Vampires, "First Kill", and Antisemitism

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Hi everyone!

So, there is something I do want to address. As of now my discussion on Netflix’s First Kill is live. I wrote that post a couple days prior, and used it to discuss a lot of the common complaints I have seen about the show. Before it was published, I learned of a new complaint about the show, which is that Jewish people are stating it is antisemitic.

I am a person who truly does want to do my best to help and support others, but also, I feel this is a complex issue, that I have now stumbled onto. I could have decided not to publish the discussion at all or I could have still published it and ignored the complaints, but neither is really what I wanted nor do those options really reflect how I feel about this, which I feel would then be a disservice to me and anyone who does eventually read these posts.

Before I begin this in full, I would like to be clear. The definition of a “myth” is:

“A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events”

This means that any story within any religion is a myth, and please do also understand that generally speaking all books, movies, TV shows, video games, etc. are all modern myths in their own ways. When discussing the stories that go into a religion, I will always refer to it as a “myth” because that is what it is. If me calling a story within your religion a myth is offensive to you my suggestions are: A.) Stop reading and don’t read anything else on my site, B.) Stop calling the stories of other religions that you don’t follow myths then too, C.) Read up more on myths as a whole, D.) Take time to internally process why that is your issue and not mine, and E.) DO NOT decide to make that my problem, because it really isn’t.

Before a few days ago, I never knew that vampires are associated with antisemitism as a whole. I am a writer who deals primarily in fantasy, my Bachelor’s degree is in History with a Religious Studies minor, I am agnostic, and grew up in a household that was decidedly limited with religion. I have always been interested in fantasy and the supernatural, loving shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Diaries (Within reason, seeing as I never finished either show, but that is more due to my own disagreement about the direction both shows ended up taking). The reality is though that I associate most myths with storytelling more so than I do with any religion, because in the end that is what all myths are, storytelling. That is even the case in a lot of non-fiction because even though it is something that has happened or is happening. As a writer you have to focus on telling the story that needs to be told, it’s just that when it is non-fiction you have little control over how events in the story play out, but you still need to tell the story. Furthermore, if I would have associated vampires with any religion it would have been Christianity since vampires are typically harmed by specifically Christian objects (Something I do wish to change within my own writing because it never really made sense to me that it was only Christian objects, not those of other religions too, which always made it seem too pro-Christian to me, but I digress). Even so, me not knowing about something, especially when that something has to do with a minority group that I am not actually part of, doesn’t negate it as being a real and present issue for that group, just as me not knowing is not some personal moral failing.

Despite all that though I do feel like there is a lot to work on and unpack here, and that there is also a need for outside input. As I said, I am not Jewish, I have studied some Judaism but that does not in any way make me an expert, and as a whole, Abrahamic religions were never my area of interest.

First though, I do feel it is important to address why this issue with First Kill specifically falls into a bit of an ambiguous area. See, it would be one thing if the antisemitism in the show was blatantly obvious and intentional to be antisemitic, but I do have my doubts that was ever the intention of the creator of the show. Now, I have been unable to verify this fully, but it is my understanding that V.E. Schwab (Who originally wrote the short story First Kill is based on and was majorly involved in the creation of the show) is Jewish herself. Again, I have not been able to fully verify that she actually is, but for a moment let’s assume she is, that of course does not prevent her from having internalized antisemitism that bled into her work anymore than a queer person could have that happen with internalized homophobia or a woman could have that happen with internalized misogyny. Being part of a minority does not mean that you cannot do or say things that are biased against that minority. At the same time, we need to use critical thinking and analysis skills to determine if that actually is what is going on here or not.

I could go into a whole rant about critical thinking analysis here, but the gist of it would be that critical thinking is vastly important in everything but we are not necessarily taught it in the best way. The importance of the “Blue Curtains” is not what we think, and this is missed by many. The importance of looking at why curtains are blue is to determine if it is significant and why. Maybe it is insignificant, maybe it isn’t, the point of critical thinking is to be able to read/watch/play/etc. through something and first of all determine if the curtains being blue is even significant in the first place, and then decide why they may be that color after you have determined that it is significant. Many people miss this and just hear the discussion as pointless because, “Why does it matter if the curtains were blue? Maybe the author just liked blue!” Totally missing the fact that you are supposed to determine if the color is significant or not first and then decide why that might be.

