BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR - a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between Takapuna, New Zealand, Essex, London, and therapy speak that actually worked. I know, I know - how are all these things connected? Well, we're gonna find out with Hazel Cills, an editor at NPR Music, and DJ Louie XIV, host of the "Pop Pantheon" podcast. Hazel, Louie, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
HAZEL CILLS, BYLINE: Thank you.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Thank you for having us, Brittany.
LUSE: Now, repeat after me - girl.
CILLS: Girl.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Girl.
LUSE: It really is...
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...Just so confusing...
DJ LOUIE XIV: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...Sometimes to be a girl, you know?
CILLS: It's so confusing.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Do I ever? My God.
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: Well, those are the lyrics from one of the buzziest songs right now by Charli XCX called "Girl, So Confusing."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRL, SO CONFUSING")
CHARLI XCX: (Singing) It's so confusing sometimes to be a girl, girl, girl, girl, girl.
LUSE: And it embodies a trend amongst the pop girl superstars - healing. Of course, to heal, you first have to hurt, so let's get into the pain here.
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LUSE: Charli XCX, a pop star from Essex, London, who straddles the line between mainstream and fringe, recently released her new album called "Brat" - so if you hear anyone saying it's a brat girl summer, this is why. Now, "Brat" is an album full of songs that pull from underground parties and rave music, but its lyrics also dip into the insecurities you can feel at those parties.
That's where "Girl, So Confusing" comes in. It's a song about those anxious feelings you get around another person who goes to the same events, hangs with the same people, but for some reason, the two of you can't really connect - like, you're supposed to be friends, but instead, it feels like you're enemies. Is there some kind of jealousy thing going on? Do you love them, or do you hate them? And there's just this perpetual tension you can't place that seems to linger any time you're around one another. It turns out Charli XCX was singing about her experience with another pop girl, Lorde, who I will say is from Takapuna, New Zealand, simply because I just love saying Takapuna.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: Then, plot twist, Lorde hopped on a remix of the song, and the two of them seemed to work out this tension, and the internet quite literally lost its mind. Why was everyone freaking out that this happened?
CILLS: Yeah. I mean, I think people were freaking out to begin with because it's sort of been a part of Charli XCX's lore that people have confused her with Lorde. There's kind of this famous interview that she did where the interviewer actually confuses Charli XCX for Lorde, and Charli XCX plays along and kind of pretends that she wrote the song "Royals."
LUSE: "Royals" is, of course, Lorde's, like, biggest song, not Charli's.
CILLS: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROYALS")
LORDE: (Singing) And we'll never be royals.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I have to say that I love your music. One of my favorite songs that you have is "Royals." Where did you get the inspiration for that?
LUSE: (Laughter).
CILLS: And so it's just kind of been this, like, meme joke, I think, among Charli XCX fans that there's this tension there, but I didn't realize that there was actual, real-life tension between them, and so to hear them both on this track sort of work out these very real, vulnerable feelings that I think, for the most part, had kind of been secret was just, like, incredibly fascinating to hear - and it's also a bop.
DJ LOUIE XIV: It's a bop.
LUSE: It's definitely a bop.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE GIRL, SO CONFUSING VERSION WITH LORDE")
CHARLI XCX: (Singing) It's so confusing sometimes to be a girl.
DJ LOUIE XIV: I think everything Hazel said is incredibly accurate, and I think that the broader context that feels important - beyond just getting exposed to this supposed feud and then having the feud hashed out in musical form - is fans of pop music love to see two of their favorites come together...
LUSE: So true.
DJ LOUIE XIV: ...In song form, and that has been a storied and long tradition that goes back to Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer, and Mariah Carey and Whitney.
LUSE: (Laughter) Yes. I was just going to say, enough is enough.
(LAUGHTER)
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yes, and Gaga and Ariana.
LUSE: Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: And it's become a tradition, and I think when two pop girls that are in adjacent spaces to each other come together in musical form, whether to hash out a feud or to celebrate their empowerment or to just slay, diva, the internet and music fans - and pop fans in particular - really do love that.
