How the objects of political otherness and identity are portrayed in the movies Twilight 2009 and Salem’s Lot 1979
Introduction
Two seemingly similar movies, both bestseller adaptations, both placed in small town America, both dealing with the discovery of vampires living among us. Separated by three decades, these movies should follow similar paths in terms of character choice and plot line. These, movies should be about good fighting evil and good old American family values, yet these movies are very different.
On the one hand, we have Salem’s Lot (1979) which takes place in a fictional town called Jerusalem’s Lot. The plot revolves around a small American town that is slowly infested with vampires. The focus is primarily on visual scares, atmosphere, and tension. In keeping with legend and folklore, the vampires are portrayed as monstrous and repulsive.
On the other hand, we have Twilight (2008) that takes place in a town called Forks. This movie focuses on the development of a personal relationship between human teenager Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen, and the subsequent efforts of Edward Cullen and his family to keep Bella Swan safe from a separate group of hostile vampires. The Cullen vampires are uncharacteristic types of vampires who do not conform to traditional legend and folklore.
Now, naturally the two movies are different, but what stand out are two distinct differences between the movies that I want to focus on in this paper. The first is what happened that made the monstrous and repulsive vampires (others) in Salem’s Lot (1979) suddenly turn into love interests and protectors in Twilight (2008). The second is what has changed in how we see ourselves – our identity that caused such a shift in how the characters and the plots evolved. This exploration will look into ways to justify, among others, the transition that we see from a strong male character-leading role as the human protagonist in Salem’s Lot (1979), to a young (fragile) female protagonist in Twilight (2008) 30 years later.
The actual analysis will look into understanding the changes between these movies based on two distinct directions, political otherness and identity. From the political otherness perspective, I will look into the political climates in both of these decades to see the political influences that structured how otherness is perceived. In terms of identity, I will look in how popular culture is influenced by the audience it wants to target and the affect this has on character choice. More specifically, how the leading role has changed to accommodate an identity shift that represents of the target audience of the movie.
The choice of periods (the 1970’s and 2000’s) was not random. Rather it was based on an empirical analysis of trends and activity since the beginning of cinema, based on information in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) which is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows etc.
As a benchmark for analyzing the differences, I wanted to concentrate on two films that have rich points of similarity. Many vampire films deal with the futuristic and obscure; Blade (1998) or with subculture; Ganja & Hess (1973) or take place in fantastic settings; Vampire Whores from Outer Space (2005) that would make it more difficult to make a direct correlation to each movies social and political climate. Also, many movies take place in the past or deal specifically with the Dracula character and would therefore not provide enough to make a clear-cut comparison between the movies. In Addition, Dracula is in itself a part of cultural history and has perceivably taken on an identity of his own that may or may not reflect the ideas and ideals that this paper focuses on.
To reflect that this is a comparative paper, the primary objective was to find two films that have the most in common in terms of plot and contemporariness.
Nevertheless, before diving into the actual analysis, it is important to understand the data and rational behind the movie choice.
Fluctuations in Movie Production
The following information describes the empirical data used as a basis for choosing the movies on which to perform a comparative analysis. The assumption was to find some kind of statistical indicator that can lead to choosing on which two decades to focus.
The information gathering process relied entirely on information stored in the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). The information collection process entailed running an all-inclusive search for the terms Vampire and Dracula. The results that also included character names, video games, and TV shows were sorted and collated by decade. The actual raw data is in an appendix to this paper titled Appendix 1.
The results are quite interesting and indicative of a very clear trend in movie production. If you take into consideration the fact that the movie industry has become more prolific in producing films due to increased popularity and advancements that make creating movies easier, you will notice an exponential increase in the amount of movies released. However, a more in-depth look into the information leads to two (2) periods that show a spike in the amount of movies release, the 1970’s and again in the 2000’s. These peaks in movie releases for that genre were what triggered the choice in using creations from these decades. There was an additional noticeable peak in the 1990’s however, because the growth in the 2000’s was so profound (almost 100%) it was evident that I would find more interesting discussion points in this decade.
The following diagram (below) shows the amount of movies produced by decade. The two decades that stood out have been highlighted:
Released movies by decade
As we can see, over the years, the popularity of vampire movies has fluctuated. The advent of Vampire movies in cinema heralded a promising future for the genre with over 27 movies made in that decade. However, the proceeding three decades showed a disappointing decrease in vampire movie production, yielding an average of 5.5 movies belonging to the vampire genre per decade.
A major reason behind this decrease in movie production can be attributed to political turmoil generated by a post World War II global society. As researcher Holt (2002) explains, in this period the unknown was a far more terrifying prospect them some castle in Transylvania being that introspect was out and exploration of science and space was a more popular topic. “…positioning of terror in space , the atomic age and the cold war as these settings appeared far more terrifying to American audiences than Transylvanian castles …” (Holte, 2002 pp. 77-81) As it is obvious from this quote, movie audiences at that time were not prepared or disinterested about to see movies dealing with vampires.
