Lynn Schofield Clark
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195300239
- eISBN:
- 9780199850525
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300239.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines religion's coding in the television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. It analyzes how these programs refer to organized religion and to the lore of vampires and how ...
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This chapter examines religion's coding in the television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. It analyzes how these programs refer to organized religion and to the lore of vampires and how they embrace a romantic notion about an individual's need for community and her capacity for transformation. It reviews four episodes and explains how the programs express a postmodern, relativistic approach to religious belief.Less
This chapter examines religion's coding in the television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. It analyzes how these programs refer to organized religion and to the lore of vampires and how they embrace a romantic notion about an individual's need for community and her capacity for transformation. It reviews four episodes and explains how the programs express a postmodern, relativistic approach to religious belief.
Dorothea Fischer-Hornung and Monika Mueller (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496804747
- eISBN:
- 9781496804785
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496804747.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The undead are very much alive in the contemporary cultural imaginary. Monsters in general, and vampires and zombies specifically, have garnered a generous amount of attention in print media, cinema, ...
More
The undead are very much alive in the contemporary cultural imaginary. Monsters in general, and vampires and zombies specifically, have garnered a generous amount of attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with its roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with its origins in Afro-Caribbean voodoo mythology, find multiple transformations in global culture and continue to function as deviant representatives of zeitgeist. As the authors in this volume demonstrate, the transspacial and transtemporal distributions of vampires and zombies have revealed the figures to be highly variable signifiers. Currently, of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the most trendy—the most humanly embodied of the undead and the most frequently paired monsters in the media and popular culture.Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretation in the context of contemporary cultural concerns. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler vampires and cruel, flesh-eating zombies. Further, they have simultaneously contracted and expanded gender, race and class roles, at once confirming and deconstructing these concepts. Although the portrayal of both vampires and zombies can be traced to specific regions and predates mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has served to significantly modify their depiction over time and in various locations. This volume—authored by scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds—explores some of these transformations the vampire and zombie figures experience when they travel globally and through various media.Less
The undead are very much alive in the contemporary cultural imaginary. Monsters in general, and vampires and zombies specifically, have garnered a generous amount of attention in print media, cinema, and on television. The vampire, with its roots in medieval European folklore, and the zombie, with its origins in Afro-Caribbean voodoo mythology, find multiple transformations in global culture and continue to function as deviant representatives of zeitgeist. As the authors in this volume demonstrate, the transspacial and transtemporal distributions of vampires and zombies have revealed the figures to be highly variable signifiers. Currently, of all monsters, vampires and zombies seem to be the most trendy—the most humanly embodied of the undead and the most frequently paired monsters in the media and popular culture.Moreover, both figures have experienced radical reinterpretation in the context of contemporary cultural concerns. If in the past vampires were evil, blood-sucking exploiters and zombies were brainless victims, they now have metamorphosed into kinder and gentler vampires and cruel, flesh-eating zombies. Further, they have simultaneously contracted and expanded gender, race and class roles, at once confirming and deconstructing these concepts. Although the portrayal of both vampires and zombies can be traced to specific regions and predates mass media, the introduction of mass distribution through film and game technologies has served to significantly modify their depiction over time and in various locations. This volume—authored by scholars from different national and cultural backgrounds—explores some of these transformations the vampire and zombie figures experience when they travel globally and through various media.
Roshanak Kheshti
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479867011
- eISBN:
- 9781479861125
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479867011.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Chapter 2 performs close readings of transcriptions of a nationally syndicated, travel themed radio show—to which Kinship Records president Jon Cohen was a regular contributor—and of the recent ...
