Vampires- Only One Color Available

In class on Tuesday, we watched a documentary called “merchants of cool” which was mass culture and how subculture can come into the main culture.  While watching the documentary, one thing came to mind- why is pop culture so white washed in general?  About 80 percent of the film was just white people.  I mean, I am used to not being represented in pop culture (movies, TV shows, etc) because there has always been a severe lack of Hispanic characters.  Hell there is a severe lack of non-white characters.

This led me to think of vampires, and how there has always been a lack of color.  Sure, there is sometimes a black vampire, but when do you see the Mexican vampire?  The Indian vampire?  You would think that it being 2010, there would be some kind of inclusion.  There have been films with black vampires in them, but the amount of films with black vampires compared to white vampires is big.

Let’s see.  Blacula, made in 1972, was the first vampire movie with a black vampire as the lead, and pretty much an all black cast.  Fast forward to 1995, and there is Vampires in Brooklyn, starring Eddie Murphy.  3 years later, and the first Blade came out, which was a big success and had two sequels.  Queen of the Damned, starring the now deceased Aaliyah came out in 2002.  It took until 2008 for there to be another black vampire on film, in Twilight nonetheless, and as the bad guy who is killed in the next movie.  That is more or less the extent of films with black vampires, and it is a pretty shortlist.

Now I can honestly say that I have never seen a Mexican or even Latino vampire in all of the vampire movies, TV shows, books, etc that I have seen/read.  With the amount of Latino people in the United States, you would think that they would at least make one a supporting character or something, but nope.  Nada.  Asians have a lot more luck with vampires in movies, but the movies themselves are not mainstream.  They are part of a subculture.

Other cultures, they might as well not exist in the vampire subculture.  They just are not represented in any way, shape, or form.  I love vampire anything, but its 2010, something has got to change- because it is not probable that in these movies, not one is of color, especially in big movies like Underworld, or in the TV show The Vampire Diaries.  I hope to see more vampires of different races in the future.