Only in the 1960’s can we observe a quantifiable increase in the release of vampire movies mainly, according to Holte (2002) due to the increased popularity of Hammer Films which “…reflect the rise of consumerism and reestablishing prewar order…” (Holte, 2002 pp. 77-81). As the Hammer industry succeeded in making vampire movies albeit horror films very popular in the 1960’s it once again became a viable commodity starting with The curse of Frankinstein (1957) (Weaver, et al., 1996 pp. 34-35).
The peak of vampire film production was reached in the 1970’s with a record 81 movies produced in that decade, a higher count by far that in the preceding years, again as an affect of postwar reestablishment and mainly due to the prolific work of the Hammer House of Horror. For this reason, the film Salem’s Lot (1979) was chosen as it represents the peak in that time in vampire film production.
Additional reinforcement to the selection comes with the sudden decline in the popularity of vampire films in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Even though in numbers (59 in the 1980’s and 125 in the 1990’s) it seems that much more than were produced than in earlier decades, when taking into consideration the advancements in technology and the popularity of other media such as TV and video, this is a small increase for that time. Only in the 2000’s do we see a major increase with almost double, to that of the previous decade. As to why the sudden increase in the year 2000, this can also be explained from a political aspect. This is the decade when again war and terrorism make a more discernable appearance, causing political turmoil that caused this raise in vampire movie production. According to Gomez (2009) “…from 2002 onwards, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, 7/7 and 3/11, and after a somewhat listless periods both in artistic terms and from the standpoint of international production and renown, the fantastic sub-genres, particularly horror and science fiction films, have gained importance in British cinema as vehicles for reflection on the social panic that these traumatic tragedies have produced.” (Gomez, 2009 p. 1).
This decade represents the raise of new fears, and is expressed in the direct correlation between our fears and the production of vampire films. This is the reason behind the selection of Twilight (2008) as it represents the second peak in vampire film production.
Points of Similarity between the Movies
To refine the choice of movies after selecting the decades, the following section attempts to describe the main similarities that present a basis on which further analysis of key differences can be made, and the initial points of similarity and difference that I was looking for.
Points of Similarity
As mentioned earlier, one of the most important points for me was to find two movies from different decades that have a similar narrative and multiple points of similarity. This will help to provide a comparison attuned to focusing on the underlying influences of otherness and identity rather than being sidetracked by stretching a comparison over two movies that do not have any clear-cut points of similarity.
Inception:
Salem’s Lot (1979) and Twilight (2008) were both bestselling books before being adapted into a movie. The fact that they were also published in the same decades as the movies were released (Salem’s Lot in 1975 and Twilight in 2005) provides yet another justification to the fact that these works can be used to provide an accurate reflection into the state of society in these decades.
Setting:
A setting has a strong link to creating not only cinematic tension, but it is also a way of conveying normality as a means to generate a level of audience identification with the situation. This creates an environment where, the viewer can believe that this could happen where they live.
According to (Wood, 1976 pp. 195-220) there is a series of general propositions about the horror film. One of these propositions being, what he refers to as the “basic formula”. A key factor of this formula is normality. The setting created in these films was one of intense, clearly intentional, normality. In a movie that was primarily targeted towards an American audience, the setting has an unequivocal connection to how the movie will be accepted.
Both of the movies being discussed take place in run-of-the-mill rural America. Jerusalem’s Lot, Cumberland County, Maine (A.K.A Jerusalem’s Lot which is a fictional town that is supposed to be in Maine) and Forks (A real location). Both towns are very similar in the fact that they are regular small towns in which nothing much ever happens in them. Although one not always imagines the U.S. as a place of lush greenery, in both movies they made it a point to feature the woods. In Salem’s lot we see the woods at night when the little boys are chased and one of them is kidnapped and in Twilight the vast woods of that area are featured throughout the movie in numerous scenes including the romantic interludes between Edward and Bella, the setting where the Cullen’s house is located and the encounters with the band of vagrant vampires.
Plot:
Trying to make a comparison between two movies just based on the fact that they feature a vampire in them would, in my opinion would have a lesser effect then two similar movies. Let’s take as an example the two movies Dracula Bites the Big Apple (1979) where a Vampire immigrates to the US from Transylvania against Interview with the Vampire (1994) which deals primarily in relationships between vampires and not between vampires and people. In order to make a comparison between these two films, we would have to tackle additional issues as the plots of these two movies do not have any strict lines of correlation.
A simple and almost similar high-level plot line provides a unique opportunity to look past the differences in narrative, and concentrate on the forces that modeled these two movies. Basically, in terms of plot, we are dealing with a person returning to a town where they lived in the past only to discover that there are Vampires. In addition, both plots take place primarily in and around the town i.e. in a confined and structured area.