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Chapter 2 performs close readings of transcriptions of a nationally syndicated, travel themed radio show—to which Kinship Records president Jon Cohen was a regular contributor—and of the recent popularity of the “Afro-Indie” genre, which is understood as those African-derived musics in U.S. indie rock. This chapter develops the concept of “aural imaginary” as that mechanism through which the aural other is instrumentalized in the constitution of a listening self not simply through appropriation but through incorporation into the subject. This chapter narrows in on sound’s capacity to materially structure social relations, formations, and actors. The WMCI, as represented in Kinship Records, has disassociated itself from the shunned and taboo practice of cultural appropriation and has assumed a new business model, described in this chapter as “aural incorporation.” Aural incorporation represents that means by which listeners structure racialized sounds to which they may have no birthright into their origin narratives laying claim to various musical traditions as their own. This chapter explores these various biopolitical tactics employed by the WMCI.Less
Chapter 2 performs close readings of transcriptions of a nationally syndicated, travel themed radio show—to which Kinship Records president Jon Cohen was a regular contributor—and of the recent popularity of the “Afro-Indie” genre, which is understood as those African-derived musics in U.S. indie rock. This chapter develops the concept of “aural imaginary” as that mechanism through which the aural other is instrumentalized in the constitution of a listening self not simply through appropriation but through incorporation into the subject. This chapter narrows in on sound’s capacity to materially structure social relations, formations, and actors. The WMCI, as represented in Kinship Records, has disassociated itself from the shunned and taboo practice of cultural appropriation and has assumed a new business model, described in this chapter as “aural incorporation.” Aural incorporation represents that means by which listeners structure racialized sounds to which they may have no birthright into their origin narratives laying claim to various musical traditions as their own. This chapter explores these various biopolitical tactics employed by the WMCI.
Christopher Bush
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195393828
- eISBN:
- 9780199866601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393828.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
The second chapter turns from writing-as-image to writing-as-inscription, focusing on Victor Segalen’s Stèles (1912), a prose poem collection that formally emulates the Chinese stone monuments from ...
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The second chapter turns from writing-as-image to writing-as-inscription, focusing on Victor Segalen’s Stèles (1912), a prose poem collection that formally emulates the Chinese stone monuments from which it takes its name. Segalen’s self-conscious and indeed programmatic negation of China into “China” provides both an example and an allegory of Western modernism’s overdetermined relationship to China as both a worldly, historical object of interest and a somehow nonexistent and effectively timeless source of forms. Segalen’s figurations of Chinese writing as inscriptional and essentially nonreferential suggest important general lessons about modernist uses of China as a source of formal innovation, specifically the ways in which these uses corresponded to a more general redefinition of the modernist relationship between “literature” and the death of intention.Less
The second chapter turns from writing-as-image to writing-as-inscription, focusing on Victor Segalen’s Stèles (1912), a prose poem collection that formally emulates the Chinese stone monuments from which it takes its name. Segalen’s self-conscious and indeed programmatic negation of China into “China” provides both an example and an allegory of Western modernism’s overdetermined relationship to China as both a worldly, historical object of interest and a somehow nonexistent and effectively timeless source of forms. Segalen’s figurations of Chinese writing as inscriptional and essentially nonreferential suggest important general lessons about modernist uses of China as a source of formal innovation, specifically the ways in which these uses corresponded to a more general redefinition of the modernist relationship between “literature” and the death of intention.
John Kerrigan
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184515
- eISBN:
- 9780191674280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184515.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Death is inevitable to every form of life. The slow decay of human flesh is gruesome, but nonetheless intriguing for most tragedy writers. The rituals surrounding burials add to the seduction of ...
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Death is inevitable to every form of life. The slow decay of human flesh is gruesome, but nonetheless intriguing for most tragedy writers. The rituals surrounding burials add to the seduction of death, with various cultures varying in their spiritual and religious rites. Folklore has a different lure, as a man's life defines his fate in the underworld, such that a murderer's final destination will differ from his victim's. Revenge is not uncommon in many of these tales. The chapter looks into early European mythology as well as the vampire cult as a model of works with content which was more or less connected to death. Writings about vampires have a special lure because of its night settings and the predator element contained therein.Less
Death is inevitable to every form of life. The slow decay of human flesh is gruesome, but nonetheless intriguing for most tragedy writers. The rituals surrounding burials add to the seduction of death, with various cultures varying in their spiritual and religious rites. Folklore has a different lure, as a man's life defines his fate in the underworld, such that a murderer's final destination will differ from his victim's. Revenge is not uncommon in many of these tales. The chapter looks into early European mythology as well as the vampire cult as a model of works with content which was more or less connected to death. Writings about vampires have a special lure because of its night settings and the predator element contained therein.
Stacey Abbott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748694907
- eISBN:
- 9781474426725
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694907.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Twenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellent; one seductive, the ...
