strong character (Stocker 129). As Duda describes him, “Van Helsing is an educated man, a mentor, a father figure, and a friend. Encompassing the best that Victorian masculinity has to offer, he is the ideal monster hunter-a man within whom intellect and nerve combine but never overpower his compassion” (Duda 9). This means that in the novel, Van Helsing represents the perfect Victorian family man, because he combines the most appreciated characteristics for a head of a family, namely reason, courage and kindness. However, the humanizing agent, or the hero, in this pioneering vampire story, is utterly ignored by horror criticism. The monster received the attention in horror literary criticism. This interest was also expanded to influence the entire western public, where the vampire is a popular horror figure, but the vampire hunter is virtually unknown. While the monster represents the other, which may be fascinating, but is nevertheless threatening and deviant, the hero is one of us. However, because he is a familiar character, he does not have the same impact on the audience as the monster, and he does not have the same powerful impact on the audience.
(p.6) The changing vampire culture determined major positive transformations in the way that the society perceives vampires, and this meant that Van Helsing was no longer needed as a defender. Because they are regarded with sympathy in many of contemporary works, a vampire slayer, such as Van Helsing would not find a place, and would not gain the support of the audiences. Consequently, in order for Van Helsing to continue being a hero, and a protector, his antagonist must continue to be a predator. The heroism of the protagonist is measured against the evilness and monstrosity of the antagonist. For this reason, in order to place Van Helsing in the focus, Sommers needed to construct a world where mankind is constantly threatened by unimaginable monsters.
Part 2: The New Age Vampire Hunter
(p.7) Van Helsing from Sommers’s film is different from Bram Stoker’s character, because he is a representative of a new age, with new masculine ideals. In the film, Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is a true contemporary action hero, being tough, handsome, muscular and individualistic. He is a lone warrior, an efficient weapon in the hands of the church, whose kindness is only hinted at, being hidden under a vail of arrogance and cruelty. Van Helsing as portrayed in this film could easily be on the other side of the barricade, and it is the only chance, destiny or his own conviction, that he became a protector instead. In line with this approach, Van Helsing is not a doctor in this film. He is not concerned with science, which would make him a more balanced character. However, in his quest to find and destroy Dracula, he brings Friar Carl along, who embodies the scientific mind of Stoker’s Van Helsing.
(p.7) Furthermore, Van Helsing’s protective function changes in Sommers’s film version, as compared to the Victorian novel. Thus, traditional vampire hunters, including Van Helsing, are the protectors of women. As Caroll shows, in Dracula, the protagonist is “balanced off against Van Helsing, who defends virgins” (20). Therefore, the role of Van Helsing in the Victorian literature was to serve as a chivalrous hero of the past, whose only mission was saving the damsel in distress. In contemporary vampire culture, this theme is approached much more carefully, because women today are not as helpless and passive in films, as they were in the Victorian novel. The band of vampire slayers in the novel is willing to fight against the vampire in order to protect their love interests. Even after some of the slayers in the novel lose their partners to Dracula, they still join forces to protect the woman who still lives within their circle, namely Mina. Sommers’s Van Helsing however, is on a quest for self-discovery and the recovery of hisown humanity. In this film, the female protagonist, Princess Anna, does not need protection. She rejects Van Helsing’s help saying, “I can handle this myself”. And Van Helsing replies, “So I noticed”. Van Helsing accepts Princess Anna as an equal and declares that they will fight together. However, he still tries to protect her, by keeping her away from the fight. In the film, Van Helsing continues to display a reminiscence of the traditional function of the male, as protector of the female, who is perceived as unable to fight. Throughout the film, Princess Anna will demonstrate her skills, and Van Helsing will come to recognize and respect them. However, rather than a protector of virginal women, Van Helsing here is a protector of humanity in general. This is because in the film, Dracula threatens to destroy mankind by breeding a new generation of vampires. Therefore, at stake are not virginal and helpless women, but the entire mankind.
