BITE!

The Vampire Culture

by Ichu Isla-Arcan

1 BAPTISM OF FANGS

I cannot remember when my fascination for vampires started but I know it was way too younger
than those teenies who swoon over Edward and Bella.

My mom was a huge fan of Christopher Lee who had the most number of vampire movies to his
name. So apart from watching a lot of LVN and Sampaguita Pictures movies, we would watch all
vampire movies especially on weekends.

As I grew older, my fondness for the fanged monsters grew more and more. I started my own
researches which proved to be tedious because I had to browse through books in the library,
technology was quite far from the universe back then. My library cards were always full, back to
back at that, borrowing books about this creature. It was then that I learned that his origin, or so
some people thought, came from a bloody count from Europe (where Dracula Untold was based).
However, the cinematic vampires, those which we have seen in movies and even on TV were
from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Vampire films have been a fixture in cinemas since the age of silent movies and have strongly
influenced our own interpretations of the vampire in popular culture. To date, the most popular
vampire in the movies is Count Dracula, which apart from being based in the novel Dracula by
Bram Stoker, was also loosely based on the story of Count Vlad Drakul.

A great number of movies have been filmed for decades depicting the evil count, some are even
considered as the greatest depiction of vampires on films. There are over 200 representations of
the vampire, making him the most frequently portrayed character in horror films.
(Miller, F. 2009 The celluloid vampire. Retrieved from
http://www.vampirefilmfestival.com/Vampire_Film_History)

Over the years, the character of a vampire, even Dracula for that matter, has evolved, adapting
to changes in the times as well as in the demands of the audience. While vampire movies before
where targeting mature and adult audiences, they have now arrived at an age when such films
are accepted, in fact, craved for by a younger audience. Why? Because it stirs the imagination of
viewers as to the veracity of the facts about vampires and the wonder of its mystery as immortal
(and how is it so?).

Studies have been conducted and even a careful study of Stoker's novel disproved a lot of myths
which were formerly believed by so many.

2 METAMORPHED
Are Vampires Real?

This is the perennial question everyone poses for every vampire novel written and every vampire
movie made. And if it is indeed true, what are they like? How are they made? How do they look?
How do we kill them? Are they really immortals? Are they shape-shifters? Why do they say that
vampires make the most exciting love-making there is with a virgin?

Those were, indeed, the motivating factors (questions) audiences love to subscribe to vampire
movies and films.

Studies have proven, however, that our common knowledge about vampires is untrue, or
maybe partially untrue. An example of which is that people think that vampires are really
photosensitive and are afraid of the sun because they will perish under direct hit.
As in any story handed from generation to generation, facts are changed, even twisted, to suit
the atmosphere that the storyteller wishes to achieve. Some may consider the story
preposterous that in order for the storyteller to catch the attention of the audience, he has to
create a new drama for vampires. REINVENT him, titillate the imagination of the audience so that
they will stop and listen, and even be attentive to every detail the storyteller wishes to convey.
Eventually his story becomes gossip and of course, becomes other people's story, due to the
impact of memory recall the story has inculcated.

3 BLOODY CULTURE
In the modern times, vampires have been incessantly visible in all forms of media. Vampires have
recently established an extremely noticeable space in popular culture. People nowadays drown
in heaps of book series, television shows, films, and more that are inundating popular culture
with the vampire. There are vampire character portrayals deep in the annals of cinema that have
made their own significant appearances or at least made their characterization different from
the last appearance.

The most important question which a serious research may answer concerns how and why the
modern vampire has contributed to the recent explosion in popularity of vampire fiction. The
fanged monster has created an identity, far from its other undead counterparts and this may be
explained employing various theories in media and culture:

3.1 THE DIVINE IRREFERENCE OF IMAGES

In Baudrillard’s essay, he described the simplest distinction between simulation and

dissimulation, where the former speaks of absence while the latter of presence. Pretending, or
dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply
masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the “true” and the “false,” the
“real” and the “imaginary.”
The fiction known as vampire had started some sort of a diversion for many people, a means of
forgetting current economic conditions or probably even a “fall guy” for the deterioration of
man’s living conditions.