LUSE: I'm not even a big Lorde person, but I was just like (laughter) - I was like, she got on the remix - they're going to work it out.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: You know, what I find most special about this is that at a time when therapy speak is all over our pop music and our pop culture - like, everyone seems to be using terms like holding space, setting boundaries, gaslighting, self-care, etc., etc. - it feels remarkable to see two artists not just talking about these things, but actually working it out publicly in the art. What lyric from the remix strikes you as most emblematic of this public airing-out or healing?
DJ LOUIE XIV: I think the lyric that mirrors one another in each of their verses is the one that stuck out to me. There's a lyric in which Charli says, you always say, let's go out, so we go eat at a restaurant. Sometimes, I feel a bit awkward, 'cause we don't have much in common.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE GIRL, SO CONFUSING VERSION WITH LORDE")
CHARLI XCX: (Singing) You always say, let's go out, so we go eat at a restaurant. Sometimes, it feels a bit awkward, 'cause we don't have much in common.
DJ LOUIE XIV: And Lorde mirrors her back in the remix and says, you always say, let's go out, but I'd cancel last minute. I was so lost in my head, and scared to be in your pictures.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE GIRL, SO CONFUSING VERSION WITH LORDE")
LORDE: (Singing) You'd always say, let's go out, but then I'd cancel last minute. I was so lost in my head, and scared to be in your pictures.
DJ LOUIE XIV: And I think what makes those lyrics stand out - therapy speak has become a bit of, like, a de rigueur fallback language for pop stars lately, but often, it's shared in this sort of, like, coddling, healing blanket of nurturing that we hear on songs by Ariana Grande or Kacey Musgraves, etc., etc., down the line.
LUSE: (Laughter) Like, you just named two of my girls, right?
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: Yeah. You're absolutely right.
DJ LOUIE XIV: But I think what makes "Brat" as an album really fascinating, in terms of this context of therapy speak, is that it does so in a much messier way that allows for Charli, throughout the record, to explore how she feels jealous, how she feels angry, how she feels frustrated about her position with other pop stars. It actually shows an uglier version of therapy speak beyond just kind of going like, you know, I have learned to love myself and wrap myself in the warm blanket of, sort of, like, self-affirmation.
And in those two lyrics, what you see is two flawed and messy and smart and talented women reflecting on the same exact moment and how they both saw it differently through the lens of their own pain, the lens of their own comparativitis (ph) to one another, but that they're exposing to one another here as a means of actual healing. Good pop music, I feel like, should be bop and also maybe give you something to chew on. That's when you've really hit something good, I think.
LUSE: I'm inclined to agree. I'm inclined to agree. Now, I didn't know Charli and Lorde were beefing at all until they released this song to squash it. What I would expect is for artists to ride out the wave of a feud, like with Drake and Kendrick, as we've just seen, or Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, or even Brandy and Monica, who - for those who missed it - may have just ended their decades-long feud on a song.
But what's interesting about Charli and Lorde is that the feud is massive because it's being revealed as it's being put to bed. It's about coming together, rather than being at odds. And they're both still getting all the benefits of a feud because they're both - you know, I mean, Charli especially is more popular than ever. How does this compare to the way we've seen other women in the industry pitted against one another and how they've been forced to address it in the past?
DJ LOUIE XIV: You know, in many ways, we're stuck in a lot of retrograde views on women, and we still pit women against each other in press and all of these things. But I think we have made some strides. And I think there is a desire amongst the body politic of pop consumers to see female pop stars loving on each other, coming together. Charli and Lorde seized that opportunity in this moment to sort of say, like, we're not going to, like, actually capitalize on the beef by promoting the beef as, like, an ongoing feud, the way Kendrick and Drake did. We're going to actually, like, squash the beef and have a kumbaya moment in a messy and real way. But that - like, I think we can see by the reaction to this, it's actually, like, a powerful marketing tool.
I feel like the Brandy and Monica example is actually incredibly and poetically instructive here, considering that they, of course, appeared together, as we were gesturing at, on a remix of Ariana's song "The Boy Is Mine."
LUSE: And the remix came out the same day as Charli and Lorde's remix, too. It's a big day.
DJ LOUIE XIV: And I think if you look at Brandy and Monica in the late '90s, this was more of a common way that beefs were sort of rendered in pop culture, which was, like, to take the beef and maximize the beef on record. And, you know...
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: ...In "The Boy Is Mine," the beef that was supposedly simmering behind the scenes was put into the song, and they basically feud through the whole song and never resolve in the song.