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Twenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellent; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend, Daybreakers, and 28 Days Later, as well as television programmes like Angel, In the Flesh, and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease, and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the ‘reluctant’ vampire, this book shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.Less
Twenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellent; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend, Daybreakers, and 28 Days Later, as well as television programmes like Angel, In the Flesh, and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease, and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the ‘reluctant’ vampire, this book shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.
Dale Hudson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474423083
- eISBN:
- 9781474434768
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474423083.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book proposes that vampire films and series constitute a different way of understanding Hollywood and the United States. It explores the movement of transnational Hollywood’s representations of ...
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This book proposes that vampire films and series constitute a different way of understanding Hollywood and the United States. It explores the movement of transnational Hollywood’s representations of the vampire, between low-budget quickies and high-budget blockbusters and franchises, even as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas. Vampires allow us to refocus on Hollywood as plural, US history as transnational, and race as having afterlives. The book proposes three overlapping contributions: (1) reconfiguring Hollywood historiography and traditions as transnational in terms of film, television, and web production, distribution, and exhibition/transmission; (2) offering fresh interpretations of vampire film and television as a transgenre (rather than subgenre of horror) and transmedia site for political contestation; and (3) situating constructions of race in/and the United States as constitutive of nation. At the intersection of migration and commerce, vampire films and series are examined for the textual meaning of their stories, characters, styles, and performance and the political economies that determine their production, distribution, and exhibition.Less
This book proposes that vampire films and series constitute a different way of understanding Hollywood and the United States. It explores the movement of transnational Hollywood’s representations of the vampire, between low-budget quickies and high-budget blockbusters and franchises, even as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas. Vampires allow us to refocus on Hollywood as plural, US history as transnational, and race as having afterlives. The book proposes three overlapping contributions: (1) reconfiguring Hollywood historiography and traditions as transnational in terms of film, television, and web production, distribution, and exhibition/transmission; (2) offering fresh interpretations of vampire film and television as a transgenre (rather than subgenre of horror) and transmedia site for political contestation; and (3) situating constructions of race in/and the United States as constitutive of nation. At the intersection of migration and commerce, vampire films and series are examined for the textual meaning of their stories, characters, styles, and performance and the political economies that determine their production, distribution, and exhibition.
Chris Baldick
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122494
- eISBN:
- 9780191671432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122494.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The most vivid representation of the bourgeoisie's doomed state of possession by irresistible forces is to be found in Karl Marx's repeated images of capital as a vampire. After Friedrich Engels had ...
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The most vivid representation of the bourgeoisie's doomed state of possession by irresistible forces is to be found in Karl Marx's repeated images of capital as a vampire. After Friedrich Engels had referred to ‘the vampire property-holding class’ in The Condition of the Working Class in England, Marx adopted the image, developing the apparently gratuitous insult into a consistent element of his gothicized portrayal of the bourgeoisie's compulsive condition. Again, it is the inherent restlessness of the bourgeoisie, as the first great revolutionary class in history, which condemns it to a thirst that can never be quenched. The particular aptness of the vampire image is implied by Marx's term ‘living labour’, which contrasts with the dead (or ‘accumulated’) labour embodied in machinery and raw materials—in short, in capital itself, which thus appears as the rule of the dead over the living.Less
The most vivid representation of the bourgeoisie's doomed state of possession by irresistible forces is to be found in Karl Marx's repeated images of capital as a vampire. After Friedrich Engels had referred to ‘the vampire property-holding class’ in The Condition of the Working Class in England, Marx adopted the image, developing the apparently gratuitous insult into a consistent element of his gothicized portrayal of the bourgeoisie's compulsive condition. Again, it is the inherent restlessness of the bourgeoisie, as the first great revolutionary class in history, which condemns it to a thirst that can never be quenched. The particular aptness of the vampire image is implied by Marx's term ‘living labour’, which contrasts with the dead (or ‘accumulated’) labour embodied in machinery and raw materials—in short, in capital itself, which thus appears as the rule of the dead over the living.
Mollie Gregory
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166223
- eISBN:
- 9780813166759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166223.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter is all about high falls—backward and forward. Every fall is different, and the type of fall dictates the position of the airbag the stunt person falls into. Highlighted are stuntwomen ...
