AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #38)

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!”

Charles Dickens

AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #37)

AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #40)

"It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements.... I call 'monster' every original, inexhaustible beauty."
Alfred Jarry

AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #36)

AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #35)

TWILIGHT WEEK

Reading: Latham, “Youth Fetishism: The Lost Boys Cruise Mallworld”; Edwards, “Good Looks and Sex Symbols: The Power of the Gaze and the Displacement of the Erotic in Twilight”


The Vampire is big in popular culture today. Twilight and True Blood are more than giving the zombies a run for their money. And when a film genre or trope catches a popular wave, I believe it means something. Zombies and vampires are bigger than ever before in popular culture but not for the same reasons. Sticking to images of youth and vampires per our class parameters, I would like to take some time and explore potential meanings. Why do we love the beautiful sexy vampires so much that True Blood and Twilight can rule the worlds of cinema and television all at the same time. Despite this week’s academic articles, I would argue that the reasons have very little to do with capitalist theory or the Mormon religion. A few other elephants in the room are likely much better justification for the popularity of this genre and these entertainments.

The Edwards article makes some very interesting observations about the significance of the glance in high school culture, and its ability to destroy and categorize the creatures of high school culture. He/she is right that the film does a brilliant job of capturing this key element to the Twilight novels. And, it is even interesting that the author’s Mormonism informs the erotic dance of abstinence that is our character’s main struggle. The denial of sex, whether actual or as in Twilight represented by the vampire’s potential bite, is erotically charged and, ironically actually draws greater attention to the desire left unmet. Good strategy, good moviemaking and interesting stuff – but it’s not really getting to the heart of the appeal of the films, though it does dance around it a bit.

“Youth Fetishism: The Lost Boys Cruise Mallworld,” by Latham is a horse of an entirely different color. Basically, it argues – in a much more confused and qualified manner -- that vampires and cyborgs are metaphoric representations of the capitalistic economic world feasting on the misled and abused workers of the world. The case he makes is complex and ideological and seems to rest on unidentified and unproven ground. It’s like a dedicated Marxist stumbled into a film department in the academy and tried to figure out what to do with himself. Marx mentioned a vampire metaphor at one point, so our author is off and running with theory as reality. I kept thinking of the film, “Being There,” with “Peter Sellers,” and wondered if I was being tested. Academic Hidden Camera, anyone!?!

I don’t mean to be dismissive, perhaps everything he says is true and our attraction the vampire actually does have something to do with consumerism and misplaced erotic consumerist desire or something like that. Really though? Can’t we come up with some reasons for the vampire’s appeal that are a bit more down to earth? Especially as we study images of youth, I can’t really imagine why it’s necessary to throw Karl Marx into the mix of explaining why we so desire The Vampire Lestat, Edward and Bella, and the entire cast of the sex-drenched True Blood.

I guess I’m just going to come right out and say it. We want to have sex with these beautiful young creatures – and – we’d like to live forever. Our puritan based society also has a deep-seated fear of uncontrolled sexuality, and the vampire represents a safe but scary look at that chained beast. We love Edward and Bella because we want to be them. What man does not desire Kristen Stewart? And why do you think that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise (and the sexy then-child Kirsten Dunst) were cast in 1994’s Interview With The Vampire? The modern vampire is all about sex and desire and eternal life – and don’t we all want eternal love and eternal life? Karl Marx anyone?

Is our culture particularly obsessed with staying fit and youthful and desirable? Our friend Edward Cullen gets to stay beautiful and seventeen forever. Isn’t that exactly what plastic surgery and workout regimens and skin cream are all about? When someone is wealthy and powerful, like the actor Michael Douglas for example, what does he do as he gets old? Well, Michael Douglas dumped his long-time age appropriate wife, got plastic surgery to look younger, and married a very young up and coming actress and started a new family. C’mon, this is not rocket science, and Michael Douglas is, in fact, starting to look like a vampire.

Vampires are an erotic jolt that scare us and attract us all at the same time, while messing with our deep-seated fear of death and obsolescence. You mean I really could perhaps live forever and even have sex with Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst and maybe even Brad Pitt as a bonus? Sounds like fun, and blood to boot. Cringe inducing and emotion-inspiring all at once. Monsters… and monsters, that touch some of our most primal emotions. AND, intense sexuality without pornography even!

We can make vampires a metaphor for a lot of things, for certain, but their twenty-first century Kunstwollen appeal is likely much easier to explain.

Todd Rongstad

AMERICAN RUNESCAPES (CHILDSCAPES #34)