LUSE: No.
DJ LOUIE XIV: That song kind of plays on a lot of, like, woman vs. woman, there-can-only-be-one...
CILLS: Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: ...Stereotypes. That was also, like, I think, a reality for Brandy and Monica, it felt like, in that time.
CILLS: Yeah. I think in the past, for artists like Brandy and Monica - I'm thinking about, like, Britney and Christina - like...
LUSE: Oh, my gosh.
CILLS: ...The beef became sort of this marketing ploy. And it sort of became this, like, choose your fighter, like, situation. And, like, I know, as a kid, like, I was a Britney girl. Like - and in retrospect, I'm like, I didn't have anything against Christina. But I feel like...
(LAUGHTER)
CILLS: ...There were these subliminal messages that were like, you have to pick one. Like, you have to pick your girl.
LUSE: It's true.
CILLS: And I do think, like, Louie, I totally hear you on, you know, now there is sort of more of a interest in seeing our pop girls unite and seeing our pop girls love on each other. But I do think the nature of pop fandom right now, it still is in that mindset of, like, you have to pick your person. And, like...
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yeah.
LUSE: That's why stans are fighting on Twitter all day long...
DJ LOUIE XIV: All the time, yeah.
CILLS: Yeah.
LUSE: ...Still (laughter).
CILLS: Yeah. And so - and I - and, yeah, I think in the past, it just felt like these pop stars were sports teams, and you had to pick one.
LUSE: (Laughter).
CILLS: And that was it.
LUSE: And, I mean, even in the lyrics of the remix, like, to really hit the nail on the head, like, Lorde kind of seems to wink at the industry machinations that feed these kinds of feuds when she concludes her verse by saying, it's you and me on the coin the industry loves to spend.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Great lyric.
LUSE: And when we put this to bed, the internet will go crazy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE GIRL, SO CONFUSING VERSION WITH LORDE")
LORDE: (Singing) It's you and me on the coin the industry loves to spend, and when we put this to bed, the internet will go crazy. I'm glad I know how you feel 'cause I ride for you, Charli. Girl...
LUSE: I mean, boy, was she right (laughter).
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yes, she was.
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: You know, the internet did go crazy...
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yes.
LUSE: ...You know, for the girls getting their coin...
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yes.
LUSE: ...And working it out on the remix.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Yes.
CILLS: Totally.
LUSE: Well, Hazel, Louie, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much.
CILLS: Thank you.
DJ LOUIE XIV: It was my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. My pleasure. And as a thank you to you, I'd like to teach you something by playing a game with you both. Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?
CILLS: Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Of course.
LUSE: Wonderful. We'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: Stick around.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: All right. All right. We're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know?
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LUSE: Here's how it works. I'm going to share some stories that have been making headlines this week. And as I give you some background on those stories, I'll also ask you trivia related to them. But don't worry. It's all multiple choice. And the first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. The person with the most points wins, and their prize is bragging rights. Are y'all ready?
CILLS: Yes.
DJ LOUIE XIV: I love bragging rights.
LUSE: All right. All right. So last year, Taylor Swift started dating Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. The saga was extremely publicized and made a lot of people a lot of money - not me, even though we did a whole episode about it last fall.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: And now the football team is taking this inspiration to the movies. This week, the Chiefs announced they're partnering with Hallmark to produce a movie called what?
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LUSE: Is it A, "Field Goals: A Kansas City Love Story"; B, "Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story"; or C, "Love In The End Zone: The Chiefs Version"?
CILLS: A.
DJ LOUIE XIV: I honestly have no idea, but I'm going to go with D because that would be so funny if they were making fun of the "Taylor's Version" (laughter) in the title of the actual thing.
LUSE: (Laughter) OK. Wait. You went with C?
DJ LOUIE XIV: Oh, C. Sorry, C (laughter).
LUSE: Well, the answer is actually B...
(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)
DJ LOUIE XIV: Damn.
LUSE: ..."Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story."
CILLS: We're not Swifties (laughter).
DJ LOUIE XIV: Listen. Sports - you really came to the wrong place.
