Too Much Is Not Always A Good Thing

What do vampires, indie artists going mainstream, and hip-hop artist making it big have to do with each other?  They have all sold out, at least according to the people who claim to have liked them before they got big.  I know so many people that have complained about not liking a certain band anymore because, they “sold out” and because they sold out their music is no longer good, even though not 5 minutes ago they loved the band.

Same can be said for vampires.  I remember being in middle school, and seeing a weird girl walking around reading a book about vampires.  She would be teased endlessly simply because she refused to do what everyone else was doing and decided to do what she wanted.  This girl is now my best friend.  In high school, I hung out with all the so-called weird kids, who yeah read about vampires, and were into other “weird things” like anime.  Not even 2 years later, twilight comes out, and vampires suddenly turn into all the rage.  My best friend, who read the books when they first came out and were not popular, simply refused to watch the movie, because it was too “mainstream”.  All those people that would laugh at whoever would read “those stupid books about vampires” were now the ones being consumed by all things vampire.

Once things go mainstream, people stop liking it, and move on to the next thing.  I can say that I loved vampires before they were mainstream, during the time they were mainstream(although not as much because having to hear how Edward was “omg so hot” if I even mentioned vampires was not worth it) and I will continue to love them after they fade out because they have always fascinated me.

At this moment, I can honestly say that there is too much vampire related things going around.  Twilight?  Sure one movie about a sparkling vampire.  When it first came out, I did not think that that many people would get into it.  Vampire diaries?  Ok now a movie and a TV show about vampires, that is cool.  True blood, the third underworld movie, countless books being advertised at every store, all the merchandise.  That is when the media started being oversaturated with vampires.  Even me, who I can honestly say used to love the twilight series, started resenting it a bit because everywhere I turned, it was vampire this, or vampire that.

I hope that in the coming months, or at least by the time all the twilight movies are out, the vampire craze dies down a bit.  I do not want to completely hate my favorite supernatural being.

Vampires- Where's the gay?

There has always been a severe lack of gay people in the mass culture, even now in 2010 when more people are becoming ok with homosexuality. Them being ok with gay people does not mean they are comfortable with having them portrayed on TV, or as something that is completely normal, which it is.  The millions of overtly religious old people in this country cause a lack of any sort of diversity in movies and television, with books being one of the only things that really doesn’t get censored anymore, except for in schools.

With that being said, there is an even bigger lack of gay people in the vampire subculture.  The only example that I have been able to find for gay vampires is in true blood, the vampire series that is on Showtime.  There are slightly more vampires that are lesbian.  Carmilla, a novella written by Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872 is the first literary example of lesbian vampires.  Lesbian vampire killers, a British comedy about killing lesbian vampires is the most recent example.  While their were probably other lesbian vampires throughout the years, they have probably only been put into the movies/TV shows to titillate men, since honestly, in most cases, that’s what lesbians in major TV shows or movies are used for.

There is a line that they straddle though.  They pretty up the male leads, making them look stereotypically androgynous or gay, and have them have a really close male best friend, but then pair them up with a hot girl.  This leads to subtext between both males, which is what gay people have had to make do with for forever.  In interview with a vampire, tom cruises character and brad Pitts character basically make a life together, at least for awhile.  The good thing about subtext is that you can find it in nearly everything.  In Underworld, between Selene the main character, and any female.  In Twilight, between Edward, and any male character.

This just really made me think that gay characters need to be more incorporated into the media.  I know it is hard enough to make a good female lead, without making her too whiny or dependent on a man, but if that can somewhat be accomplished, then so can a gay vampire!  Or a good lesbian vampire that is not used to lure men to watching whatever show or movie they are in. anything would be good, let’s bring two subcultures together, why not?  This way gay people who love vampires will not just have to depend on subtext.

Vampires For Everybody

In class a while ago, we talked about how most products in today’s market are targeted towards women while the men are the producers of these products.  Like Modleski said, production=male, and its active and rational while consumer=female, and are passive and emotive.  Basically, it is the gender roles that have been around forever that say that women are overly emotional.

Recently, the vampire books, such as the twilight series have definitely been aimed towards women, only difference being that a woman produced these books.  Actually, most of the series that have to do with vampires have been written by women as of late.  They could have done something to change the stereotype that women are super emotional and write books that don’t make the female characters weak and dependent on males, but they didn’t, instead deciding to keep doing what worked for all the male writers of the past vampire books.

Vampires in general are very much aimed towards women.  In general, or as of late, they are portrayed as sensitive, emotional, and misunderstood, giving into women’s desires for men like that in real life, the misunderstood bad boy who ends up being a supernatural being.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the only major shows with a female lead, Buffy Summers is shown as a strong, independent woman who kills vampires and other creatures with almost no help from others.  This show was very clearly aimed at females, and it was produced by a male, Joss Wheden.  While this show was good for making the woman a lead role, it still managed to give into women’s stereotypes and in the middle of the second season, made Buffy a mess when she fell in love with angel and he turned evil.

I have been talking about how women are always the consumers and men the producers, but that has changed somewhat as of late.  Blade, a movie about a guy who is half vampire half-human and kills vampires, is clearly aimed at men.  There is tons of action, and the lead is a strong male character who men aspire to be.  Underworld, while having a female lead, is still clearly aimed towards men, having hot girls in tight clothing and tons of strong male characters

Vampires Are Pop Culture

“Popular taste tends to ignore traces of authorial signature and focuses rather on generic convention…”

John Fiske, in our reading from Tuesday, states that the difference between aestheticism and popular taste is that popular taste is all about pleasures and what the mainstream wants to see while aestheticism is more based on the beauty of things and does not appeal to the mainstream, only to certain subcultures.

Vampires are and will always be popular taste. The movies and books have always been made to appeal to a wide audience, not just towards certain groups. There was a point in time when reading about vampires was considered uncool, but as a whole, it was still produced with the mass in mind.

In class, our professor gave us a list of words for both aestheticism and popular taste. Under aestheticism there was the word complexity, meaning that something requires knowing special knowledge beforehand to understand what’s going on. For vampires, complexity isn’t something that would be applied to them. The extent of the special knowledge that you would need to know, almost everyone knows beforehand. Everyone knows what a typical vampire is like- fangs, cant go in front of sunlight, garlic and holy water keeps them away. Even when the rules have been changes, like how Stephanie Meyer, who not only made her vampires have no fangs, but also made them sparkle in the sunlight instead of turning to dust. Even then, watching the first fifteen minutes of one of her movies, you would automatically realize what was going on.

Everyone loves vampires

That is due to the fact that, like I stated before, vampires are popular taste. They focus on the condition of consumption. That is why after twilight, and how big it was, other books, movies and TV shows to do with vampires came out with equal success. Basically if it hadn’t been for twilight being big, vampire diaries, true blood, and the thousands of books that came out afterwards wouldn’t have been popular like they are. As of now, we live in a vampire obsessed world, that I am a part of, and that with so much vampire related stuff coming out, millions of other people are a part of too.

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.