Studies conducted previously have described vampires as a hidden influence in the rise/downfall
of empires, an analogous situation describing an embodiment of the disintegration and collapse
of an era making way for a new millennium.

3.2 POSTMODERNISM OR THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM

Though postmodernism is most evident in architecture, Jameson’s essay had mentioned the
aesthetic merging of both culture and period. I think in constructing something new, a
deconstruction of the old is imminent.

In the cinematic evolution of vampires, these creatures have been reinvented and re-dressed to
suit the times and economic conditions. Having followed the HBO series, True Blood which
actually showed a cacophony of vampires and shape-shifters, I can say that producers have
created newer and “updated” versions of these monsters. While in the Victorian era they wore
ruffles and petticoats, vampires nowadays adapt and adopt the present culture, making them
wear clothes common to young people, thereby easier to blend in and become unnoticeable.
This, I think, is the main reason why the new generation swoon over instead of run away from
Edward Cullen.

3.3 THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

While globalization may initially mean westernization, influences coming from the western
regions, localization remains to have an impact in terms of media and culture. In globalizing issues
affecting the people where everything becomes cultural mélange, there seem to be great effort
in retaining the local identity.
Here in the Philippines, mythology and folklore hold deep in its realm, its own version of vampire,
under our aswangs and manananggals which are both fanged and fresh blood suckers. While
we try to employ technology in showing their immense dark powers especially in luring victims,
movies remain to have a touch of nativeness in its portrayals. They are sometimes portrayed as
shape-shifters but eventually they become our usual aswangs.

Other countries and regions all over the world have their own versions or counterparts of
vampires which may follow different cultural storytelling yet retain the blood sucking and the
fangs. This only shows that globalization = glocalization.

3.4 THE PROCESSES: FROM NATIONALISM TO TRANSNATIONALISM

Contrary to the point of Sreberny-Mohammadi, Martin-Barbero would like to point us to the fact
that in trying to maintain our nationalism, we start merging with various cultures, creating yet
another version of vampires.

In their efforts to retain the original and native look of their respective vampire creatures, they
are also shaped by the current trends and appearances which globalizes them. Vampires which
originally have pale and translucent skin, fangs and thirst for blood may now show different
physical attributes and supernatural abilities which changes the way technology changes.

Further, the changes have become apparent and noticeable. Based on Martin-Barbero’s essay,
this shows the phenomenon called massification where everyone is involved in holding on to its
identity yet adopting newer norms to conform with trends and developments.
3.5 GLOBALIZATION AS HYBRIDIZATION

Among the several dimensions of hybridity that Pieterse mentioned, I would like to relate the
vampire phenomenon to experience of time, where there is an evident co-existence and
interspersion of pre-modernity, modernity and post modernity.

In the context of vampires, cultural globalization is involving human integration and hybridization,
arguing that it is possible to detect cultural mixing across continents and regions going back many
centuries. In literature, Anne Rice’s Lestat evolved into different personalities, from feudal lord
to a rock star. Their cinematic counterparts included Tom Cruise and Stuart Townsend, both
giving a different breath to Lestat’s life.

4 WOODEN STAKE

In the framework of cultural globalization, the transmission of ideas, meanings and values around
the world intensifies social relations. Using this as basis, the global phenomenon known as
vampires establishes an extreme visibility in the rise and fall of empires, dynasties and siglos. The
effect of vampires in the society is so huge that there exists a global mélange affecting media.
Vampires nowadays appear in book and TV series as well as films. Trying to stop this will only
further the curiosity of the multitude which will eventually pour over the brim and deepen clamor
for the fanged-fiction. Reel or real, the desire to satisfy the hunger for fresh blood will remain far
beyond my own time.