Part 3: The Vampire Hunter as Hero
(p.8) The nature of the hero is linked to the nature of the vampire in films and novels alike. Kane shows that, “the vampire in Bram Stoker’s narrative is a dual creature, one social and one predatory” (100). This means that the character is perceived as a hidden monster, who apparently respects the social rules. He is so dangerous because his attack is unexpected. In addition, his educated and refined aspect is able to ‘trick’ young women. In a society where appearances meant everything Dracula’s character warns against the upper class ‘monsters’ in the Victorian society. The social vampire is a lonely figure in an old castle. There is no hint of his monstrosity in the beginning, and Dracula behaves as a polite old man, or as a gentleman. However, in Sommers’s Van Helsing, the ‘social’ side of the vampire is completely dismissed, and the filmmaker focuses on the predatory function.
(p.9) This way, Van Helsing may more easily be portrayed as a protector whose function is to destroy the horrible monster which threatens mankind, even as they do not know it. Completely ignorant to the threat, Westerners are also completely ignorant to Van Helsing’s true nature and intentions and hence, he is an outcast in a more visible way than in the novel. As one author explains, “the ambivalent hero is comparatively more frequent in fantasy fiction” (Prieto-Pablos 79), being able to protect the world, but also to destroy it. This means that, in fantasy fiction, the hero is able to walk between two worlds, that of humans, and that of monsters, but in order to do that, he has to be part of both worlds. The emphasis in these stories is less on the emotional consequences of the heroes’ acts, and more on the threat represented by the dark side.
(p.10) The motivation of the hero is also different in the present-day vampire culture, as Van Helsing now is in a personal quest of self-discovery. In Victorian age, the vampire hunters were noble men who fought to restore family values, and to protect helpless women. This needed to be a choice that the men made, based on their beliefs and in respect of the society’s moral code. “Not only must these early monster hunters be pure and good, they must also make a choice to be monster hunters”, Duda argues (11).The idea of free will is paramount, because this suggest a strong character whose actions cannot be motivated by anything else than his own conviction. In the film “Van Helsing”, the protagonist does not choose to become a vampire slayer. As the priest explains, he was found half-dead and with no memory on the steps of the church, and the order took him in. Not only is he destined to become a vampire slayer, rather than choosing this life, but he is also rebelling against his own destiny. Thus, when the priest argues that he is destined to do God’s work during his report on the killing of Dr. Jekyll, Van Helsing asks, “why can’t he do it himself”? This acid reply shows a rebellious attitude which is fitted with the post-modern hero, whose moral system is not based on religious values but perhaps, on higher humanistic and universal principles. He rejects the role of hero, and he does not necessarily try to fight on the side of goodness, because this is too righteous for the contemporary audience. The unwilling hero is much more credible than one who would selflessly risk his life for people who would like to see him dead.
Part 4: The Hero as an Alienated Individual
(p.11) From the publication of Stoker’s book, Van Helsing has always been imagined as an outsider, much like the vampire himself. As Duda shows, “ because he is an outsider, the monster hunter has the necessary understanding to fight the vampire, distancing himself from the culture around him to notice the inconsistencies that invariably show him the vampire’s true colors” (13). In other words, a person who is too fully engrained in the society has no capacity to fight the monster, because he is limited by the society’s laws, habits, and fears. In order to fight the monster, and even to notice the monster, one has to transgress the society’s norms. However, in present-day Western culture, the delimitation between monster and monster hunter is even weaker. While he is still a protector, the vampire slayer is also a dangerous individual, who would stop at nothing, including sacrificing the lives of the innocent, in order to bring the monster down. Today, the monster hunter’s hands are as stained with blood as the monsters’ itself. McClelland explains in this respect that, “the vampire slayer is cut from the same cloth, is the product of the same social or religious violations, as the vampire” (108). To be as powerful as the vampire, the vampire slayer must also be more than human, or less. This duality in the character of the vampire hunter is explored in contemporary cinema. For example, “Blade” is also a hero who lives at a boundary between good and evil, being a vampire who fights against vampires, while also feeling the blood thirst. He is extremely terrifying, because otherwise, he could not strike fear in the hearts of the monsters.
(p.12) Similarly, Van Helsing is connected to Dracula in mysterious ways, being thus capable of killing monsters because he is more part of the world of Gothic horror, than of the world where average people live. Van Helsing’s final transformation into a werewolf reflects the idea that this hero is not necessarily virtuous and unstained. As in other contemporary works where werewolves and vampires share the same space, like the “Twilight Saga”, or “Underworld”, there is a strong connection between the two species, albeit not a positive one. While in “Twilight”, there is an ancient hatred between the two species, in “Van Helsing”, it is revealed that the bite of a werewolf alone can destroy Dracula. However, Van Helsing is not entirely a monster either. It is suggested in the film that he might be in fact a lost “angel”, because Dracula calls him Gabriel.