LUSE: (Laughter) You both picked the wrong one. I'm sorry. Thankfully, the plot seems to have very little to do with Taylor and Travis. Instead, it's about a Kansas City Chiefs football fan who competes in a fan of the year contest falling in love with the marketing officer who is putting on the contest. Then there's something about a good luck hat gone missing and some Christmas thrown in there, also stuff about fate and destiny, which I guess is actually kind of starting to sound like a Taylor Swift song.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Wow.
LUSE: I don't know (laughter).
CILLS: Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Can't wait to tune in.
LUSE: Can't wait to tune in. OK, next question. Next question. Taylor Swift and other A-list veterans have tried to dominate the pop landscape this year, and by some measures, they have. But despite the overcrowded field of major pop releases, some new baby pop girls have been bubbling to the top. This week, Sabrina Carpenter scored her first No. 1 hit with the song "Please Please Please." But before a girl gets a No. 1 hit, she has to start somewhere. Where was Sabrina Carpenter first discovered?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: A, a beauty competition in an Orlando shopping mall; B, The Next Miley Cyrus singing competition; or C - let's not be silly - it's TikTok, obviously.
CILLS: B.
DJ LOUIE XIV: I was going to say A. Is that true, Hazel?
CILLS: 'Cause she's a Disney girl, and she's from Pennsylvania.
LUSE: And you know what? The answer is, again, B. Hazel, you are absolutely right...
(SOUNDBITE OF FANFARE)
DJ LOUIE XIV: Oh, my God, Hazel.
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...A singing competition called The Next Miley Cyrus.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Wow.
LUSE: An 11-year-old Sabrina came in third place. But third place was enough to land her a role on "Law & Order: SVU." And it is seriously wild how many young pop stars - young stars in general - have that line on their resume.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Wow. The more you know.
CILLS: "SVU" is our pop factory - pop girl factory.
LUSE: I mean, literally, "SVU" is like "Star Search" at this point.
CILLS: (Laughter) Yeah.
LUSE: I have seen most of the episodes, and you'd be surprised how many people you see get their start playing multiple different roles dotted throughout the years on "SVU."
DJ LOUIE XIV: The length of Sabrina Carpenter's pre-"Espresso" career continues to boggle the mind.
LUSE: I know.
DJ LOUIE XIV: She has been out here (laughter).
LUSE: You know, I have to just say, I love a hard worker.
DJ LOUIE XIV: Oh, man.
LUSE: And I'm just like - I don't know - I feel like...
DJ LOUIE XIV: She has been on her grind.
CILLS: Yeah.
DJ LOUIE XIV: This album is her sixth album.
LUSE: She's going to lap Rihanna soon, OK?
DJ LOUIE XIV: (Laughter).
LUSE: All right. To recap the score, Hazel, you're at 1 point. Louie, you're at 0 points. But without further ado, the final question. This week, a pop star proved just how relatable she was when she flew on a commercial flight from Naples to Paris. Which pop star was it?
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LUSE: Was it A, Gwen Stefani; B, Katy Perry; or C, Jennifer Lopez?
DJ LOUIE XIV: That would be C, Jennifer Lopez.
CILLS: You seem so confident.
LUSE: The answer is C...
(SOUNDBITE OF FANFARE)
CILLS: (Laughter).
LUSE: ...(Laughter) Jennifer Lopez.
CILLS: I didn't even try. Louie was like, I know, immediately as you said the question.
LUSE: Jennifer Lopez was spotted by TMZ, who had a viral headline calling her...
CILLS: Uh-oh.
LUSE: ...Jenny from the cabin and implied the commercial flight had something to do with her marriage woes with Ben Affleck.
DJ LOUIE XIV: No.
LUSE: However, I'll say it's not uncommon for celebrities to fly commercial. To which I ask both of you, which celebrity would you most want to sit next to on a flight, and what would you say to them?
CILLS: Rihanna, and I would say, please make music.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a good one, Hazel. I like that. You're taking your one shot.
CILLS: She'd be like, bye (laughter).
LUSE: Bye.
DJ LOUIE XIV: I guess it would have to be Sabrina Carpenter, and I would have to know which Miley Cyrus song she won the competition singing.
LUSE: (Laughter) Well, that's it for But Did You Know for this week, and we are left with a tie. Which means that we're going to need both of you to come back very soon for a rematch. The stakes are only getting higher for those bragging rates.
CILLS: Are we starting a feud right now, Louie?
