By Erin Caine
Elm Staff Writer
On Thursday, Oct. 13, the award-winning YouTube series “Carmilla” wrapped up its third and last season with a jaw-dropping, sob-inducing final act. Unlike the previous two installments of the series, the third season was released in three different “acts,” similar to a play—and, indeed, the elevated drama and electrifying action of this ultimate chapter had all the resonance of a Shakespearian production. “Carmilla” has a lot to offer as a show, such as its unique distribution methods, its team of female writers and crew members, and its diverse and nuanced cast of characters. But what is perhaps its most important aspect is its great significance to its large following of LGBT viewers. As a genuinely positive and validating piece of queer media, Carmilla is a series that quite possibly has set a new standard for queer representation in the future.
To really grasp “Carmilla’s” importance as a modern web series, one should be familiar with its source material—that is, the Gothic Victorian novella of the same title, written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. The original novella tells the tale of Carmilla, a female vampire with a penchant for feasting on naïve young women such as the protagonist, Laura, who falls prey to her undead companion’s wiles. There is no small amount of homoerotic subtext between the two female leads, and Carmilla’s gruesome dismemberment at the end of the novella is a not-so-subtle vilification of female homosexuality, which set the precedent for later works that featured the figure of the “lesbian vampire.” It wasn’t until 2014—about a century and a half after the publication of the original novella—that the “Carmilla” web series came out and turned everything on its head.
The new series now featured not just a newfound sympathy for its titular character, but added layers of character depth and ample opportunity for her redemption. Its protagonist, Laura Hollis, was not the helpless, clueless, essentially useless character she was in the novella, but rather a character with agency and heroism, a female character with whom female viewers could relate and one they could root for. Moreover, it now featured a wider and more diverse cast of characters in a modern environment (specifically, in a supernatural college run by an evil dean.) One such supporting character is the endearing mad scientist Lafontaine, one of very few representations of a non-binary character in media—one who is given the opportunity, even, to discuss with another character their usage of gender-neutral pronouns. (Also, no one would get anywhere in saving the world from evil without Lafontaine’s help.)
Carmilla as a web series is clearly a drastic departure from the source material, and this is ultimately to its benefit, as it is tailored to a contemporary mindset and has become more inclusive and subversive than ever before. Even from a feminist standpoint, it exceeds expectations: the series was written and created by a woman (Jordan Hall) and features a cast of predominantly women (Elise Bauman, Natasha Negovanlis, and Annie Briggs, among several others.) And its female characters, moreover, are mostly queer—each of them nuanced, interesting, and well-written. Laura and Carmilla’s relationship, the true heart of the series, is given the room it needs to grow and develop over the course of all three seasons, and viewers are allowed to invest in the possibility of the pair’s happy ending. This is definitely a series to look to as a template for future portrayals of both LGBT and female characters.