Literature Review #2
Citation
Knewitz, Simone. “God Hates Fangs? Mortality, Ideology, and the Domesticated Vampire”. Collision of Realities: Establishing Research on the Fantastic in Europe. Eds. Lars Schmeink and Astrid Boger. Boston and Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012. Print.
Summary
In this paper, the author looks at the way in which the vampire has evolved as a social creature in the past decades. In particular, the author looks at the television program “True Blood”, in which vampires have stopped drinking blood and rely instead on a synthetic type of blood, thus gaining access to the society. The author shows that by looking at vampirism, the show’s producers in fact tackle other issues concerning minority groups who struggle to fit in, and to be accepted as part of the society. The author argues that the film contains allusions to the issues concerning sexual minorities by presenting the problem of ‘vampire rights’.
Simone Knewitz is an assistant Professor within the Department of English, at the University of Bonn. She is interested, among others, in modernism/Modernity, Late –Nineteenth Century Fiction, Film, and New Media. So far, she has published several articles in books in which she pursued her different interests.
Key Terms and Concepts:
Otherness is the state of being different than the majority of the society, and seeming so aliens and out of place, that the society might fear or reject the persons perceived as “others”.
Reconciliation means ending the conflict between two races, vampires and humans, vampires and werewolves, or two groups of vampires.
The purity of vampires means the vampire who live as undomesticated others, or who have not reconciled with humans. They remain essentially predatory and thus, dangerous to human beings.
Quotes and meaning:
“Vampires are central to discussions of otherness because they “link racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism” (Knewitz 122).
Here, the author argues that the vampire figure has been used by authors to refer to any instances of otherness, and to encompass the members of the society who seemed not to fit in, or who inspired uncertainty, fear or otherness in those around them. From this point of view, the attitude towards vampires in films and books, or the way in which vampire narratives are constructed, also illustrates the society’s willingness, or readiness, to integrate minorities.
“However, in contemporary vampire culture, the representation of vampires changes in that “they no longer burst into flames or turn into dust if exposed to sunlight; garlic and crucifixes cannot scare them” (Knewitz 121).
This means that Vampires, whether evil or not, are not necessarily linked to religious concepts of evilness. This is perhaps because the viewers are not as religious as they used to be, and also because they would like to see and read about creatures that they can believe in, that seem realistic to them. These elements transform vampires into mythological creatures that do not answer the public’s need for creatures that could suspend their disbelief.
“ “Dracula was solitary, acting alone on his quest to take over the city of London” (Knewitz 243)
This shows that, unlike contemporary vampires, who live as members of a family, and may have friends, Dracula was isolated from the society and did not have any meaningful relations with other vampires and with humans
Questions
What kind of “other” is encompassed in the “Van Helsing” film?
What relationships do new vampires want to have with the rest of the society?
How does the appearance of the vampires suggests his state of “otherness” in books and films?