Leading Role:
Both protagonists are people who grew up in the town, left, and returned to the town years later. In Twilight (2008), Bella a young High school girl who was born in the town and then went away after the divorce of her parents (the dissolution of the family cell), returns to live with her father while her mother marries a new man.
In Salem’s Lot (1979), Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in the town and then went away, returns after the death of his wife.
Political Otherness
Before we can truly start to understand what political events created such a difference in the portrayal of otherness in these two decades, we should first distinguish what otherness is and more precisely what political otherness is.
According to the International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2008, the term other refers to a “member of a dominated out-group, whose identity is considered lacking and who may be subject to discrimination by the in-group.” Political otherness can be further refined to represent an out-group for political reasons that hold characteristics that are associative and/or symbolic to the source of the political turmoil.
In the movie Salem’s Lot (1979) we are encountered by two types of others. The human other Richard K. Straker portrayed by James Mason, who is a villainous person that is in charge of doing his master’s bidding, and Kurt Barlow portrayed by Reggie Nalder, an evil vampire who arrives to Salem’s lot in order to kill and make all the town’s occupants into vampires. In Twilight (2008) we also have two levels of otherness, the brooding and eternal teenager Edward Cullen portrayed by Robert Pattinson and his pseudo family the Cullens who epitomize the “modern” vampires – still mortally dangerous even though they have decided to live in harmony with their human surroundings. The other types of vampires who resemble the traditional vampire archetype are the three nomadic vampires; James, Victoria, and Laurent.
Political Climates (1970’s and 2000’s)
According to the IMDB database, the 1970’s and 2000’s were the most prolific decades for the production of vampire movies. In the 1970’s over 80 movies were made as opposed to the 52 vampire related movies in the 1960’s and 59 movies in the 1980’s. We see the same rise in the 2000’s with 222 movies produced that decade as opposed to the 1990’s that only produced 125 movies in the vampire genre.
So what makes these two decades such a breeding ground for vampire movies? And what political events could cause such a change in attitude towards otherness? A look into the political climates provides an insight into the peaks in popularity of this genre.
The 1970’s and the 2000’s are both decades of war and turmoil with the Vietnam war on one side and the U.S fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq on the other side, these decades are rife with political turmoil. This turmoil is a great starting point for understanding why there was such a rise in the production of films evolving around vampires.
According to Robins (1997) “Films are not simply entertainment; they are also cultural, intellectual, and political influences. Research demonstrates the influence on beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behavior of such films …. The effect, however, is not so much to change people’s minds as to solidify and exaggerate beliefs and attitudes already held. Films do not create cultural trends, but they do accelerate and exaggerate them…” (Robins, 1997 p. 4)
What we can deduct from Robins (1997) is that the works of each decade are actually documentation of the beliefs and attitudes of a certain period. Moreover, they are also a tool for ensuring that these attitudes and beliefs will be maintained.
Stephen King himself, who published the novel Salem’s Lot in 1975, said the novel was explicitly inspired by his own gnawing anxiety over Watergate[1]. In running from the United States, pursued by agents of spreading evil, Ben Mears and Mark Petrie become emblematic dropouts fleeing the oncoming right-wing backlash.
The political influence on the production of vampire movies is apparent, however, we still have to discern why the vampire characters are so different from each other in both movies. If they are both representations of cultural fears, why are they so different in nature? In order to summarize the differences I have chosen to break down the comparison into three categories; external appearance, agenda, and vampire characteristics.
External Appearance
One of the foremost differences we can discern between the Salem’s Lot (1979) vampires and the Twilight vampires is physical appearance.
On the one hand, we have traditionally grotesque vampires that flitter about at night and have extremely inhuman features. The pointed teeth, yellow hypnotic eyes, pale completion, pointed bat-like ears and extended fingers. On the other hand, we have vampires that look almost human with the exception of when the go into daylight at which point they shimmer and glisten, and also when they are hungry or after they feed and then their eyes (but only the pupils) change color. Maybe the most staggering difference of all is the fact that the Twilight vampires don’t have fangs!
The vampires in Salem’s Lot (1979) are physically repulsive. They have long spiked teeth and the main vampire, Kurt Barlow, looks far from human. The spiked ears and the animal like teeth make him resemble a bat more than a human, and this bat reference is made frequently in his movements and the appearance of bats in the movie as a trigger to the viewer that they are about to see vampire activity.
Within all that is a striking resemblance to something else. The vampire characters take on new life as they only slightly resemble the more popular used Bela Lugosi-like vampire and instead the creators chose do model Barlow more like the German vampire version of Nosferatu. What we do see is something that resembles stereotypical Asian facial features such as David Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China (1986).
