When L. A. Banks was asked in interviews what inspired her to write the Vampire Huntress series, she typically cited two major influences: Growing up in a rough neighborhood in 1960’s Philadelphia and the time that she saw the movie Night of the Living Dead. In regard to growing up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Banks acknowledges that there was active drug and gang activity around her, but that her childhood and young adult experiences were not all negative. She talks about her mother, aunts and other adults in the neighborhood that stood up to negative influences as well as people who were former gang members or who had gone to jail turning their lives around and becoming positive forces in the community. This experience of seeing people who many others would dismiss or “throw away” become mentors, informal counselors and good parents inspired L.A. Banks to make her main characters people who have struggled or have complicated backgrounds, but who are ultimately heroes in their own right.
In her experience with the movie, Night of the Living Dead (1968), L.A. Banks describes the excitement of seeing a Black man successfully be a hero in a sci-fi/horror film only for that joy to be dashed when the character was killed in the last few minutes of the film. She describes the disbelief that she and her cousins experienced walking out of the movie theater that day. So when she had the opportunity to make people who reminded her of her family and friends be the heroes in a supernatural series and have them not only survive, but thrive in that environment, she jumped at the chance.
In order to better understand the impact of the Vampire Huntress series, it's important to look at the media landscape at the time. Outside of the movie, Interview With The Vampire, supernatural/vampire media didn’t have a strong foothold in the popular consciousness until the TV series, Buffy, came on the scene in 1997. Then in 1998, the movie, Blade, starring Black actor and martial artist Wesley Snipes, came out and was not only a commercial success, but laid the foundation for the success of other Marvel movies including what would become the MCU. Finally, the Warner Brothers’ network, known as the WB, was the go-to place for teen drama, angst and romance with hit shows like Dawson’s Creek, Popular and Felicity. The WB also included a line-up of supernatural dramas like Buffy, Charmed, Roswell and Angel. These shows were go-to television destinations for teenagers of a certain age and often starred female protagonists who had agency, influence and depth.
These television shows were also notoriously monochromatic. In other words, they had entire casts of either all white people or all white people except for one. In the shows that I just mentioned, there are four programs, Popular, Roswell, Felicity and Angel, that had a singular person of color in the main cast. In Popular, Portuguese-American actress Tamara Mello played supporting role of Lily Esposito; In Roswell, white-presenting Latinx actress Majandra Delfino played Maria DeLuca; In Felicity, African-American actress Tangi Miller played Elena Tyler and finally in Angel, actor J. August Richards, who is an American actor of Afro-Panamanian descent, played Charles Gunn. Of those four characters, none of them are their primary protagonist or antagonist in their respective series. Each character is restricted in their stories to “friend of person who matters.”
Zeroing in on the supernatural dramas, it’s impossible to overstate the influence that Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, had on the popularity of supernatural media as well as in the portrayal of complex, empowered female protagonists. However, its portrayals of female characters that were not European-American were limited at best and offensive, at worst. For example, Kendra Young, portrayed by Bianca Lawson, was added to the show as a replacement Slayer after Buffy had died temporarily. Kendra was from Jamaica and had studied and trained intensively to become a capable slayer. But instead of being able to truly utilize her character, she was killed after one year on show. She was replaced by the antagonist slayer, Faith, who not only survived until the end of the series, but also had a role in Buffy’s spin-off series, Angel.
In the 1999 – 2000 television season, those folks who were interested in seeing more than one minority on the screen at a time had to travel to the sitcoms that populated the television network, UPN or wait for the weekend sitcom lineup on the WB. With sitcoms, such as Malcolm and Eddie, Moesha, The Steve Harvey Show and The Parkers; it seems like emotional angst and depth was solely for the white teenagers and young adults on the WB and black teenagers and black communities were primarily valuable as comic relief.
The book landscape also seemed to limit the genres where you could find empowered, well-rounded Black characters. Where the African-American section of the bookstore was filled with gritty, realistic fiction like Omar Tyree’s Flyy Girl or Sistah Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever. The Fantasy/Science Fiction sections were dominated by Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, Stephen King, Charlaine Harris’ True Blood novels which predominantly featured white protagonists, antagonists and side characters. It was in this environment that L.A. Banks’ Vampire Huntress Series was born with the first book in the series, Minion, being published in 2003.
As an avid reader at that time, coming across the book cover for Minion was a revelation to me. I had never seen a character who was not only described as Black woman, but also was culturally specific in a sci-fi/supernatural series. Just from seeing the sankofa tattoo on her back, which I recognized instantly from all of the Black history studies that my mom made me do as a child, I knew that the writer hadn’t just dipped a white character in brown paint and then decide that skin color and stereotypes were all there was to Black culture. Just from the cover, I knew the author might see Black folks the way that I had been taught to see them. Capable, intelligent, spiritual and, yes, able to fight the forces of evil when necessary.
The main protagonist, Damali Richards, felt like a girl I recognized. She could have been a cousin, especially since my family had Philadelphia roots. And the way that faith was incorporated into the text spoke to me as a girl who had been raised Christain, but had friends of all faith backgrounds and a love for the supernatural. The first book, Minion, hit so many aspects of my identity that had never been touched in the other supernatural media I had been consuming. In 2003, the landscape was barren when it came to multicultural representation especially in the supernatural/sci-fi space. This series came out before the Twilight books, before the Supernatural TV series, before the MCU, before the Arrowverse and only two Harry Potter movies had been released.
The world the L.A. Banks had created was grounded in rituals and traditions that I recognized from my grandmothers, from my friends’ faith backgrounds and from symbols and histories that I had seen, but didn’t know well. Creating a universe where all of these representations of faith were valid sat well with me since I knew from personal experience that fantastic, positive people were not restricted to just one faith, race or cultural background. It’s important to note that although Leslie Banks (L.A. Banks) died in 2011, she left this incredibly rich legacy behind that helped girls like me feel seen when there was so little out there and I, for one, am forever grateful.
L.A. Banks talks about the Vampire Huntress series:
L.A. Banks at BLACK AGE Chicago XIII ! (1)
L.A. Banks at BLACK AGE Chicago XIII ! (2)
Guest Contributor Bio
Latisha Jones is a writer, actress, filmmaker and theater educator. Born in New York, but raised in the DMV area, Latisha earned her bachelor’s degree in screenwriting and playwriting from Drexel University and her master’s degree in Educational Theater from New York University. As a theater educator, she had worked with students of all ages with a specialty in multicultural education. She has developed an anti-racism seminar series called “Difficult Conversations” which focuses on using theater techniques as a method of community development, encouraging dialogue and fostering understanding between people of various ages, classes and cultures. She worked as a consultant and facilitator for various theaters, non-profit organizations and community groups actively working to deconstruct and rebuild themselves in an anti-oppression framework.
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