Carleton University Render Volume 8 Contextualizing Carmilla: Bridging the gap between the gothic, the lesbian vampire, and fanfiction Sneha Kumar Film Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada Abstract In this essay, I argue that Carmilla (Canada, Spencer Maybee 2014-2016), a 121-episode web series shot in vlog format that follows the relationship between a human girl, Laura Hollis, and a female vampire, Carmilla Karnstein occupies a liminal space between fanfiction and industrial product. My understanding of this liminal space has been informed by the work of Aymar Jean Christian. The series is loosely inspired by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella and the many previous filmic adaptations of the novella, but adapted to contemporary university life. Referring to the scholarship of Sarah Parker, Andrea Weiss and Barbara Creed, I propose that the Carmilla series has been born out of two major literary and film traditions: the lesbian gothic and the status of the lesbian vampire in film history. Keywords: Lesbian, Queer theory, vampires, fanfiction, Gothic, literature, film, fandom, internet culture 1.1 Introduction series follows human Laura Hollis (Elise Bauman), her vampire lover Carmilla Karnstein (Natasha This essay explores the three traditions that Negovanlis), and their group of friends as they Carmilla, a YouTube web series, has grown out of: fight ancient gods, a hostile university the spectre of the lesbian in Gothic literature, the administration, and other supernatural beings. history of lesbian vampires in film, and Most of the series’ cast and crew are queer, contemporary vampire media. Drawing on these including producer Stephanie Ouaknine and story three traditions, Carmilla occupies a grey area editor Ellen Simpson, as well as actors Natasha between fan work and industrial product. Carmilla Negovanlis (Carmilla), Elise Bauman (Laura), is a contemporary adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Kaitlyn Alexander (LaFontaine) and Matt Le Fanu’s 1872 novella of the same name. The O’Connor (Wilson Kirsch). I argue that the series 1 © Render, Carleton University Carleton University Render Volume 8 creators make interventions into these three after meeting Carmilla, particularly of a cat-like traditions in order to reflect a version of creature biting her on the breast. The discovery of contemporary queer desire, focusing on the this bite by a male doctor from the village leads to experiences of a middle-class white lesbian the uncovering of Carmilla’s plot and ultimately university student. Though the series’ creators her death at the hands of Baron Vordenberg, a identify as fans of popular vampire and lesbian descendent of the family that rid the area of media and the series as an expression of their love, vampires years ago. Carmilla is staked through the the project was produced by a professional heart, her head cut off, and her body burnt and production company and is commercially thrown into the river. The novella serves as a distributed. cautionary tale against the evils of lesbianism and restores the male to the position of active agent. Drawing on the work of literary and film scholars such as Sarah Parker, Andrea Weiss, and According to British author John W. Barbara Creed, in this essay I will investigate Cousin, Le Fanu was famous for presenting the Carmilla’s gothic past, situate the Carmilla series mysterious and the supernatural.2 English scholar in a history of lesbian vampire representation, and Sarah Parker claims that the Gothic genre is analyse the series’ references to other kinds of associated with the desire to articulate what is vampire-related media. In conversation with media unspeakable or repressed.3 Similarly, English scholar Aymar Jean Christian, I will also explore scholar Anne Williams argues that the Gothic is Carmilla’s in-between status that builds upon both defined less by specific motifs such as the haunted fan and industrial communities and that castle or monster, and more by a concern for encourages the formation of a lesbian fandom built boundaries, such as the physical limitations of upon feeling. domestic space.4 The Gothic is often organised around what happens when repressed desires lead 1.2 Carmilla’s Gothic past to the destruction of a patriarchal family unit. Lesbian desire is one example of the transgression The Carmilla series’ Gothic past can be of familial boundaries. Women’s fiction scholar traced back to the 1872 novella it is based on— Paulina Palmer claims that the most common Carmilla by Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. themes explored in lesbian gothic texts are a Film scholars Andrea Weiss, Barbara Creed, and woman’s problematic relationship with her body, David Baker credit this novella with being one of transgressive aspects of female sexuality, two source texts for almost all lesbian vampire intricacies of female friendships, relationships media.1 Carmilla, the novella, was