Perverse Parallels

On my way back from Turin, I took the opportunity to visit the Compte de Rienville at his chateau in the south of France. He had heard about my little speech to the ILO.

"Run out of town, were you?" he kindly stated.

"Sort of. I thought logic and sanity would carry the day. I was wrong."

"Well," he said, "if you argue with a reformer, you will always lose. C'est la vie."

"C'est la guerre would be more appropriate. But enough of this."

Thus started a wonderful weekend, and resting up after one of our romps, enjoying a magnificent Chardonnay, the Compte raised an interesting topic. "Have you noticed, cherie, the parallel between the financial mess and the rise of vampires in film, television and books?"

"Can't say that I have." What the hell was he talking about?

He explained, and the subject was explored throughout the weekend. Truth be known, things got a little out of hand, and the Compte has the bite marks to prove it. But let us not stray from the point.

The gist of his argument goes as follows. Just about the time that organizations such as Citibank, AIG and Lehman Bros. were ramping up, one of the most popular shows on television was Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Now I actually got hooked on that show, because of a brilliant subtext. An example is worth repeating.

In an early episode, Buffy (the winsome Sarah Michelle Geller) is receiving an assignment back from Giles, the school librarian (Anthony Head, now slumming around in the BBC series Merlin, where he plays Uther Pendragon, about as far from a librarian as you can get.) Anyway, Giles hands the paper back to Buffy, saying 'And, Miss Summers, I really can't critique your use of pure reason.' Wow! (Kant himself, however, must have turned a bit in his grave.)

To continue the Compte's argument, things progressed in the real world, or rather went downhill. We had the insane growth of unsupervised swaps, collateral debt options, and shaky derivatives, all this accompanied by a staggering growth in sub-prime mortgages and that kindly personage known as Bernie Madoff. A huge and fragile pack of cards that could do nothing but tumble down. Which, of course, it did.

At the same time, in the media universe, we got John Carpenter's Vampires, Blade Runner, and the Underworld (rather silly) series. Even teen-agers were drawn in with the publication of the Twilight books, and the recent eponymous film. The most recent entry into this dark catalogue is the HBO series, the somewhat grisly True Blood. This is also one I watch, for the subtext, as in Buffy, is hilarious. The central plot hook rests on the fact that the Japanese (who else?) have invented a blood substitute that vampires can subsist on. This "true blood" is not as nourishing as the real thing, but a goodly number of vampires (not all) have emerged from the closet and are fighting for a place in society. As for the subtext, we learn that the state of Vermont just passed legislation that allows vampire/non-vampire marriages, and we also learn that Brad and Angelina are in the process of adopting a vampire baby. You see what I mean?

The Compte does not see this vampire fascination as an accident, and posited that unconsciously society knew damn well what was happening. He pointed out that government is very careful to outsource blood donations, it being a bit too close to the bone; that is, government literally taking blood from their citizens. Yet, he stated, the financial blood was metaphorically sucked out of the system. "They were nothing but vampires", he said heatedly. "Vampires! And we knew it."

I had my doubts, but then a further insight came to me that supported his thesis. What do we call all those beholden to financial firms and like organizations?

We call them stakeholders, that's what.

Q.E.D.