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This chapter is all about high falls—backward and forward. Every fall is different, and the type of fall dictates the position of the airbag the stunt person falls into. Highlighted are stuntwomen Sophia Crawford, who started out in Hong Kong doing wirework and later doubled Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as high-fallers Nancy Thurston, Leigh Hennessy, and Lisa Hoyle, who jumped off a ten-story building in Charlie’s Angels (2001). Also examined is the death of Sonja Davis in a backward fall off a building.Less
This chapter is all about high falls—backward and forward. Every fall is different, and the type of fall dictates the position of the airbag the stunt person falls into. Highlighted are stuntwomen Sophia Crawford, who started out in Hong Kong doing wirework and later doubled Sarah Michelle Gellar in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as high-fallers Nancy Thurston, Leigh Hennessy, and Lisa Hoyle, who jumped off a ten-story building in Charlie’s Angels (2001). Also examined is the death of Sonja Davis in a backward fall off a building.
Stacey Abbott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780748694907
- eISBN:
- 9781474426725
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748694907.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter offers a brief consideration of the role that the renewed popularity of the vampire and zombie plays within popular culture. Through consideration of the growing popularity of zombie ...
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This chapter offers a brief consideration of the role that the renewed popularity of the vampire and zombie plays within popular culture. Through consideration of the growing popularity of zombie walks, zombie runs, vampire fashion, vampire cosplay, this chapter argues that a fascination with the undead is a response to an unsettling cultural climate in which we are bombarded by the threat of annihilation but also serves as evidence of a cultural appropriation of this apocalyptic threat.Less
This chapter offers a brief consideration of the role that the renewed popularity of the vampire and zombie plays within popular culture. Through consideration of the growing popularity of zombie walks, zombie runs, vampire fashion, vampire cosplay, this chapter argues that a fascination with the undead is a response to an unsettling cultural climate in which we are bombarded by the threat of annihilation but also serves as evidence of a cultural appropriation of this apocalyptic threat.
Deborah Christie
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234462
- eISBN:
- 9780823241255
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234462.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Mythology and Folklore
This chapter traces the modern image of zombies back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novella, I Am Legend, and George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The chapter argues that because readers ...
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This chapter traces the modern image of zombies back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novella, I Am Legend, and George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The chapter argues that because readers and audiences most closely identify with the survivors of an apocalyptic event, they often miss the larger implications of such narratives. Within many apocalyptic narratives, such as a zombie apocalypse, there is a overlying message of violent, transformative renewal that asks us to question normative humanist categories. Matheson and Romero both pointedly direct our attention back on our own body politic and demonstrate humanity's inability to discern its own capacity for inhuman behaviour.Less
This chapter traces the modern image of zombies back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novella, I Am Legend, and George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The chapter argues that because readers and audiences most closely identify with the survivors of an apocalyptic event, they often miss the larger implications of such narratives. Within many apocalyptic narratives, such as a zombie apocalypse, there is a overlying message of violent, transformative renewal that asks us to question normative humanist categories. Matheson and Romero both pointedly direct our attention back on our own body politic and demonstrate humanity's inability to discern its own capacity for inhuman behaviour.
Jeffrey A. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604737141
- eISBN:
- 9781604737158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604737141.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This chapter focuses on some of the most influential predecessors of the modern action heroine: the strong female heroes of horror films described by Carol Clover as “Final Girls.” It looks at the ...
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This chapter focuses on some of the most influential predecessors of the modern action heroine: the strong female heroes of horror films described by Carol Clover as “Final Girls.” It looks at the vampire as a common enemy of action heroines, or as in the case of the Underworld and Bloodrayne films, the heroine as a vampire herself. Drawing on the association between vampires and action heroines, it explores how each character type functions as a symbol of alternative sexual fantasies. It argues that both the vampire and the action heroine are easily co-opted symbols of polymorphous sexuality that facilitates a range of erotic fantasies such as lesbian and sadomasochistic desires. It analyzes such iconic heroine series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess to demonstrate how the narratives depict both conventional and alternative sexual relations and how fans embrace them in alternative ways.Less
This chapter focuses on some of the most influential predecessors of the modern action heroine: the strong female heroes of horror films described by Carol Clover as “Final Girls.” It looks at the vampire as a common enemy of action heroines, or as in the case of the Underworld and Bloodrayne films, the heroine as a vampire herself. Drawing on the association between vampires and action heroines, it explores how each character type functions as a symbol of alternative sexual fantasies. It argues that both the vampire and the action heroine are easily co-opted symbols of polymorphous sexuality that facilitates a range of erotic fantasies such as lesbian and sadomasochistic desires. It analyzes such iconic heroine series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess to demonstrate how the narratives depict both conventional and alternative sexual relations and how fans embrace them in alternative ways.