DJ LOUIE XIV: Let's work it out on the remix, Hazel.
(LAUGHTER)
CILLS: Let's get our coin.
LUSE: Get that public media coin. Get that podcast coin.
DJ LOUIE XIV: We're two sides of the coin that NPR loves to spend.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Well, Hazel, Louie, thank you so much for joining me today.
CILLS: Thank you for having me.
DJ LOUIE XIV: It was my pleasure. Thanks for having us.
LUSE: That was NPR Music's Hazel Cills, and DJ Louie XIV, host of the "Pop Pantheon" podcast. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I get back, I'm getting into vampires and why the fanged foes have long been stand-ins for cultural anxieties like immigration and gender performance.
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LUSE: Stick around.
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LUSE: So, in case y'all haven't heard, one of the best shows on TV right now is AMC's "Interview With The Vampire." I know. I know. It's not spooky season, but it is Pride. And this show is very queer and very sexy, and to my surprise and delight, also very Black. So in honor of Season 2 of the show, we're revisiting my conversation with the actor Jacob Anderson, who plays Louis on the show. But first, I had some questions about why vampires are so prominent in our culture.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH'S SONG, "TOCCATA IN D MINOR")
KENDRA R PARKER: Every age has the vampire it needs.
LUSE: That's Kendra R. Parker.
That is literally what I have been saying. I'm, like, I feel like every era gets the vampire it deserves. Please say more about this actual theory as opposed to my armchair theory.
PARKER: I think it depends on who's in power, right?
LUSE: Kendra teaches African American literature at Georgia Southern University. And her specialty is, of course, vampires - Black vampires, in particular.
PARKER: The vampire has long represented something that the people in the dominant culture fear. And I don't think it's just a vampire. I think it's a monster in general.
LUSE: Now, before I saw "Interview With The Vampire," I have to admit I was kind of a vampire hater because I thought about them as pale and dead and kind of creepy. And Kendra, she says I wasn't wrong to feel that way, but there is so much more to them than that stereotype. And warning, there is frank talk about sex and sexuality in this conversation.
PARKER: When we think about our vampires in the 21st century, like, we think about them as sparkly and seductive and misunderstood and kind of loved, but that's not always been the case. When Dracula appeared in the 19th century, there's all of this fear. The English were preoccupied with borders, boundaries, and nationalism. Between, like, 1881 and 1900, there was an increase in the number of non-English Jewish people. The English were so scared of them, right? There was this sort of xenophobia, this fear of Jewish people, this sort of threat of external colonization. And so these fears about the threatening outsider who's going to come in to disturb the national pure body...
LUSE: Right.
PARKER: ...Finds its way into Bram Stoker's "Dracula." But there is also this sort of fear of Black Africans abroad. And if we come to the United States, in 1898, we have newspaper images popping up out of North Carolina that depict Black men as vampires.
LUSE: What?
PARKER: Yes. Yes.
LUSE: What?
PARKER: Because there was this whole fear of Black men being in politics, and so that if you've got Black political power, then they're going to take over and destroy white women and all of that. And so you've got all of this propaganda. And there are two images in particular. It's called "The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina."
LUSE: Whoa.
PARKER: It appears in 1898, and it's a Black male vampire coming out of a ballot box. There's another image that same time period, North Carolina, where you've got vampires coming out of the grave to vote. And they're Black. And so, of course, there's this fear that if you let these monsters vote, they will take over and destroy our way of life.
LUSE: That's interesting. I - one of our producers just sent me "The Vampire That Hovers Over North Carolina," that image.
PARKER: Yeah.
LUSE: I mean, I can - it's so shocking to look at. Calling what I'm seeing in the image a vampire is, like, that's underselling it. This is, like, exaggerated depiction of a Black man's head with pointy teeth, frightening expression, super long arms, huge hands with really pointy nails at the end.
PARKER: Like, claws reaching out, even...
LUSE: Yeah.
PARKER: ...A little hairy. It's...
LUSE: To try to - yeah, to try to grab - yeah, looks like white women. Yeah, I think it's white women.
PARKER: It looks like the white women running in their long dresses.
LUSE: Exactly. And there's two big bat wings.
PARKER: And then there's a little tail you can kind of see.
