Marlowe

Some notes on how exactly “vampires=capitalism” for ppl who might not know bc it is a fascinating deep dive and I have written a paper on it for my anthro class:

Vampires historically are rich white dudes w seemingly infinite control and power (both literal power as in mind-control super strength etc and figurative power as in socioeconomic status money influence) who prey on young (poor) people by literally sucking the life out of them

If that doesn’t sound like capitalism idk what does

First up, in the musical they never explicitly say “divorced.” Lucy just left him, they’re just leaving Phoenix. In the movie, it’s explicitly stated that she divorced him... but not in the musical (at least from what I can remember, I need to re-read the script again). Small detail, but I think this has some interesting implications— that at least in the musical verse, things might’ve been so bad that Lucy couldn’t’ve even divorced him properly, and it was easier to just leave. This adds some context to why Sam still wants to say bye to him, threatens to go live with him again too— if Lucy and Lance aren’t divorced, Sam probably doesn’t realize how bad things actually are. There’s also something to be said about being a (divorced) single mom in the 80s and all the judgement that comes with it. I’m honestly surprised that both movie and musical Max didn’t make a bigger deal about Lucy being separated; I understand he was trying to manipulate and get w her, but that absolutely seems like something that would ruffle his conservative nuclear family feathers.

Michael got his stomach bruise/rib injury the night before they left for Santa Carla. Per the script, the hallucination/flashback Michael has when he’s turning, of when his dad beat the shit out of him, was their last night in Phoenix. I mentioned this a bit in my post dissecting the script but I have to bring it back up. Also, again, Lance says that Lucy is “leaving him.” Again, no mention of divorce, just that they’re leaving. But anyways back to point— this means that something else happened that was finally bad enough for Lucy to take the kids and leave, and it wasn’t Michael getting the shit kicked out of him. We don’t get any information on exactly what the inciting incident was, but my theory is that Lance threatened to hit Sam. We know Michael’s been taking hits for a while, and that Lucy wishes she’d done something for Michael sooner— unfortunately, I don’t see Michael getting hit, even a bit worse than normal, as reason enough for Lucy to leave. But, if Lance threatened Sam, I think Lucy would’ve reacted; she couldn’t save Michael, but she could save Sam. This would also explain some more of the tension between Michael and Lucy; Lucy left once Sam was in danger, but not when Michael was. BUT this isn’t blaming Lucy or Sam— relationships in an abusive household are complicated as hell, especially if not everyone in the house is being abused to the same degree or in the same ways. The only one at blame here is Lance.

Just consider: vamp!Emerson family, fully prepared to lay low and be The Most Normal Family You Will Ever See when they first move to Santa Carla, being worried how people will feel about their weird schedules, what would happen if people start going missing, just all of them being so worried about having to lay low. And then they get to Santa Carla… and everyone is batshit.Somehow, even without laying low and pretending to be human, the Emersons are the most normal people in the goddamn town and they’re fucking VAMPIRES. Imagine when they all debrief back at the house after the first night on the boardwalk; Michael: “so I got my ear pierced, and the guy who gave me the earring started licking my blood?? And him and his friends sang a song about eating me?? And no one else seemed to notice what was happening??” Sam: “oh dope I think two vampire hunters want me to work with them? They gave me this comic about vampires being everywhere, and I was standing right in front of a mirror with no reflection so… they have to know, right?” Lucy: “well, I met a nice man who gave me the night shift without any questions being asked!”

Sam and the Frog brothers. God. This is so… oooh it hurts so good. Here you have vampire hunters trying to hunt vampires and they recruit… a vampire. Like so many opportunities for crack, but also it’s so goddamn sad. Sam, forever 14, just wants friends who get him. And he stumbled upon these two brothers, who are so funny and they get him in a way no one else has before and finally finally he has friends— but they want him dead. They want his caring, protective older brother dead. They want his sweet, passionate mother dead. If they knew who and what he really was, he can’t guarantee that they wouldn’t stake him. And if that isn’t an absolute allegory for growing up queer in a conservative area, idk what is. So you have all of that heartbreaking angst, but it’s juxtaposed with the antics of Alan and Edgar setting up vampire traps that Sam just so happens to keep tripping. The Frog brothers either being completely oblivious or willfully ignorant keep writing off excuses for why Sam is tripping the vampire traps and it just gets funnier and funnier, more outrageous.