Pointy fingers, yellow eyes and a pale complexion. These are more Asian stereotypes mixed with vampire characteristics than they are the regular features that we are accustomed to in vampires. Is this a coincidence? I think not. It is a well established truth that, everything is done for a reason in cinema and this seems to be a hidden undertone indicative of the disdain, fear and sense of otherness that was prevalent in the Vietnam War era in America of the 1970’s.
When we jump forward three decades to Twilight (2008), our new vampires are quite strikingly different. Apart from the pale complexion, what we have is someone who looks truly human, and in some ways is more attractive than a human. They walk among us undetected unless hit by sunlight. When their true nature is exposed not by burning up as what happens to vampires traditionally, but instead they shimmer and glisten like crystal. However, what does this mean in a post September 11th America?
According to Sánchez (2010) “In the wake of 9/11, the public’s fear was turned necessarily to the exterior and showed the risks of xenophobia and entrenchment in certain sectors of the North American population.” Sánchez (2010) (pp. 10-20)
The implication of this is that you can no longer get away with being different as easily as you could 30 years ago.
In addition, I also believe that due to globalization, there has been a paradigm shift in what we believe to be other. We can no longer discern physical appearance, as the others now walk among us and look like us. Our others have changed into something that we cannot recognize just by external appearance – they walk freely among us. We can meet them and without even knowing, we can even fall in love with them. This is why they are more dangerous, it is easier to veer away from the externally different but, when your enemy has no apparent external characteristics it’s more difficult to identify who your enemy is.
Agenda
What in the vampire’s agenda reflects the political climate of the time? We have already established the enemy from outside versus the enemy from within paradigm shift that happened between these two decades. This shift is further emphasized by what our others are attempting to gain.
In Salem’s Lot (1979) we come across a mighty vampire whose agenda is infiltration and domination. Those he does not kill, he wants to make into vampires. We also see that he has no reservations about enslaving humans into doing his bidding when need be, or to overcome his limitations such as walking around in the daylight or performing tasks like preparing the area before he comes (opening the antiques shop and arranging to have his coffin picked up from the port).
In Twilight (2008) we see an entirely different agenda. Instead of just one type of vampire, we encounter two types with two different agendas. On one side there is the Cullen family, who masquerade as humans and simply want to live peacefully and fit in. On the other hand we have the nomadic vampires who only want to hunt and kill in a more simple and animalistic agenda.
These differences are immense in that they and reflect the attitude to others in the 1970’s versus the attitude to others in the 2000’s. In political terms our others have shifted. One possible cause for this could be the signing of the USA PATRIOT Act, a statute enacted by the United States Government and signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. This Act gave the permission to law enforcement to do things that were never allowed before such as search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records. The Patriot Act caused a great deal of controversy around the violation of civil rights however, the main purpose was to manage the threat from internal terrorism in a post September 11th America. After this law came into being, sudden attention was drawn to internal terrorism and means were put into place in order to enforce the Patriot Act. This directly and indirectly had two major influences that we can use to understand the shift in the vampires agenda; illuminating the threat from within and increasing the need to blend in.
According to Sánchez (2010), “In October 2001, following the passing of the Patriot Act… legislation includes clauses which could allow the mistreatment of immigrants, the suppression of criticism and investigation, and the surveillance of completely innocent citizens” (Sánchez 2010) (pp. 10-20).
The US has always been a melting-pot for immigrants encompassing numerous races and heritages including people speaking with different accents. However, in the 1970’s a person could be overtly different and still be accepted by society and walk relatively freely, especially as segregation based on color was a decade behind them. Therefore, we can see and understand how the Vampires in Salem’s’ lot could so easily infiltrate the township and setup shop with complete acceptance and even anticipation from the community
In the reality of the 21st century this was no longer the case. The Patriot act made it more difficult to be physically and culturally different, and the others in these two movies reflect that perfectly. Endorsed by government legislation, being different was now almost a crime. You could be stopped and interrogated just based on the way you speak, the way you behave and where you came from. Therefore, it only makes sense that the vampires agenda in Twilight has shifted to reflect this limitation. The others in Twilight have evolved in order to survive. In this case, the Cullen family have assimilated themselves as much as possible to the local culture and made efforts to not stand out too much, while the other vampires have adopted a nomadic existence and move around constantly as not to be detected. And indeed, even the Cullen family did not stay in one place for too long. They were accustomed to moving around every few years when the teenage vampires should have grown up but didn’t. Therefore they were left with the option of moving to a different area and attending school yet again.
I guess that world domination is not a possibility for 21st century vampires.
Vampire Characteristics
A great deal has changed since Bram Stoker first eternalized the folkloric vampire in his book Dracula. Since then, almost every adaptation to this character has made slight changes to the way vampires look, eat and fear.
To make a relatively objective comparison of the noticeable change in vampire characteristics change between Salem’s Lot (1979) and Twilight (2008), I have chosen to use a third party reference that lists some traditional vampire characteristics.
According to the website ThinkQuest[2] Vampires have many characteristics that vary from each vampire depending on where they came from.