Michael Hammond and Lucy Mazdon (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619009
- eISBN:
- 9780748671168
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619009.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This study of the contemporary prime-time ‘quality’ serial television format gives an account of prominent programmes such as 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, The Sopranos and The West Wing, and ...
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This study of the contemporary prime-time ‘quality’ serial television format gives an account of prominent programmes such as 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, The Sopranos and The West Wing, and explores their influential position within the television industry. Divided into the areas of history, aesthetics and reception, the text provides an overview of an increasingly hybrid television studies discipline. Chapters consider the formal and aesthetic elements in the contemporary television serial through approaches ranging from those concerned with issues of gender and sexuality, national identity and reception to industry history and textual analysis. The book also includes British examples of ‘quality’ serial television, emphasising not only their cultural specificity but also the transnational context in which these programmes operate.Less
This study of the contemporary prime-time ‘quality’ serial television format gives an account of prominent programmes such as 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, The Sopranos and The West Wing, and explores their influential position within the television industry. Divided into the areas of history, aesthetics and reception, the text provides an overview of an increasingly hybrid television studies discipline. Chapters consider the formal and aesthetic elements in the contemporary television serial through approaches ranging from those concerned with issues of gender and sexuality, national identity and reception to industry history and textual analysis. The book also includes British examples of ‘quality’ serial television, emphasising not only their cultural specificity but also the transnational context in which these programmes operate.
Carol Margaret Davison
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781784992699
- eISBN:
- 9781526124050
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784992699.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Taking as its point of focus E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a cinematic mise-en-abîme homage to, and a self-referential twenty-first century commentary on F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, ...
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Taking as its point of focus E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a cinematic mise-en-abîme homage to, and a self-referential twenty-first century commentary on F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, this essay examines vampire cinema as an emblem of ‘technological necromancy’ that mediates our ambivalent responses to modernity, its proliferating technologies, and death in the wake of the secularising Enlightenment whose driving ideal – rational empiricism – undermined long established Christian certainties about the existence and nature of a soul and an afterlife. This essay reads Shadow as a compelling and sedimented, twenty-first century meditation on the nefarious, desensitizing impact of our cultural addiction to visual technologies, in which the vampire is used to mirror its audience. Shadow is also assessed as an interrogation of the gender and racial politics of cinematic spectatorship – particularly the influence and impact of pornography and propaganda cinema.Less
Taking as its point of focus E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a cinematic mise-en-abîme homage to, and a self-referential twenty-first century commentary on F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, this essay examines vampire cinema as an emblem of ‘technological necromancy’ that mediates our ambivalent responses to modernity, its proliferating technologies, and death in the wake of the secularising Enlightenment whose driving ideal – rational empiricism – undermined long established Christian certainties about the existence and nature of a soul and an afterlife. This essay reads Shadow as a compelling and sedimented, twenty-first century meditation on the nefarious, desensitizing impact of our cultural addiction to visual technologies, in which the vampire is used to mirror its audience. Shadow is also assessed as an interrogation of the gender and racial politics of cinematic spectatorship – particularly the influence and impact of pornography and propaganda cinema.
Luise White
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520205406
- eISBN:
- 9780520918085
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520205406.003.0014
- Subject:
- Anthropology, European Cultural Anthropology
This chapter focuses on the issues of technology and labor in colonial East and Central Africa, examining imaginary events relevant to the colonization of East and Central Africa, focusing on the ...