set in the real between mother and daughter, portrayals of town of Styria, Austria. In the novella, a young and women as both hero and victim of persecution, and naive Laura befriends Carmilla after Carmilla’s the haunting of one woman by another.5 Along carriage breaks down in front her mansion. these lines, Le Fanu’s novella portrays female Carmilla and Laura develop a fast friendship, sexuality as deviant, warns against the which eventually leads to Carmilla pursuing her development of close friendships between young romantically. Laura begins to have feverish dreams women, and shows how the meek, virginal, pure 1 The other is the historical figure of Countess Elizabeth Bathory [1560-1614] who was accused of killing over 600 young women and bathing in their blood to maintain her youth and beauty. 2 John W. Cousin, A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, (Frankfurt am Main: Outlook Verlag, 2018), 780. 3 Parker, “‘The Darkness is the Closet in Which Your Lover Roots Her Heart,’” 7. 4 Anne Williams, Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1995), 22. 5 Paulina Palmer, Lesbian Gothic: Transgressive fictions, (London and New York: Cassell, 1999), 10. 1 © Render, Carleton University Carleton University Render Volume 8 Laura becomes a victim of the mysterious, sexual, scholar Ellen Moers, focuses on women’s strong Carmilla. One important difference between experiences of patriarchal domestic space—her Le Fanu’s text and the typical lesbian gothic text is experiences are seen as journey towards some kind that while the women tend to be either victims or of agency in a world dominated by men—the villains, all the heroes in Carmilla are men. “Male Gothic” depicts the male character as The Carmilla web series echoes many of these controlling the passive female victim.7 Le Fanu’s Gothic lesbian tropes, although in a more comic Carmilla is a classic example of the Male Gothic mode. Carmilla complains about having to genre. In contrast, the Carmilla series takes menstruate for hundreds of years and she seduces a advantage of the repressed lesbianism present in series of young women. The show depicts the the novella and brings what was “unspeakable into friendship between a group of primarily queer articulation.”8 women. Carmilla’s relationship with her bloodthirsty mother is strained. Carmilla’s I argue that the Carmilla series is one character is portrayed as both hero and victim of answer to the question posed by sexuality studies abuse. However, in contrast to the novella, the scholar Sarah Parker: “[W]hat if lesbian authors Carmilla series separates the categories of the were to wield the Gothic for their own ends”?9 Not monstrous and the lesbian. I consider the Carmilla only does the Carmilla series include certain series as a response to the Gothic lesbian tradition: Gothic motifs, such as an old, Victorian-era it challenges the doom and gloom of the genre university with a Town Hall and chapel that burnt through moments of humor and lightness, while down in the 20th century, the series also retaining certain aspects of the genre, such as old incorporates the narrative elements of nightmares. buildings with muddled histories and supernatural Furthermore, if, as Anne Williams argues, the mystery. For example, in “Disorientation” (S1, Ep Gothic is structured around the patriarchal family, 1) Laura describes a sentient search window then it must be noted that all the supposed looking for Dudley Chapel, a building on campus monsters in the Carmilla series - Carmilla, that burnt down in 1904. She describes the fire as Carmilla’s sister Mattie Belmonde (Sophia “harmless prank or terrifying mystery waiting…” Walker), and Carmilla’s mother The Dean - all before she is interrupted by her party girl faced untold horrors at the hands of men. roommate Betty (Grace Glowicki). The Carmilla series gives all three of these According to English scholar Anne women the space to exact their revenge. Williams, the Gothic genre’s engagement with the For example, the hero who destroys Carmilla in repressed creates the opportunity to explore the the novella, Baron Vordenberg, is one of the main psychological state of women. Referring to antagonists in season two. He describes Carmilla Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 Gothic novel Jane Eyre, as a “ravager of virtue” in “Emergency she argues that the book’s madwoman in the attic Procedures” (S2, E13), a description that reflects serves as a metaphor for the transgressive nature of the heterosexual man’s anxiety about the lesbian the genre: “the madwoman, though hidden and vampire. In the series, Vordenberg tells Laura that confined…seems fully capable of escaping her as a countess, Carmilla was promised to his great- confinement and burning the house down.”6 While great grandfather, who was deeply in love with her. the “Female Gothic,” a term coined by literary That love prompted him to hide her when she 6 Williams, Art of Darkness, 8.