(ThinkQuest, 2010)
The vampire characteristics are:
- They need blood to survive because it is the elixir of life – without blood they will die. The blood gives them energy, power and replenishes their body. It is the key to immortality
- They only come out at night because they fear sunlight.
- They grow stronger, tempering with time.
- In folklore, it is not mentioned that vampires have fangs.
- They have an angular face and a waxy complexion–looking pale and drained.
- They have the ability to shape shift in other words they can change into animals like bats, rats, cats, raven and wolves.
- They have the power to control animals (the animals that they can change into).
- They live in their graves during the day and rise during the night
- They have no reflections, so when they look in the mirror they don’t see anything.
- Vampires die if they have been staked through the heart by wood, burned or by decapitation and removing the brain.
- Religious symbols do not harm folklore vampires.
- When vampires drink the blood of a person that person will turn into a vampire.
In Salem’s Lot (1979) we see a clear trend towards taking the cliché albeit traditional characteristics. The vampires are blood sucking animals that only come out at night with a mortal fear of the sunlight. The vampires, especially Barlow have supernatural strength and powers beyond any human abilities, including shape shifting. The angular face and pale complexion is a staple of all the vampires including the young child that was transformed. The coffin and burial characteristics are highly played out in the movie to the extent that quite a few scenes take place in a cemetery. Additional traits like lack of reflection and the ease in which humans are transformed are just more of the characteristics found in Salem’s Lot (1979).
Alternatively, we have the Twilight (2008) vampires, which have been stripped of almost all traditional external characteristics and have been left with the internal characteristics only, the need to drink blood, extraordinary strength and longevity.
According to Entertainment Weekly’s Nicole Sperling before signing a contract to produce the movie the book’s author Stephanie Mayer insisted that ”no vampire character will be depicted with canine or incisor teeth longer or more pronounced than may be found in human beings.”[3] This insistence was brought on due to the fact that previous offers to adapt the book into a movie all entailed the inclusion of fangs on the vampires and the author insisted that the film adaptation stay true to the book.
Stephanie Mayer’s insistence to avoid the inclusion of fangs raises an interesting point regarding those we are meant to fear. What looks like an overall attempt to make vampires look more like humans and less fearsome can maybe be interpreted into an additional angle. The angle being how audiences perceive or an attempt to alleviate fears of the other.
“De-fanging” a vampire, even though the vampires of folklore didn’t originally have fangs, is still an affront to what viewers were used to from years of reading and seeing fully fanged vampires in movies. Moreover, this attempt to make vampires less ominous could coincide with a need from other sources such as government and certain religious factors (in this case the Mormon church[4] which the author belongs to) to encourage tolerance towards the others.
The political influence of this de-fanging can be construed to reflect a message of the conversion of others. Even though they are evil, blood sucking monsters our others can still possess humanity and they can change and become “good’. The example in this movie is the Cullen family. This family found a way to denounce their evil nature, live in peace with humans and even redeem themselves by doing good deeds. The most poignant instance being Dr. Cullen the “father” and also the towns doctor who in fact saves life’s instead of taking them and has only resorted to making vampires of people who were for sure about to die.
In contrast the Salem’s Lot (1979) vampires reflect the 1970”s attitude of intolerance to others, only when making such a comparison can we see that the trend is clear.
In the review called “Genre films and the status quo” (Hess, 1974) (pp. 1,16,18), She talks about the thematic conflict in the thriller genre movies as a conflict between good and evil as a means to restore social order. In the 1970’s the restoration of social order was the annihilation of those who pose a threat to us. However, in the 2000’s we see that the restoration of social order is more about assimilating and accepting other into society.
There is one more high-level political aspect this de-fanging can also be attributed to and that is the apparent movement towards tolerance for others. This can also be seen in other contemporary depictions of vampires such as in the TV series True Blood (2008) where the vampires become equal members of society in what seems to be an analogy for tolerance towards others. This trend has its predecessors with TV series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) and Forever Night (1989) that both of which depict good vampires, vampires with souls and even a Police detective who is actually a vampire.
When Bella first truly admits to Edward that she knows what he is, he asks her “are you afraid?” to which she responds “no”. How does that compare to the fright and terror of the towns people in Salem’s Lot (1979) who are franticly running around terrified and dropping one by one to the murderous vampires? Essentially, it could indicate that we are no longer afraid of our enemies, that the people of the 20th century have overcome their fear of the different and are more accepting of the other. However, the look on Bella’s face in the scene where she says she is not afraid indicates a different emotion – she is in fact afraid.
This leads us to the question, why is it ok to be afraid in the 1970’s but in the 2000’s we are braver? A political review of the state of the government at that time can provide an indication to this shift[5].