(p.13) In order to create a strong and impactful Van Helsing, the filmmaker needed to go against the contemporary trends in the vampire culture. Author Tim Kane created a division of the vampire narrative in recent cinema and has come up with 3 cycles of films, namely the Malignant Cycle, which comprises films produced between 1931 and 1948, the Erotic Cycle, comprising films produced between 1957 and 1985, and the Sympathetic Cycle, comprising films from 1987 to present day (Kane 9). The films were divided as such because they share similar themes and approach the subject matter in similar ways. Following this division, Stephen Sommers’s Van Helsing would belong to the third cycle. According to the author, films of this cycle are united by the fact that, “the vampire sympathetic qualities, dominating the screen time in the film” (89). As such, the vampire is either fighting against the condition of vampirism, as in “Blade” or he is a victim of it. However, this film is not sympathetic to the vampire but on the contrary it constructs the vampire as the ultimate villain in order for Van Helsing to appear even more heroic, strong and embedding the present- day characteristics of the ideal male.
(p.14) Van Helsing however, cares little about the people themselves, and more about his own moral code, or set of principles, according to which, the forces of evil need to be destroyed. As compared to the Victorian culture, where the monster was always evil, and needed to be destroyed, here, Van Helsing makes a distinction between evil and monstrous. The Frankenstein’s monster is left alive by Van Helsing, who does not consider him a threat. He is merely a victim in the hands of Dracula, who “needs him as a kind of electrical conduit to energize his thousands of baby vampire-ettes” (Weinstock 73). Therefore, here Van Helsing protects not only females, but every potential victim that he encounters, including monsters. In this quest, he does not necessarily try to be a defender of the humankind, but rather, he is on a quest to redeem himself, thus being an unwilling ‘weapon of God’ from this point of view. Van Helsing’s role as a protector, and as a heroic figure is elevated to such an extent in this film, that he “also archangel Gabriel but can’t remember it” (Weinstock 71). Therefore, it is not enough that he is a legendary hero, but the filmmakers insist in connecting him to divinity in a more direct way, in order to create an even clearer relationship between the heroic and angelic Van Helsing, and the demonic Dracula.
(p.12) In conclusion, Sommers’s Van Helsing is a character which embodies the contemporary masculine ideal, being an action hero and an individualistic person, who stands above the morality of the society, and makes choices that would terrify most people. From this point of view, he is part of a larger vampire culture which finds itself in a very different place than it was during the Victorian times. The protagonist is part of a larger human community which includes the entire mankind, whose very existence is threatened by Dracula. The religious aspect of the vampire culture is maintained, and even explored at large, in order to explain Dracula’s unsympathetic representation, which contradicts the contemporary trend. Thus, as shown above, Dracula is here unusually demonic, and has a powerful predatory instinct, which is justified by his animalist aspect, which is revealed once the human mask is revealed. While in traditional vampire culture, humanity is one aspect of the vampire, who also acts as a social being, in this film, humanity is merely a mask that Dracula wears, for he has very little in common with human beings.
Works Cited
Caroll, Noel. Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings. Film Quarterly 34.3(1981):16-25.
Duda, Heather. The Monster Hunter in Modern Popular Culture. Jefferson, North the Carolina and England: McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers.2008. Print.
Kane, Tim . The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre. McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers. 2006.Print.
Knewitz, Simone. “God Hates Fangs? Mortality, Ideology, and the Domesticated Vampire. Collision of Realities: Establishing Research on the Fantastic in Europe. Eds. Lars Schmeink and Astrid Boger. Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012. Print.
McClelland, Bruce. Slayers and their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead. University of Michigan Press. 2006. Print.
Prieto-Pablos, Juan. “The Ambivalent Hero of Contemporary Fantasy and Science Fiction”. Extrapolation 32.1(1991): 64-80.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company. 1897. Print.
Van Helsing. Dir. and Screenwriter, Stephen Sommers. Perf. Hugh Jackman. Universal Pictures, 2004. Film.
Weinstock, Jeffrey. The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema. London & New York: Wallflower. 2012. Print.