In the case of First Kill, the issue of antisemitism is brought up for two main overarching issues that encompass other smaller ones (As far as I have seen and read up on). The first, I discussed above, which is that some Jewish people (I don’t think this is known/believed by every Jewish person but as I stated I am not Jewish so I’d rather be more general than absolute) believe vampires are antisemitic at their base as they were created to demonize Jewish people specifically. The second, is that within First Kill the vampires are a matriarchy (just as Judaism is) that utilizes parts of the mythos surrounding The Garden of Eden, Lilith, Eve, The Snake, and The Apple which is also part of Judaism.

As I stated above, before seeing complaints about First Kill I never knew that vampires were associated with antisemitism (Which brings up questions as to why I am seeing this now and not during one of my deep dives into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, etc., but that we aren’t going to get into that right now), and honestly, at this point in time, I am not positive that pushing that rhetoric is going to be healthy for anyone involved. See, the issue is that at this point vampires are a staple of the supernatural genre, anyone who attempted to “recreate” vampires to separate them from the history that potentially spawned them isn’t actually going to go over well and would likely fizzle out before it ever gained ground.

That, of course, doesn’t mean you don’t still try though for most situations of course, but here is the rub: even if someone did the base would still be vampires. They would have just changed the name and some of the details, but all vampire stories have their own deviations too so really all it would truly amount to would be the name change, which isn’t going to actually help anything. I’m not saying no one should try or whatever, actually the opposite, I am asking, realistically, what I could do as a writer that would make vampires okay for Jewish people? How can I as a modern writer change things that haven’t already been changed to separate them enough for you to feel it is okay?

Because I truly want that, I want to be able to do that for you, but I also still need to be able to tell the stories I wish to tell and some of them include vampires. So, how can I do this in a way that it is understood that I, as a writer, simply have a story or two trapped inside me that includes vampires, not because I associate them with Jewish people (Or any religion for that matter), but because I associate them with the supernatural and fantasy genres and have stories that include them as an element that is common in those genres?

Truly, if you have an answer, I would absolutely love to hear it, but I will add a stipulation, telling me, “You’re the writer, figure it out!” isn’t helpful or productive, because I am honestly telling you here and now that I do not have an answer for you. I cannot retcon the origins of a supernatural being after this much time, that simply isn’t feasible, and if I just change the name and adjust its powers slightly as I would have anyway, that is very much going to likely feel like a hollow change, to you and to me, and that isn’t what I want.

Now, adding in the elements of Judaism to the vampire mythos of the series could definitely be antisemitic, if the intention of the show was to demonize that mythos, but I do not see that as that case here. Yes, the family are vampires, but the message of the show is not that vampires are monsters or that their traditions are monstrous, it is that actions make you a monster, how you treat people makes you a monster, and a monster can be anyone, for any reason.

The issue also becomes where people have to separate stories from individual religions and recognize them as religious elements instead. Lilith is becoming more and more prominent in modern media, for better or worse, and the reality is that she is still present in Christianity and Islam, if only because they all began at the Jewish base. Lilith doesn’t belong solely to Judaism anymore because of that divergence, nor does the story of Eden, Eve, the Snake, and the Apple. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all Abrahamic Religions because they began at the same base, that was Judaism. Just because they diverged doesn’t negate that the base of the religion is still there. Additionally, a lot of people (both religious people and non-religious people) have latched onto the myth of Lilith as part of growing female empowerment (Again for better or worse), further removing it as a story that would solely “belong” to Judaism (I put belong in quotes, because in the end stories do not really belong to anyone, especially once they are public knowledge). While I could change the name people would largely still understand who I meant/was basing them upon because they fulfill specific roles, stereotypes, functions, etc. Everything is an archetype or a mixture of archetypes (Or tropes, or whatever).

Having the vampires be matriarchal doesn’t even have to be related to that choice, as it literally could have just been an easy plot point to the show. Them being matriarchal and having Juliette’s family as the Keepers puts prominence and pressure on her and her family specifically, and is a driving plot point, without it the show would have turned out completely differently. I’m not saying that is good or bad, just that it is life. Writing is long, arduous, and time consuming, sometimes you need the win of easy plot points.