In the 1970’s the American government was in turmoil. The Vietnam War was a true source of discourse and terror, and the Nixon administration was proving to be a shambles. The state of the township of Salem can be easily compared to the state of the government. The leaders and distinguished members of society that we are conditioned to trust (the government) can be easily compared to the seemingly distinguished and respectable Richard K. Straker a leader type who goes around with an air of aloofness and authority who promises to bring new business into town when in reality it is all a front and he actually hides a deep dark secret (Watergate). The vampire Barlow is allowed to sneak into our life and threatens to take over our society and literally kill all of us (the fear caused by the Vietnam War of possible invasion).
In the 2000’s we see a more stable government, lead by George W. Bush for two consecutive terms. The threat from abroad although it still exists, is less of a factor. The town is not worried about threats from the outside and they are not concerned with their own safety. They accept outsiders, such as the Cullens and Bella. When Bella returns to live there she is accepted without blinking an eye, and even though the Cullens are a bit different to them they do not seem to be bothered about it too much – they introduced as respected members of the community who happen to be just a bit strange. The people of Forks are calm and are not hysterical; they have faith in their leadership (the all American Sherriff) and they have no idea that evil lives among them. This is a strong analogy in my opinion to the paranoia and fear that evil is among us and even when everything seems calm and safe, danger and evil can be found in the most innocuous places.
However, unbeknownst to them behind the scenes and without anyone noticing the others have been infiltrated into every walk of life. The towns physician is a vampire, children in their schools are vampires, the friendly housewife is a vampire, the seemingly nice and “All American” family (who even play baseball as a pastime among themselves) are actually a cell of individuals that came together to live there, not an “All American” family after all. This automatically reminds us of terrorist sleeper cells that consisted of terrorists who infiltrated society and became a part of it only to wake up one day and get a command from their leaders to start killing innocent people – their true calling and reason for being there.
Even though the threat did not manifest itself in Twilight (2008), it cannot be ignored that vampires, as nice as they are cannot change their true nature. When necessary, they can in a second turn into murderous animals in much the same way as sleeper cells can be commanded to wake up and start killing their friends and neighbors, much like the events surrounding the events of 9/11 in America. The evil among us is waiting to reveal itself and the scarier thing is that the evil sometimes doesn’t know it is evil or is fighting against its natural tendency. An ‘other’ that doesn’t consider itself as an ‘other’ and is hard to identify amongst the regular people.
It appears to be that the rules of engagement have changed it is no longer the 1970’s good against bad or the U.S. against the threat from abroad it is now an entirely different playing field where the rules have changed and the enemy now exists among us. These changes can be attributed to the growing need and desire to break down social and political barriers. In a sense, it can be said that this kind of social and political agenda cleared the ground for the election of a black president in the U.S.
Identity as a Target for Political Agendas
Identity, a seemingly simple term to define. However, as I learnt from the introduction to the book “Reclaiming Identity” (Moya, 2001) there is a plethora of definitions and theories surrounding the question of identity. These range from the essentialist theories that limit themselves to a single aspect of identity such as gender, anti essentialist theories that reject essentialist concepts and French postmodernist and Freudian theories. For clarity sake I have opted to distance myself from these different views and have chosen to focus the term identity based on a single definition based on The Social identity theory developed by Tajfel (1979) (). The theory states that social behavior ranges from the purely interpersonal to the purely intergroup. Personal identity is the most significant aspect. However, individuals will relate to others in an interpersonal manner, dependent on their character traits and any personal relationship existing between the individuals.
It has been well known since the Greeks first enacted their first tragedy (and well before TV, radio and printed books) that in order for a message to be effective it has to insight a degree of recognition, to arouse and insight emotion in the spectator. There has to be a cathartic invocation of drama in order to convey a message. Or in plainer terms, viewers have to identify with what they are seeing in order to be engaged and influenced.
Humans as social beings, use their interaction with their immediate environment to construct identity. How parents, family and friends behave and react to our behavior leads to how we know how to behave and react[6]. How we see others represented in movies is an additional social medium through which we have the opportunity to observe humans and in some cases non-humans[7] in action. Basically, the modern human uses media as an additional layer for understanding and learning social interaction.
If we return to the Greek Tragedies for a moment, we see that even then, society leaders were aware of the power they could capitalize on by providing an easy way for demonstrating morality and desired behavior to a wide audience. What they did then and what the leaders in present-day society are doing is essentially the same, in spite of the fact that the form of media is different (plays versus cinema). Today, as long as a movie can insight some kind of emotion, it engages the viewer just enough to be able to have some kind of effect on constructing the viewer’s identity. This relationship is not a one-sided relationship. Not only the spectators, but also the creators, the writers, producers, and directors are all susceptible to this influence. Therefore even though they are aware of this force they are also controlled by it whereas, their own identities were also in part constructed by their predecessors and the force that was created by them.