Michael and the Boys. Fuck. This one is painful. Michael, forever almost 18. Who just wants to grow and live, seeing these four boys and one girl absolutely throwing their lives away. Being stupid and reckless and absolute idiots. Who don’t want to grow up at all, and Michael is jealous that they get the choice to throw their lives away— he can’t afford to do that, he has to protect Lucy and Sam, and he can never grow up. Michael would love getting to be a “normal reckless” teenager with them, but I think as the Boys’ stunts got worse, he’d be frustrated with them and so confused. He understands why it’s fun for him to race to the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night, to hang off a bridge while there’s an oncoming train; he doesn’t have to worry about getting hurt, he can’t die. But the Boys are painfully human, so why are they just throwing their lives away like that? Just the concept of unwillingly turned Michael who desperately wanted to grow up be normal and get away from his family, now forever unable to, still seeking out the Lost Boys and trying to seek comfort in their antics but not being able to bc he knows what the world is like. But again, you have absolute crack with this— Michael trying to keep the Boys alive while they do the stupidest fucking stunts ever. Can you imagine Michael’s face when David gives him the bottle, and he assumes it’s just wine bc what else would humans be drinking, and then he realizes it’s fucking blood??? Also the pure comedy of Michael “confessing” to them that he’s a vampire, an undead creature of the night, and they all just go “sick yes that’s what our brand should be now great idea Michael.” Michael just banging his head on a wall as his stupid humans drink questionably sourced blood because it makes them “look cool.” He thinks Star is the only sane one, but no she’s just as batshit /pos as they are, just more subtle about it.

Lucy :((( Lucy I’m so sorry to do this to you. I think the humor in Lucy’s situation comes from Max’s insistence that she’s the “perfect sweet gentle mother who is a positive influence” meanwhile Lucy is like… eating a pedophile in the corner (bc I do think the vamp!Emersons would try their damndest not to hurt people, mostly drinking from actual blood bags, but also Lucy and Michael would on occasion drink from an absolute asshole of a person). Vamp!Lucy might be a little more tuned into what an asshole Max is, but he’d still give her a job and take her out on dates and be “nice,” so I do think she’d fall for him somewhat. 

I think that the Emersons have only been vampires for a few years, like somewhere in the 5-7 year range. I think for angst purposes, Lance (I think that’s the name we got via the book but correct me if I’m wrong) was turned, and then he’s an absolute asshole who, Max style, decided he wanted his entire family to be vampires too and he turned Lucy and the kids. This way, he could have control over them and make sure they stuck with him. Don’t worry tho, fucker gets staked! By who? Great question. Could be anyone— I could see Lucy, Michael, or Sam doing it, could’ve been a random hunter, could’ve been Grandpa who wanted to get his baby girl and her babies to safety, so he killed the asshole and then offered his house to them. I think the only really important bit here is that they’ve only been vampires for a few years; they’re still getting used to being dead, and the cognitive dissonance of “how old I am vs how old I should be” is very strong. If they’re 15-20 years post-turning, it’s a lot easier to seperate the ages, but I think 5-7 is in an absolute sweet spot. Sam should be 19, Michael should be in his mid-20s, but that’ll never happen. 5ish years also allowed for them to still be very connected with their humanity— it really hasn’t been that long since they were human, they still remember what it was like and they still desperately want it. 

Vamp!Michael catches the attention of human!David and Boys— they still challenge Michael to the bike race but they’re all human, just fucking crazy ones. There’s no vampiric reason for them to be like that, they just are. Star (and Laddie) still living with the boys because Max still wants his “perfect family.” Vamp!Michael going along with their bits until he realizes holy shit, these fucking dumbasses want to race at night and drive off the cliff?? And they live in a caved in, abandoned hotel/factory that has already collapsed once and is likely to collapse again?? Why are they drinking random bottles of who knows what… holy fuck where did they got bottles of blood from and why are they drinking it they’re humans??? What the fuck do you mean they’re playing chicken on a bridge with an oncoming train??? Michael confessing to the boys that he’s a vampire bc he really likes them but understands it might be a dealbreaker… but David, Dwayne, Paul and Marko are alt teenage edgelords so they’re like “haha dude same, sleep all day party all night never die!” and he just gives up bc these dumb fucks live in a goddamn cave and play train chicken and pick fights with surf nazis for shits and giggles, he’s not going to get through to them. 

The Frog Brothers giving the whole “vampires are real and we need to hunt the shit-suckers” spiel to a very confused vamp!Sam bc yeah no shit? He’s standing right in front of them with no reflection and fangs out? Vamp!Sam coming to the conclusion that obviously they know about him and want his help hunting badvampires, so he decides to help them out. Cue shenanigans of Sam accidentally tripping various “vampire booby traps” and Edgar and Alan searching for the vampire that could’ve set them off while Sam is just “mb guys didn’t know you’d put holy water on the windows.” 

