White Wolf has had a huge, huge, huge impact on pop culture. I get lots of letters from people asking me "do you have any Disciplines?" or "What Clan are you?" However, it is important to realize that mainstream culture has not really been strongly affected. When most people think of Vampire: The Masquerade, they don't think of White Wolf Studios. They think of the Florida vampire murders. Mention "role playing games" in a general sort of way, and they think "geeks!" or "Dungeons and Dragons? I thought that was something weird kids did in middle school," or even, "Did you hear about the people who got sucked into their game and couldn't get out? This guy killed himself because the game went wrong. D&D is really scary," or, "That's Satanic, you know..."
Therefore, it would be best to point out that White Wolf's biggest impact has been on
1) Role playing gamers, and the gaming industry (because the game emphasizes live action and minimal dice rolls, and has changed how role playing games are played; also popularized them to an extent and made them more friendly to people other than fifteen year old maths-oriented boys)
2) Vampire fans who read literature that has been influenced by White Wolf Studios, such as the Sonja Blue stuff (Mad Bib, I've never been good with dates, and my reading of vampire fiction is actually very skimpy because until I came out to myself as a vampire, I had no real interest in vampires at all; I have a first edition copy of Vampire: The Masquerade which I bought in 1992, when I was working as an exotic dancer. I think V:tM came out in 1991 but I could be mistaken. When did Sonja Blue come out?)
3) The vampire community - including people who would not ordinarily be interested in role playing games, but who like the idea of pretending to be immortal vampires; also people who get ideas about "vampire culture" second-hand from peers, who get it second-hand...Word of mouth seems to be very important. When _Blade_ came out, there was talk on the vampire lists and massage boards of "safe houses" and what a neat idea it would be to start them up. Many urban vampire/Goth scenes seem to be loosely organized on Camarilla terms, and use White Wolf slang. A newbie is referred to as a "childe," esp. if recently "embraced" into the culture. There is a loose sort of pax which corresponds roughly to the Elysium described in V:tM. Etc. Ideas get disseminated and then incorporated into the culture. It's interesting to watch. I'm still trying to figure out how we get people who are convinced that Clans exist, people can be immortal, etc. Oh, the naive believers get shouted down eventually, but where do they get their ides in the first place? Many of them never role play and don't seem to know what White Wolf Studios is. Weird, huh?
4) Goths, who mostly despise the role playing gamers and vampire wanna-be's (see above).
These communities *combined* still represent a very small segment of the population.
On the other hand, I saw a soft porn video produced by a subsidiary of Playboy Studios. It was very interesting (and surprisingly well done, though hardly great art). I can't remember the title offhand, but it involved a performance artist who was being courted by an angsty vampire, who loved her and wished he were human again...At one point he built a set for her which had this gorgeous, sexual, brilliantly red rose, which was supposed to represent desire (and his desire to embrace her). And the whole thing seemed to be very influenced by White Wolf's mythology/iconology of vampirism, particularly that of Clan Toreador.
What about Poppy Brite's LOST SOULS
Influential. Thanks to Poppy Z. Brite, the Goth and vampire cultures seem to have embraced (ahem) the drink absinthe, and its lesser version, Chartreuse (actually, the closest one gets to absinthe is really Pernod, but Pernod does not appear in _Lost Souls_).
and Francis Ford Coppola's movie BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA? A lot of vampire fans -- at least the more recent ones -- seem to take Coppola's romance-laced interpretation for granted.
I know a lot of people who never read _Dracula_ and think FFC did a gospel, literal interpretation of Stoker's book, which he did not; other than that, there doesn't seem to be much effect on the vampire subculture. FFC's _Dracula_ came out a month or two before V:tM was first released, and V:tM seems to have eclipsed the film.
On the other hand, FFC's _Dracula_ has had an impact on the film industry (as did _Interview_). There are more high-quality vampire films being marketed to mainstream audiences, who expect something other than the gore-fests which previously had been found in the horror section of Blockbuster and which typified the vampire fim.
FFC's _Dracula_ and Anne Rice's works (literary and cinematic) also seem to have had an impact on mainstream pop culture images of the vampire. The vampire is more sympathetic and sexy than ever. Of course, we can thank Nick Knight and Barnabas Collins for that, also.
Female vampires still seem to be cast in the role of vixen, bitch, etc when they aren't fledgling victims of vampire bites. It's the virgin/whore thing, I think. The most realistic, multifaceted vampire I've seen is still Carmilla (haven't read the works of Jewel Gomez yet, but they're not widely available outside of the lesbian subculture and wouldn't have a real impact on pop images of vampires, anyway). Carmilla is a little over a hundred years old. Come on, it's time for some more female vampires with substance. So far, the only deviation I've seen from the seductress/victim norm is in the work of Anne Rice, and she's only one author (a highly influential author, certainly, but her lead has yet to be followed - the female vampire hasn't had the makeover that the male vampire has).
© 1999 by Sarah Dorrance (click here to send e-mail)