LUSE: And there's a tail. And on the bat wings, one wing says Negro, the other one says rule. Like, that's heavy.
PARKER: Because there was this fear of Negro domination. And that tail part is important because, you know, the tail is sort of a phallic symbol, the penis, right?
LUSE: Right, right.
PARKER: Just as the fangs are. And that was the other fear about vampires, of course, when we think about Dracula. When you have Dracula wanting to bite another man, that, you know, represents so-called deviant sexuality. Yeah.
LUSE: People can't see my hand is on my forehead because you've already blown my mind so much, like - but it really helps to put a face to the idea of how brutish those depictions of vampire as other really were. Especially now, like, vampires have a much different image, like "Twilight," "True Blood," the new "Interview With The Vampire," the old "Interview With The Vampire," Anne Rice books. But you mentioned vampires are thought of as more sympathetic now. How did we get to this point?
PARKER: Yeah, it's interesting. If think if you've ever read "Dracula," you know, we don't ever get anything from Dracula's perspective. It's all what other people say about him. And so I think part of it is that sort of underdog narrative, well, let's hear from the other. The one that I think about the most is "Blacula," which came out in 1972...
LUSE: Right.
PARKER: ...Where you sort of see Prince Mamuwalde going to Count Dracula's castle, trying to advocate for the end of the slave trade. And he's cursed with being a vampire, and so he's enslaved by this white vampire. And then, you know, comes forward to the present, and he's trying to find his love again. And so he functions as a tragic hero, right? We sympathize with him. We get to see what their life was like as a human, and then they're turned into monsters by forces that were beyond their control. We actually get to think about what it means to think about the monster as a human first before they became a monster. And so I think that begins to account for the shift because these monsters came from somewhere, right? We are responsible for creating the monster.
LUSE: Monsters are made. They're not just born.
PARKER: Yep, monsters are made.
LUSE: I want to go back to what you said earlier. It seems like vampires have always been queer in the sense of being overt. But what makes vampires queer in the sense of sexuality?
PARKER: So, I mean, if you think about what a vampire does, they bite your neck. The vampire teeth are often very pointy, and they are phallic symbols. So, of course, it's a sexual exchange when a male vampire bites a female victim. The same thing applies when Dracula wants to bite a male.
LUSE: Interesting.
PARKER: Because if you think about it, the vampire doesn't really care who they get their blood from.
LUSE: That's a very good point. They need to feed.
PARKER: You know, they need to feed. But also, there's always this sort of orgasmic feeling that's supposed to happen when you get bitten by a vampire because that's how you shift from being this whole monstrous thing that's feared to something that's desirable if there's pleasure associated with the bite.
LUSE: In order for a vampire to bite you, you have to want to get that close to them.
PARKER: Well, and also, I think it's - so a vampire can take what they want from you, but if they want to be seen as human, then yes, they have to be desirable. So Dracula is going to take whatever he wants. But Edward Cullen - right? - Edward Cullen is a seducer, everything draws you in. And so if you're a monster, but you don't want to be seen as a monster, you're going to try to make everything as pleasurable as possible, No. 1, but also you're going to try to gain someone's trust - right? - so that they want to give themselves freely to you.
LUSE: Yeah. I wonder what layers are added to vampire stories when, like, if a vampire is explicitly queer, or if a vampire is a monster of color or possibly both, like, with the new "Interview With The Vampire" series, which is very gay and no longer subtext.
PARKER: I love the first sex scene. I was like, oh, wow, this is so - I was like, this is nice. I want to see the rest of this.
LUSE: Yeah (laughter).
PARKER: It was really very sensual. I was like, oh, this is dope. But Louis, in that one, you know, he's closeted, right? And being a vamp or being next to a vampire allows him to sort of express himself in a way that he wouldn't necessarily have done - right? - because it allows you a sort of freedom to do what you necessarily wouldn't do. And sometimes, the things that you want to do are things that you fear.
LUSE: It's interesting. It's like if you're already a monster, at that point, what do you have to lose? Why not just be yourself? Why not just express yourself?
PARKER: Monica Jackson has this short story called "The Ultimate Diet." And Keeshia, the main character, she constantly talks about how, at work, she's disrespected because she's fat, Black and a woman. And she eventually decides to become a vampire.
LUSE: Wow.