Little scrappy Michael, not big or strong enough to actually throw a punch yet, but still so angry and so determined to protect his mom and baby brother, resorting to the easiest weapons he has; his teeth. Can you imagine, baby Michael trying to protect Lucy one day by biting his dad? He probably wouldn’t’ve done much damage and it honestly would’ve just pissed his dad off more, but if you’ve ever been bit by a little kid before, you know they are capable of drawing blood. 

Lucy probably would’ve sat him up by the sink after everything was all said and done, wiped his face of blood (both his own and his dad’s), cleaning him up and gently lecturing that “I love you, Michael, but that’s not how you protect people,” and “no baby, you can’t bite people, that’s not right.” Little Michael repeating those mantras whenever he gets angry, when Sam is born and starts teething, reminding himself it’s not okay to bite. He grows out of it obviously, standing ground with his fists once he’s big enough. He’d probably forget all about it, just a blip in his less-than-stellar childhood. 

At least, he forgets about it until they get to Santa Carla, and he drinks from that damned bottle, and his gums ache and his teethfangs beg to drop down, and the first blood he ever tasted wasn’t Max-David’s from that fucking bottle but instead from his dad years ago, ripped from an arm raised to hit with the blunt teeth of a seven year old defending his mother. Michael, curled up in his room as hunger pains rip through him, the scent of Lucy and Sam’s blood overwhelming his senses until all he can repeat to himself is his mom’s words from oh so long ago. 

First up, representing teenage issues and growing up through a supernatural lens isn’t new at all. In fact, teenagers and monsters (in terms of story telling) go pretty hand in hand. What I find interesting about TFS and TLB specifically is how they incorporate trauma and mental illness into the classic “teenager growing up” storyline. Like I said earlier, being a teenager fucking sucks, but being a teenager dealing with trauma or mental illness is 100x worse. TFS and TLB are both, in their own ways, coming of age stories that focus on how hard it is to “come of age” when your biggest worries aren’t the school play or finding a summer job, but instead battling becoming a vampire (depression-PTSD) or succumbing to an inter-dimensional cosmic horror (CPTSD/more cluster B). I also think the reason “supernatural as placeholder for trauma/mental illness” works so well is because adults’ reactions to both is the same. Ik from my personal experience, my mental illnesses were written off at first because it was “just hormones, all teenagers feel like that,” and no one believed me— just like how in TLB/TFS, none of the adults really believe there are vampires or monsters, it’s just teenagers being stupid teenagers.

If you take the supernatural aspect out of TLB and just look at it at face value, you get a story about a teen fighting depression and PTSD (Michael sleeping all day, not being interested in eating anything or going back to school, being unable to shower, being reckless with his own life, having violent flashbacks of his father, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd bc he’s desperate to feel anything) after getting away from his abusive dad, but he has a mom and brother who care about him deeply and do everything they can to understand what he’s going through and help him. 

Take the supernatural aspect out of TFS, and you have a story about a teen who experienced a life changing trauma at a young age that triggered serious mental health issues, but no one around him cared enough to address the trauma or help him handle his mental illnesses. Instead, he’s actively pushed to get worse by people supposed to help him, or outright ignored when he tries to tell people he’s getting worse. I’ve already made a more detailed post about TFS and mental health/neurodivergence so I won’t go super in depth here, but what I said in that post still stands.

I would also like to point out that one of the big key pieces of both shows is the concept of a support system, and that people being willing to fight for you (even if you won’t fight for yourself) makes a huge difference. Michael has people who love and care about him, and even once he gives up on himself and embraces the “monster,” he still has people in his corner fighting for him. Henry, on the other hand, doesn’t— he’s on his own, and the people around him actively make him worse. These are both very realistic relationship dynamics when it comes to mental illness. Yeah, some people have support systems full of people who want them to get better, who push you even if you’ve given up on yourself. Some people have the opposite, and are surrounded by people who either don’t care or actively try to make it worse. And I do think it’s worth noting here that both of these dynamics are present in both shows, which I think is super interesting. Michael obviously has Sam and Lucy, who are actively fighting for him to get better, who love and support him. But Michael also has David and the Boys, who encourage him to get worse, to fall deeper into it all. Meanwhile, Henry is pushed to get worse by his mom and Dr. Brenner, but he has Patty who tries to fight for him, at least for a little bit. It’s also worth noting that in both stories, the adults don’t believe what’s happening— Michael flat out tells Lucy she wouldn’t understand, and she doesn’t press any further, Dr. Brenner and Virginia don’t believe Henry’s powers or fears about the Shadow even with proof— and try to dismiss the issue. Meanwhile, it’s the kids who believe there’s something supernatural/wrong happening— Sam and the Frogs trying to figure out the whole vampire thing, Patty with Henry and Joyce/Hopper/Bob with the murders— and they’re the ones leading the charge to fix things.