After reviewing several pages, blogs, websites, articles, and opinion pieces, I’ve developed a few thoughts on the prevailing philosophies about the popularity of vampires. Five of the articles I read are linked and briefly summarized below and will contribute to my thoughts on this topic:
This article considers how the introduction of sexuality into the vampire figure has helped the popularity of vampirism to snowball to what it is today.
A doctor of philosophy makes some interesting points about the versatility of vampires to accept our projected hopes and fears.
The idea here is that there are more vampire movies and popularity during democratic terms and more zombie media out during republican terms. I find the logic laughable but interesting.
The essence of this article focuses on the versatility of the vampire symbolism. We are able to assign good/evil to the issues we are fighting in our lives.
The part of this article most interesting is toward the end when the author talks about how there has been an increase in vampire popularity since the events of 9/11. The primary philosophy on this increase is the mortality of our typical heroes has been damaged, and women in particular turn to immortal heroes.
First of all, I don’t have an opinion on vampires or vampirism as it stands in our pop culture. I haven’t read any of the Twilight books or any of the other historically important vampire texts. My students love the Twilight books, and because it makes them WANT TO READ, I don’t ask questions about what or why! I am not able to require vampire literature to be read (several Christian families would fight that despite the assertion of Christian principles in the text).
Going into this week, I wasn’t sure I would find anything of value; I’m happy to say I did find a few ideas that are interesting (if less than earth shattering). Vampires in ‘western cultures’ are much older than most people think. It seems to be agreed that American obsession with vampires in earnest started sometime in the 1920s and has been a roller coaster from decade to decade.
With these articles as a foundation, the reason I like best for the popularity phenomenon is what these characters represent in our lives. For many female teenagers, the men in the Twilight books represent that safe, sensitive, attractive man who is interested in them because of who they are. This is also the attraction for many adult women as well; it is an innocent escape into a romance with someone who is never going to leave or die. Finding a man like that is tremendously alluring.
Stepping away from the Twilight books the logic still holds. Vampires (since the introduction of sexuality with “Dracula”) are people who are not subject to the laws of humanity and mortality. Vampires, especially males, have immortal desires and are not chained by emotion or even monogamy. They are able to commit more than a lifetime to giving someone whatever they imagine. Vampire romance for adult women is a very popular genre these days.
The article above that focuses on the increase of vampire texts and media since 9/11 makes sense. Our human heroes (military, police, firefighters, etc) are limited to human rules and mortality. We were shown on that day what happens to those men—they can be killed. The vampires in fiction can be our everything and not face a day of reckoning.
Another concept that was touched on in one of the above articles as well as other blogs and articles I came across is that of known immortality. On a deeper level, one of the reasons we are interested in vampires is because they know their fate. The concept of ‘after life’ known to many Christians is intangible. Those who are steadfast in their faith know there is an afterlife if they accept Christ, but they do not know what it looks like. Being around or ‘knowing’ someone who knows how they will spend forever is attractive to many people.
No one seems to know much about the exact reason vampirism is so popular today, but like every other fad, it will fade for a time only to resurface when the culture market can bear it.
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