PARKER: And, of course, she finds out that it's not all that cracked up to be. But there's this idea that if she is already somebody who's reviled, why not become a monster? You say I'm a monster? Well, I'm going to live into this monstrosity and get everything I want. And you were asking, when you've got these multiple oppressions that are sort of grafted onto your body, what happens? And that's one example in "The Ultimate Diet" because do we blame Keeshia...
LUSE: Right.
PARKER: ...Or do we have sympathy for her?
LUSE: Well, it's like - it's the monster we made. It seems almost impossible to talk about vampires without talking about sexuality. Like, they're so heavily eroticized. I mean, the bite on the neck. I mean, it's so rich. What's sexy about vampires?
PARKER: I mean, they're wealthy, generally.
LUSE: I noticed that. They're rich. They have long nails. What's going on?
PARKER: I had a student say, well, if they're living that long, they should have money. I was like (laughter) OK.
LUSE: (Laughter).
PARKER: I guess that is one way to put it. They're young - right? - for the most part. Typically, you know, when you see vampires, you see them as, you know, well-muscled, svelt figures.
LUSE: Yeah.
PARKER: They're considered this epitome of what most people, I guess, would consider attractive. They've got charisma. And they can typically give you pleasure beyond this world.
LUSE: It's interesting because vampires are meant to represent the other. And yet, to your point, you're absolutely right. Most often, they represent...
PARKER: The dominant.
LUSE: ...A very - yeah, like, sort of, like, a very conventional representation of, like, whatever the dominant culture finds attractive. And they're conceived primarily as white, very pale. At least in the Western canon, Western media and literature. You teach a class on Black vampires.
PARKER: I do.
LUSE: What makes vampire stories good vehicles for stories about race?
PARKER: Oh, gosh. Well, one, you get to add history, right? Vampires have to have some sort of history. You know, we rarely think of a vampire who's born in the 21st century, right? And so there's, you know, you've got histories that you can explore. But it's also something that's intriguing, and it makes you think, right? It helps you think about things that you may not think about otherwise, including race, including gender, including fatphobia, sexuality. So I think that's why.
LUSE: You know, our cultural obsession with vampires goes back centuries, but it seems like there is, like, a popular iteration on vampire stories every decade. Maybe even less, honestly, but I feel like vampires are always popular. What keeps them relevant to us?
PARKER: It really does depend on who's constructing the vampire and what stories are being told, right? Are things going well? All right, then we need the Cullens to come and show us why we should, you know, buy into this idea of American exceptionalism.
LUSE: And, like, assimilate.
PARKER: This is what we need. Are things going bad? Let's come up with all these vampires who are, you know, the undead who are going to take over the world, and they're all Black, and let's kill them all.
LUSE: What story is that?
PARKER: Oh, I mean, the Reconstruction period - 1898.
LUSE: Oh, you're talking about back then. I thought you were talking about now. And I was like...
PARKER: Oh, no.
LUSE: ...Is this coming out?
PARKER: Oh, God, no.
LUSE: But yeah, no, I mean, that absolutely sounds like the late 1800s. Absolutely.
PARKER: Yeah. I think - so I don't know what sort of vampire would come out in the next few years. I mean, I think about "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," which - very interesting, you know, portraying slave owners as bloodthirsty vampires who needed Black bodies for capital. But you see in, like, in one instance, you've got the vampire being the oppressor. And then in another instance, the vampire is the oppressed who becomes a threat.
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LUSE: That was Kendra R. Parker. She teaches African American literature at Georgia Southern University. And her book is called "She Bites Back: Black Female Vampires In African American Women's Novels." OK, so if you're still not convinced that vampires are for you, our next guest is the star of a show that might change your mind. I mean, I know it'll change your mind. I revisit my conversation with Jacob Anderson of AMC's "Interview With The Vampire," which is now airing Season 2.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Strolling by the riverside looking for a neck to bite.
LUSE: A lot of you may already be familiar with the 1994 movie "Interview With The Vampire."
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LUSE: It's got Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, bad wigs, good acrylics and a great school-aged Kirsten Dunst giving one of the best performances of the '90s. It was fun. Based on Anne Rice's books, the story has a lot of potential. And yet, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt never kiss. They teased it. I mean, they really teased it. But when it didn't happen, the whole movie felt a little defanged, if you will. Also, Brad Pitt's character, Louis, is supposed to be Creole - a mess. Then I watched the new television series from AMC.