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This chapter focuses on the issues of technology and labor in colonial East and Central Africa, examining imaginary events relevant to the colonization of East and Central Africa, focusing on the vampire metaphor. It explains that these vampires were the firemen in East Africa and game rangers in Central Africa. The chapter suggests that the study of colonial vampires is authentic because it involved writing about the colonial world with the images and idioms produced by the subjects themselves. It argues that these vampires are not simply generalized metaphor extraction and oppression, but that these images were told at specific times to specific people for specific reasons.Less
This chapter focuses on the issues of technology and labor in colonial East and Central Africa, examining imaginary events relevant to the colonization of East and Central Africa, focusing on the vampire metaphor. It explains that these vampires were the firemen in East Africa and game rangers in Central Africa. The chapter suggests that the study of colonial vampires is authentic because it involved writing about the colonial world with the images and idioms produced by the subjects themselves. It argues that these vampires are not simply generalized metaphor extraction and oppression, but that these images were told at specific times to specific people for specific reasons.
Phillip Cole
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748622009
- eISBN:
- 9780748671908
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622009.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter examines how communities can be mobilized through fear of the evil enemy. It examines the witch craze that took place in western Europe in the 16th/17th centuries, and at the less ...
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This chapter examines how communities can be mobilized through fear of the evil enemy. It examines the witch craze that took place in western Europe in the 16th/17th centuries, and at the less well-documented vampire epidemic that arose in eastern Europe in the 18th century. It takes it lead from Rousseau's view, that it was not important whether or not vampires existed – it was more important to understand how the idea of vampires was used to compete for power by the religious authorities.Less
This chapter examines how communities can be mobilized through fear of the evil enemy. It examines the witch craze that took place in western Europe in the 16th/17th centuries, and at the less well-documented vampire epidemic that arose in eastern Europe in the 18th century. It takes it lead from Rousseau's view, that it was not important whether or not vampires existed – it was more important to understand how the idea of vampires was used to compete for power by the religious authorities.
Roberta Pearson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619009
- eISBN:
- 9780748671168
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619009.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
By 2001, producer and programme had become inseparable; writers, agents and United Paramount Network's target demographic of younger viewers were said to be attracted not just by Buffy but by Joss ...
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By 2001, producer and programme had become inseparable; writers, agents and United Paramount Network's target demographic of younger viewers were said to be attracted not just by Buffy but by Joss Whedon's high-profile public image. The thirty years between the publication of Muriel Cantor's 1971 book, The Hollywood TV Producer: His Work and His Audience and UPN's acquisition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer saw fundamental changes in the television industry in the United States. Cantor's book was published during the height of three network dominance, a period that Michele Hilmes has dubbed the classic network system. When UPN acquired Buffy, the number of television networks had doubled from three to six, all of which struggled for ratings in a multi-channel, fragmented audience environment. The transformation of the industry resulted in the television writer-producer playing a much more prominent role in the industry than ever before.Less
By 2001, producer and programme had become inseparable; writers, agents and United Paramount Network's target demographic of younger viewers were said to be attracted not just by Buffy but by Joss Whedon's high-profile public image. The thirty years between the publication of Muriel Cantor's 1971 book, The Hollywood TV Producer: His Work and His Audience and UPN's acquisition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer saw fundamental changes in the television industry in the United States. Cantor's book was published during the height of three network dominance, a period that Michele Hilmes has dubbed the classic network system. When UPN acquired Buffy, the number of television networks had doubled from three to six, all of which struggled for ratings in a multi-channel, fragmented audience environment. The transformation of the industry resulted in the television writer-producer playing a much more prominent role in the industry than ever before.
Eric Freedman
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619009
- eISBN:
- 9780748671168
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619009.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
Contemporary Hollywood horror is frequently marked by its spatial relocation to the American landscape and its temporal relocation to the present and also focused on the ‘other’ within the nuclear ...
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Contemporary Hollywood horror is frequently marked by its spatial relocation to the American landscape and its temporal relocation to the present and also focused on the ‘other’ within the nuclear family and specific social groups, particularly teenagers. With the advent of cable and satellite broadcasting, the replaying of these tensions as postmodern pastiche in contemporary television programming has been a tactic taken on by a television industry regrouping to capture a teen marketplace. This chapter investigates this phenomenon by focusing on the Warner Brothers television network in order to link political economy to traditional studies of gender. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville exist within the broad conceptual terrain of genre and seriality. By ‘reading’ Buffy's body, among others, this chapter explores the manner in which the teen body is attached to a political economy whose values it serves to celebrate and promote, and considers the specific connection of this body to contemporary national consumer-goods advertising.Less
Contemporary Hollywood horror is frequently marked by its spatial relocation to the American landscape and its temporal relocation to the present and also focused on the ‘other’ within the nuclear family and specific social groups, particularly teenagers. With the advent of cable and satellite broadcasting, the replaying of these tensions as postmodern pastiche in contemporary television programming has been a tactic taken on by a television industry regrouping to capture a teen marketplace. This chapter investigates this phenomenon by focusing on the Warner Brothers television network in order to link political economy to traditional studies of gender. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville exist within the broad conceptual terrain of genre and seriality. By ‘reading’ Buffy's body, among others, this chapter explores the manner in which the teen body is attached to a political economy whose values it serves to celebrate and promote, and considers the specific connection of this body to contemporary national consumer-goods advertising.
