‘Imaginary worlds teach us how to interpret the real world.’ Do you agree with this view of fictions?

Fictions can represent many ideologies of society which reflect and tell us about the culture we indulge in. A very key genre of fiction which plays this role is the genre of Vampire movies, which have many aspects that subconsciously represent our society and help us to interpret our world.

It can be seen that vampire fictions reflect the fears of our society, allowing us to engage and understand the issue through the movie being an accessible cultural product. It is a dominant ideology of many vampire critics and theorists such as Paul Wells that this is a role of the vampire genre, with Wells highlighting societal issues through the decades and their relation to the vampire genre. A very prevalent fear within todays western culture is technology, or perhaps the idea of not having technology as it has become such a large cultural ‘need’, and this fear is arguable reflected in the movie ‘Thirty Days of Night’. With one of the first scenes of the movie being a pile of burnt mobile phones, it is fairly obvious that this is intended to reflect the growing fear of our generation. Another scene then shows the power in the small Alaskan village the movie is set in being cut off, again highlighting the fear of isolation in a society lacking technology. The role of this subconscious fear is to allow the viewer to interpret and analyse the fear within the comfort of their own home, allowing them to explore it comfortably and in depth through a valued cultural product.

Vampire fictions also are said to represent ‘the other’ in society in many ways through the movies. Edwards Said’s theory of the ‘The Other’ can be interpreted in many vampire movies, as the main character (as well as many other characters) are seen as outsiders in society that do not comply to the norms of the culture in the area or time the movie is based. The Lost Boys is a 1980’s vampire film that plays on this theory with many different characters. The vampires themselves are seen as ‘the other’, for being vampires that do not relate to anyone culturally, and the fact that their natural teenage identity is not valued highly in the society that was prevalent in the 80’s. The role of the single mother in The Lost Boys also represents single mothers as the ‘other’ in society, reflecting the revulsion of divorce in the time the movie is set in. Even though the mother is a valued character as she is seen as a protagonist early in the film, she is also displayed as an outsider who the audience grow to, highlighting the social taboo of divorce and single motherhood and therefore allowing the audience to interpret this issue.

There are arguably many feminist ideologies represented within vampire fictions, both old and modern. Back in the Victorian era, the original ‘Dracula’ was successful in metaphorically representing the fear of ‘sexualisation’ during the time. The original ‘Dracula’ eroticised the women featured, and when using them as the ‘victims’ their conventional death consisted of “almost orgasmic screeching, twisting and quivering”, said by theorist Jerome Monahan. It can be argued that although this is the case for earlier and more traditional vampire movies, during the years the genre has adapted to feminist ideologies, resulting in the modern day representation of the female in movies like ‘Thirty Days of Night’. The first step in the confronting of female sexualisation in vampire fictions comes in The Lost Boys, where there are 2 main female characters. The first, previously mentioned is the single mother, who is positively represented as a protagonist, is not sexualised or objectified, although she does feel like she has to rely on a man. This representation of her reflects the present ideology that women ‘need’ a man to fit in with societal norms. Star is the second female character who is definitely signified as a sexual teenager and also the conventional ‘damsel in distress’. The first scene in which she is featured consists of her being flirtatious with the main character Michael, trying to ‘tempt him in’ to her group and the life of a vampire. The attitude of this scene thematically represents Star as an object of desire. Her sexual nature throughout the movie is of that described by the Male Gaze, as she is wearing ‘skimpy’ clothing and ultimately flirting with the main male character in an objectifying way, which is stated by Naomi Wolf to be a scene in which Star is seen from the male audiences/creators’ perspective.  The most modern portrayal of the female character is Stella from the movie Thirty Days of Night. She also is seen as the protagonist, and is sexualised in no way whatsoever. She doesn’t take on the conventional role of a female and reflects the more equal society we live in or should be living in today. In the movie, her job role is a Sheriff in her home town, and she acts as the main protagonist, coinciding with the other Sheriff, Eban. The end of the movie results in her being the one of the only female characters to survive the vampire attack, and shows the majority of people being killed being male. This is a very post-modern twist on the female image created by vampire fictions, and proves that over time, the genre has adapted and adhered to the issues of feminism and helps us to interpret the issue in the ever-changing world that we live in.

Vampire fictions are also a way to remind us what is lost in our society. They are questionably a way of symbolising important ideologies maybe forgotten in today’s post-modern world. Using popular culture has always been a successful way to communicate a message to an audience, such as the growing use of social media now being becoming a norm, and the popular-cultural music that is being exposed to us. Vampire fictions do just this, mixing the role of film and the popular culture within the vampire genre to communicate a message. The Twilight Saga, a series of modern vampire movies based on the books written by Stephanie Meyer, create a new mode of address in communicating lost religious ideologies perhaps important for today’s society. Opposing the previous nature of films such as Bram Stokers’ Dracula, the original Twilight series symbolises the high cultural ideology of ‘no sex before marriage’, and very cleverly does this by making the vampire the character who shows signs of chastity, not the ‘virgin female’ traditionally shown in fictions of this genre. The thematic narrative of love and desire is still present in the series, but is not acted upon by choice of the vampire, making the movies very unconventional and controversial. This ideology carried by the vampire has a religious context, perhaps representing the death of religion in our western culture. Taken from the documentary ‘Vampires: Why they Bite’, the quote “the vampire myth allows us to explore to unsayable”, fits the reflection of the Twilight Saga in that religion has been a taboo subject and a very controversial one for many years, but with it being used as a message in popular culture, the vampire genre has now allowed us to explore it without it being labelled as a taboo.

Vampire fictions and all other fictions are agreeably used within the film industry for representational purposes. They demonstrate to the audience the thematic narratives and cultural issues that our society and the people within it perhaps experience. The issues faced within vampire fictions can be looked upon in regards to metaphors, symbolising the good and bad within us and our society, and reflecting the ideologies known by many in such a way that they are challenged and confronted.