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JACOB ANDERSON: (As Louis de Pointe du Lac) Vampires are killers - apex predators whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment.
LUSE: And it was everything I wanted in the movie, and then some.
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LUSE: The series is set in the early 1900s, where Louis de Pointe du Lac has to navigate being a Black man, being a vampire and, this time, being in an explicitly romantic relationship with his creator, Lestat. At its core, this version of "Interview With The Vampire" uses the monster genre to more deeply explore what it means to be human. And the man tasked with this undertaking is Jacob Anderson. Jacob plays Louis on the AMC show, and we talked all about the shaky ethics of vampirism, how he approached Louis' Louisiana accent and the trauma of immortality. And as I mentioned earlier, before this show, I was not even into vampires like that. And funnily enough, Jacob said the same.
ANDERSON: Vampires just never really struck a chord with me. And then it wasn't until I read "Interview With The Vampire" that I kind of realized that vampires were exactly the monster that I (laughter) was always looking for. And then kind of - I feel like they sort of exist in this space of, like, reliving their human life and sitting in trauma or, like, this sort of crisis of human existence. I know that sounds very cynical. But I think, like, that's the darkest way to look at it. But then there's a real honesty to them. They exist in the shadows, but they are living their sort of truest existence in the shadows. And, yeah, I really love vampires now. I really get it.
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LUSE: What do you think it is that vampires either tell us about our desires or represent about our desires?
ANDERSON: I think it's something about them being in the shadows and only being able to come out at night that ties into, like, intrusive thoughts or, like, the things that we think or feel that we would never want anybody else to know that we think or feel.
LUSE: Like our shadow selves.
ANDERSON: Yeah, our shadow selves, exactly. They are also arguably the most human monster myth that's been created. They are more or less just immortal human beings. It's just that they can only survive by taking the life out of other human beings. I think that there's a human thing about desire that's like, well, what if my desire is harmful to somebody else, or, like, what if my desire would make me a pariah to others?
LUSE: Yeah.
ANDERSON: That feels like it ties into vampirism. I'm not sure. I haven't got, like, a fully formed thought about it.
LUSE: (Laughter) I wasn't even thinking about it from that way - thinking about, like, the fact that vampires really - they're relying on humans to survive. Why do you think audiences continue to be so fascinated by vampires?
ANDERSON: It's a good question. I think there is something very alluring about immortality, but also very frightening about it. And that's often the line that people sit on when they go to horror - or comedy, I guess it's like - something that's dangerous but also enticing. And vampires definitely fit that mold.
LUSE: With immortality, it's like, I can live forever. But then the flip side of that is then you're stuck with your own thoughts (laughter)...
ANDERSON: Yeah.
LUSE: ...For the rest of time.
ANDERSON: Yeah. I remember having - maybe this is revealing too much, but I remember having this thought that's kind of - like, it haunts me. Like, what if I just kept living? Like, what if this is just forever? - and finding that really terrifying as a concept because, also, then you have to live with all of the people you disappoint, the memory of all of the people you disappointed, or all the times you disappointed yourself. Like, you have to just sit in that.
LUSE: Yeah.
ANDERSON: But then that's also being an adult, right? Like, it's (laughter) - being an adult, you are an immortal version of your childhood self, like, looking back and going, whoa, wait a second. I have to just live with all of...
LUSE: Yeah.
ANDERSON: ...That and find a way to, like, feel OK about it. And it's - I think sometimes I'm definitely in danger of talking about these things like it's everybody's experience, and it's not. But certainly, for me - like, I am constantly thinking about these things.
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LUSE: That was a fantastic answer. Jacob, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was really great.
ANDERSON: Thank you for having me, Brittany. Thank you. Your questions were amazing. I really enjoyed this.
LUSE: Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks again to Jacob Anderson, who we spoke to back when Season 1 of "Interview With The Vampire" came out. Season 2 is available now on AMC.
This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.
LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: This episode was edited by...
JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.
LUSE: Engineering support came from...
JOBY TANSECO, BYLINE: Joby Tanseco.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
VERALYN WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Veralyn Williams.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right, that's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
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