Rob Latham
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226468914
- eISBN:
- 9780226467023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226467023.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter presents a more detailed critique of the monolithically negative view of consumption characteristic of Jean Baudrillard. It also explores the popular Fordist construction of “consuming ...
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This chapter presents a more detailed critique of the monolithically negative view of consumption characteristic of Jean Baudrillard. It also explores the popular Fordist construction of “consuming youth.” Youth culture becomes a prominent site of advertisement's social hegemony. It then proposes to deploy, dialectically, both metaphors of vampiric consumption — one foregrounding a controlling system, the other a voluntaristic self-fashioning — in the analysis of youth-culture vampire texts. It introduces Somtow Sucharitkul's science fiction novel Mallworld. This novel potently demonstrates the three meanings of consuming youth. Karl Marx's dialectical image of the vampire-cyborg remains a more compelling metaphor for youth consumption than either the vampire or the cyborg considered by themselves. Vampire Junction and The Lost Boys capture and express the dialectical dynamic of youth consumption.Less
This chapter presents a more detailed critique of the monolithically negative view of consumption characteristic of Jean Baudrillard. It also explores the popular Fordist construction of “consuming youth.” Youth culture becomes a prominent site of advertisement's social hegemony. It then proposes to deploy, dialectically, both metaphors of vampiric consumption — one foregrounding a controlling system, the other a voluntaristic self-fashioning — in the analysis of youth-culture vampire texts. It introduces Somtow Sucharitkul's science fiction novel Mallworld. This novel potently demonstrates the three meanings of consuming youth. Karl Marx's dialectical image of the vampire-cyborg remains a more compelling metaphor for youth consumption than either the vampire or the cyborg considered by themselves. Vampire Junction and The Lost Boys capture and express the dialectical dynamic of youth consumption.
Rob Latham
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226468914
- eISBN:
- 9780226467023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226467023.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter explores how the ideal Fordist image of youth consumption has been impacted by the socioeconomic realities of post-Fordism. It specifically looks at youth-consumer vampirism in the ...
More
This chapter explores how the ideal Fordist image of youth consumption has been impacted by the socioeconomic realities of post-Fordism. It specifically looks at youth-consumer vampirism in the 1970s. It is interesting to observe that George A. Romero's Martin emphatically depicts family relations as powerful constraints on vampiric freedom. It then considers how Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, like Martin, marked an epochal moment in the history of the youth-consumer vampire. Vampirism functions in the novel as a means of escape from a dull, yuppified existence. Suckers and The Judas Glass illustrate the yuppie vampire novel taking to heart a sharp critique of its consumerist ethos. The Bloodsucking Fiends displays the slacker vampire novel admitting, however grudgingly, its own implication in the values and pleasures of consumption. It shows the slacker vampire's undead perceptions activating the aesthetic richness latent in consumerist glitz.Less
This chapter explores how the ideal Fordist image of youth consumption has been impacted by the socioeconomic realities of post-Fordism. It specifically looks at youth-consumer vampirism in the 1970s. It is interesting to observe that George A. Romero's Martin emphatically depicts family relations as powerful constraints on vampiric freedom. It then considers how Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, like Martin, marked an epochal moment in the history of the youth-consumer vampire. Vampirism functions in the novel as a means of escape from a dull, yuppified existence. Suckers and The Judas Glass illustrate the yuppie vampire novel taking to heart a sharp critique of its consumerist ethos. The Bloodsucking Fiends displays the slacker vampire novel admitting, however grudgingly, its own implication in the values and pleasures of consumption. It shows the slacker vampire's undead perceptions activating the aesthetic richness latent in consumerist glitz.
