Dracula discusses democracy
I emailed Dracula's people because I was heading to Romania, for a global democracy forum.
While I'm in Bucharest, I asked, could I come up to Transylvania and interview him? After all, the count, through 600 years, has seen many dark times for democracy.
In reply, I got a cryptic text telling me to arrive by midnight at an address high in the Hollywood Hills above L.A. The place was so dark I had to turn on my iPhone flashlight to find the door.
But at my knock, the world's most famous vampire opened the door and ushered me in.
Dracula: Welcome to my castle in the air. Now, can my servant Renfield get you something to drink? Want to join me for a pint of O-negative?
Me: Thanks, but I'm fine, Count. Dracula: Please, call me Vlad. And suit yourself. I need a drink from a stiff before discussing democracy these days. Me: What are you doing in L.A.? Dracula: Romania will always be home, but decades ago, I realized Hollywood would never stop calling. I used to stay with my friend Bela Lugosi, but he got tired of the LAPD asking for me every time teenage girls got hickeys. So, I had this place built.
It's paid for itself. To date, more than 80 films have been made about me. Yes, those Netflix execs — who suck more blood in one pitch meeting than I have in my whole existence — don't pay well. But my CAA vampire get me steady work story consulting.
Me: Do you see the story of Dracula having an impact on how the world runs?
D: Sometimes I worry I have too much impact. Porphyria — the so-called “vampire disease,” because you have trouble with sunlight — used to be rare. Now, with everyone up late and on their screens, people are becoming more like me. The fact that we're so atomized makes democratic self-government difficult.
Me: Vlad, you've been around longer than anyone living — as a human you ruled Wallachia in the 1400s, and became globally famous with Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula." In all that time, what has changed the most in how humans govern themselves?
D: What's changing the most is the very nature of what it means to be human. And that's changed self-government and everything else.
We not only live longer, but we never go away. Look at me. I started as this figure of fear — of violence, of disease. I was the bad, undead guy. But now in popular culture, I'm the cool Gothic mainstay, portrayed by younger, better-looking actors. AI means that humans can stay alive digitally, and keep changing, long after their bodies are dust. We're all vampires now.
Which means that humans must take a longer view and build more flexible institutions.
Me: Are you're saying the world is getting better?
D: It's definitely more democratic. Look at Romania. Two generations ago, we were ruled by a far crueler villain than I ever was, Nicolae Ceausescu, a communist dictator. Now Romania is in the European Union and the eurozone, and we have a real democracy, despite the autocratic pressures from that other Vlad the Impaler in Russia.
Me: Aren't you worried about rightwing gains in June's European elections?
D: There are always people scapegoating democracy for problems. There are always tyrants trying to kill off democracy.
Just like there are always people who hate vampires and, like that Buffy chick, slay us.
But no matter how often they kill us, we vampires keep coming back, because people want us. Take "Interview with the Vampire" — it was a book, a movie, and now a TV show! The same thing is true of democracy. Look at Turkey — its national government goes authoritarian, and yet its cities respond by becoming more democratic.
Democracy and vampires have much in common.
Joe Mathews is columnist for Zocalo Public Square and founder-publisher of Democracy Local.