The online film encyclopedia Filmreference states that“… the film screen serves as a mirror through which the spectator can identify himself or herself as a coherent and omnipotent ego. The sense of power that spectatorship provides derives from the spectator’s primary identification with the camera itself. “ (http://www.filmreference.com/, 2010)
How society is portrayed in a movie can provide a marker and an indication as to a certain period’s social norms i.e. social location. In Salem’s Lot (1979) and Twilight (2008) we have two types of characters who through a comparison of the identity structures that govern them, a better insight can be gained into the differences between them and why they are so different.
The two characters that I have chosen to use for this demonstration are the lead human characters in each film; Ben Mears from Salem’s Lot (1979) and Bella Swan from Twilight (2008).
Transition in leading roles
Our two heroes Ben Mears and Bella Swan have a lot in common. They are both in terms of the narrative the leading characters that drive the plot line, they both returned to a town that they once lived in, they both are the first to encounter and acknowledge the existence of vampires and they are both in their own ways battling with vampires. However, there are a few glaring differences that stand between these two characters. The question that stands here is what identity issues brought on such change and what possible political forces could be standing behind them.
In the 1970’s movie our hero is a grown man in his 30’s who was married (now a widower) and has a respectable career as a writer. In the 2000’s movie our hero is a 17 year old girl in high school who comes from a broken family.
According to Zuckerman, et al., (2003), we encounter our first indicator to the differences between the leading roles.
“An analysis of the box-office success of 396 feature films released in 1997 shows that a film attracted a larger audience when critics who specialized in major releases reviewed the film and implicitly certified it as fit for the mass market.” (Zukernam, et al., 2003 pp. 27-67).
Suitability for mass market is a factor that has no direct relation to any original narratives, and in essence should not be a determining factor in art. However, when adapting an art form into a movie it suddenly becomes a determining factor. From this information we can deduce that the narrative can and will take second stage to the importance of the art form in order to ensure financial success.
In addition, “…market boundaries restrict the range of identities that are available to economic actors…” (Zukernam, et al., 2003 pp. 27-67) This means that the main reason why we see a difference in the leading roles in terms of gender and social status which are key identity factors are due to the fact that the selection of the characters stems from financial reasoning. The rationale behind this is to produce a film that will have commercial success the characters selected are selected based on what the industry leaders perceive to be a sound investment.
Additional support to this comes from Peterson (1975) who states that that Consumerism is again the reason behind the selection of characters in movies that are ultimately a consumer product. “…In oligopolistic competition, producers aim for the lowest common denominator for fear of ‘offending any major group of consumers …” (Peterson, et al., 1975) (pp. 158-173)
As a result of this observation, it is obvious that in the 1970’s the mass market was men in their 30’s and in the 2000’s the mass market is teenage girls.
Before I go on and describe the relation between identity and the shift in the gender of the leading characters, I have to dedicate some words to the work of Clover. In Her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Clover, 1992) as she is credited with developing the “final girl” theory, which changed both popular and academic conceptions of gender in horror films. As summarized by Totaro.(2002) “While most theorists label the horror film as a male-driven/male-centered genre, Clover points out that in most horror films, especially the slasher film, the audience, male and female, is structurally ‘forced’ to identify with the resourceful young female (the Final Girl) who survives the serial attacker and usually ends the threat” (Totaro, 2002 pp. 1-2)
Well, if that’s the case, then why isn’t the lead role in Salem’s Lot (1979) a woman? There are some female characters in Salem’s Lot (1979) but none of them seem to be of any use and frankly they are all portrayed with a weak sense of morality. Susan Norton, the only character with a reasonable amount of presence on the screen as Ben Mears romantic interest, is far from being a leading role. In addition, she eventually becomes a vampire and has to be killed. This is far from Clover’s definition of a final girl mentioned above. Then we have Bonnie Sawyer the adulterous lover, Marjorie Glick the loving mother and Eva Miller the meddling boarding house owner. Each and every one of the female characters either perished or turned into a vampire. In addition, of all the cast there are only four female characters. If these characters are an analogy to the female denizens of an entire town a surprising comparison arises. The female characters in fact, are very similar to the primal mother of all humanity Eve. She was Adam’s lover and then she got inquisitive and cheated on Adam and God with the snake, receiving her punishment, to be a mother. This in itself raises a flag as to the underlying identity issues and target audience.
To summarize the observation, the following table describes the female characters in the movie and their underlying correlation to the first woman from the bible, Eve.
| Character |
Role |
Correlation to Eve |
| Susan Norton |
The innocent loverThe Vampire |
Eve, before she bites from the apple.The Eve after she bites from the apple and is punished. |
| Bonnie Sawyer |
The adulterous and seductive woman |
Eve, after she bites from the apple has the knowledge that God didn’t want men to have. |
| Marjorie Glick |
The tired hard working mother who loses her son |
The mother the ultimate punishment that God gave Eve was hard labor and with pain during childbirth. |
| Eva Miller |
The meddling boarding house owner |
The curiosity that brought Eve to take from the apple. |
From this table we can discern that in Salem’s Lot (1979) the views of women, their role in society and their morality were truly very simplistic. Each and every one of the four characters embodies a female stereotypical characteristic that serves to enhance the sense that women do not have a true value in society other than being mothers and that is a gift that was given to women as a punishment from god. Women are meddling gossipy women who are only good for baring children and men should be careful or women will break their heart.
