Other "metaphorical" ideas to work with, vampire-wise: in symbolizing the aristocracy/old guard, they represent the ultimate in bourgeois society -- those who live off the poor and the land and feel they have a divine right to do so.
This can also represent free will, unchecked, the ultimate in selfishness ... Lestat, especially in Interview with the Vampire, is a great example of this idea of the Old World ... heartless, cruel, based on class and outmoded assumptions about the world. The premise that these "ways" do not or should not exist any more very American way of seeing the world, symbolized by Louie -- open, communicative, feeling, willing to move with the world, etc.
BUT are the vampires in any of these stories the protagonist or the antagonist?
Oftentimes, they are the anti-hero, whose complexity lends itself so much to the story and the longevity of these archetypes. Of course, we can relate to and with them, or else we would not be so fascinated...
1.) Straight up evil doers. like Stoker's Dracula and Murnau's Nosferatu, are strictly to be feared and reviled.
2.) Bela Lugosi infused some glamour into the role (I need to watch this movie from start to finish).
3.) Coppolla/Oldman's Dracula is indisputably the star of the film -- the audience is made to sympathize with him and his plight/story arc from the first frame.
How did this happen? What changed in art and society and politics that this "same" text could be reworked in such a radical way?
From what I can tell, there are a few major Vampire phases in the 20th century.
1.) Dracula (1900's - 1940's)
2.) Hammer Horror (of which I know nothing) (1950's - 1960's)
3.) Anne Rice's the Vampire Chronicles (1970's - 1980's)
4.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (1990's +)
Where Rice took the trend towards identification with the vampire and wrote from the vampires' perspective directly , Joss Whedon and the Buffy team took the story back to its traditional roots and made vampires faceless horrors yet again.
Except Spike, but more about that later.
So much of the richness of Rice's work lies in its moral ambiguity and relativism; that's some deep -- though still exploitative -- shit going on under those glamorous veneers.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, however, is very much a teen drama, and serves that purpose exceedingly well, looking at the world through the adolescent perspective of good versus evil. The characters have real-world struggles at school, with the family, in relationships, and often times the horror plots are used as illustrations of these situations -- working as a team is better than fighting alone, keeping secrets hurts everyone, discipline and hard work will allow you to achieve your goals -- which I know I found very encouraging as a college student watching Buffy.
This series, however, is a different animal from the majority of other works we will be exploring -- and in large part as well because of its very nature as a television program. The WB network aired 144 episodes of Buffy, which at 45 minutes of actual "show" is ... um ... 6480 minutes of Buffy! That's 108 solid hours of writing and plot development...
This does bring up the idea that the ol' podcasting medium is perfect to use as a tool for exploration ... how can different formats (television, novels, films, especially) affect our response to these texts.
That's a loaded question.
Coffee break time.
Love,
R.x
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