As I stated earlier and in my post on First Kill there are only actually 7 original stories in the world and everything else is just based on it. The reality is that when you write a story you have to build a framework, and it is a lot of work. It is also extremely time consuming. The way you cut down on that as a writer is using stuff that already exists. It makes your life easier and makes it easier for the audience who then doesn’t have to track a bunch of new information. Even when a writer does “make their own” religion, mythos, etc. it is still always going to be part of the framework of reality, in that it won’t actually be some completely new thing that has never existed before. It is going to be a mashed together mixture of elements they wanted to include and an absence of ones they didn’t dressed up under a different name.

Nothing within writing is completely unique or original, you can have a different take on it for sure, but the reality is that even the take you have is still going to be based on everything else that came before it.

Take recipes for example, you have a base of “Put over fire until cooked” and then someone comes along and adds salt so that becomes the new base and then someone comes and add another ingredient and so on and so forth, yes, sometimes we know who made the original change (or at least where the change came from), but most of the time we do not, we just know that is the recipe and that the change we are making is because we tried something else or learned something new and we thought it would be an excellent addition.

Finally, I feel it is prudent to bring us back to a point, it is my understanding that the creator of the show is Jewish. The truth is, that as a writer if I had a specific religion I believed in (or even grew up in), it would likely end up in my writing too. See, there is a limit to how much a person can take in and know and it is, of course, different for everyone, and depends on their own interests, time, abilities, etc. If I spent my life learning all about one specific religion, I would know significantly less about other religions simply because I did not have the time, energy, and mental space needed to learn about the others if that time was instead being devoted to learning a lot about a specific religion.

The way I look at worldbuilding is often a lot more involved than a lot of other people I speak with about worldbuilding (According to them). I do try to create things where I can by doing the combination method and everything, on top of doing my best to be sensitive to the variety of differences in the world, but even I am completely overwhelmed by it all sometimes and need to just slap in some easy stuff I already know and already know my audience is at least a little aware of. There are a number of writers out there who are much less intense about their worldbuilding, because they are fine with that and manage to make their story work in other ways, often meaning that a lot of the mythos in a story will be mythos already created that other people are familiar with, and if they grew up in a specific way that will always color that lens. Again, this is nether good nor bad, just a fact of life.

If V.E. Schwab isn’t Jewish, then yeah, maybe she used a little too much Judaism in First Kill, but honestly, either way, story writers have been doing that kind of stuff for an incredibly long time, because there isn’t some easy solution. We are not gods and we are often not geniuses. We are simply people who are trying to get stories told. I, and any other writer who cares about this, would love to know what you think an easy to implement solution is that doesn’t feel hollow to you, the writers, and/or the audience, how should we address this in a way that makes it clear that our intention is not to harm others?

The only current solution I see as even a remote possibility is simply providing that as a disclaimer, but the problem is that doing so doesn’t really fix anything and honestly (to me at least) feels more like someone trying to cover themselves without actually having to do anything, and would likely result in some writers taking it as a carte blanche to write stuff that is incredibly hateful, hurtful, offensive, and wrong only to slap that in there so they can point to it and say, “But I didn’t mean any harm! It says it right here!” because writers are not perfect and there are plenty of assholes out there.

I do want to do my best to be an ally to the Jewish community, but I do not understand how I can do so in a way that is actually helpful without requiring eons worth of work from me, because that is the only way to fully separate and create something completely new, is to take eons and research every single little thing that has ever existed and synthesize it down in understanding and then hope for some kind of miracle that you can find or figure out something that is completely unconnected from everything that existed before then, which isn’t feasible at all.

Again though, changing a few names and details is not a real change, people will still be able to see the original base. So, we need to know how to make that base not a rotting putrid mess, which does take time and effort, but if I am not the one who can see and experience the base then I have no idea how to fix it, I need the guidance of someone who can see it, and so does every writer out there if we want there to be meaningful change.

If any of you want to come at me for this post feel free! I want to talk with you! I want to hear from you and get your feedback, because I truly do not know what to do that will help you and won’t make me more overwhelmed by my worldbuilding process than I already am, but I can’t do that if you don’t talk with me. I can’t do that if I have no way to learn and grow. If you are angry about something I said here that is still completely fine! I need to know! I cannot change something if I am unaware it is a problem, I cannot even change problems I am fully aware of sometimes because of the actual restrictions of life, but I will always do my best and I will always care about trying to do better.

Until next time!

-Shadow Finch