Based on the increase in women’s liberation at the time, I think it is safe to deduce that this is a last effort of a male oriented industry to revise an archaic stereotypical view of women in order to influence society enough to possibly reject women’s rights.
Obviously, this movie does not conform to Clover’s theory in this instance. In fact it is a blatantly male oriented movie. What this says about identity issues in that period (the 1970’s) is that it was predominantly a male oriented decade in which, women’s liberation was only beginning. In this decade women’s identity representations were still very one sided and less developed – the 60’s stereotype of demure house makers in the kitchen was still an impression in the collective male mind. This identity crisis also correlates to the political structure and agenda at that time. In addition as the 1970’s brought on an increased influence of the women’s movement (Gillis, 2009), it could also be that portraying women in simplistic and stereotypical roles was a last attempt at trying to control how women are perceived in the minds of men and women as an effort to impede the women’s liberation movement.
According to Zisman (1995 )[8] the 1960’s were a decade where federal legislation started to support the improvement of women’s status such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that required equal wages for men and women doing equal work and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited discrimination against women by any company with 25 or more employees. Therefore, it is clear that legislation to backup women’s liberation was on the rise. We have already established that the 1970’s was still a male oriented decade; the plot of Salem’s Lot (1979) was predominantly male oriented as well, where all the leading roles were male and the women characters did not have much of an impact on the plot. It is only logical that the most prominent identity structure was of male dominance over women, and it makes sense that men would want to preserve that identity structure along with the image of women, either as demure women or as evil women as opposed to the men who should be, strong and moral.
Today’s society sees the rise of women in all walks of life. No longer do women and young girls identify with the male enforced imagery of how women should behave. Girls in the 2000’s have their own money and the right to decide what they want to see. Teenage Girls are the ones who drive the youth movie industry. They also have more access to the media via the internet and TV. Young women of this age want to see true representations of female characters in the cinema. It is acceptable and expected to see female characters, in leading roles, especially as these same girls grew up on female oriented TV series such as Xena the Warrior Princess (1995), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 TV series) and (1992 Movie) and movies like Resident Evil (2002).
As Karlyn (2003) says, “…The 1990s might well be remembered as the decade of Girl Culture and Girl Power. New phrases began sounding in the air and new images surfacing in our media, changing the face of popular culture in a decidedly more youthful and feminine direction.”
Moreover “…In Third Wave feminism, popular culture is a natural site of identity-formation and empowerment, providing an abundant storehouse of images and narratives valuable less as a means of representing reality than as motifs available for contesting, rewriting and recoding. “ (Karlyn, 2003)
One of the most significant differences we see between the 1970’s and the 2000’s is the rise of the Women’s liberation movement. In the 1970’s the movement was just beginning to rise, however in the 2000’s it has reached a point where it is considered by the film industry as a legitimate demographic with financial power or in other works an acceptable identity representation that the audience the movie is targeted to can relate with. Karlyn (2003), states this quite clearly in her article, making the direct correlation between the increased awareness to strong female characters and financial box office success.
Girls now control enough money to attract attention as a demographic group. This may or may not represent an advance in terms of girls’ actual social power, but it does indicate that girls are being listened to by cultural producers who are taking them and their tastes very seriously. (Karlyn, 2003)
In Summary, the difference in terms of identity structures that brought on the change from a male leading role to a female leading role can be attributed to the fact that the strong female identity has become a financial demographic. Whereas in the 1970’s feminism was only in its beginning and the strong female identity structure was not yet established in the collective identity not did people in positions of wealth and power did not deem women as a strong enough demographic to warrant financial investment.[9]
The Influence Target Audiences Have on Making Vampire Movies
This section is dedicated to trying to understand the opposite forces working within the film industry. Up until now we have looked into how the art medium of film addresses and molds our fears and beliefs, as well as how politics and finance can influence what films are made based on demographic information. However, there is much to be said about the audiences themselves and how they force change on vampire depiction.
“Just as media have been shown to play a role in generating and promoting cultural message about a host of other sub-populations (e.g. minorities, older people, women), they are also likely to reflect and shape popular conceptions of teenagers.” (Stern, 2005 pp. 23-38)
Stephen King was quoted as saying that, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that [Harry Potter author] Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and [Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” Stephen King[10]
Stephen Kings quote, apart from being humorous, also sheds light on the shift in target audience. I think it is important that Stephen King is the one saying this as opposed to any other author as it provides a testament to how unnatural the concept is of writing directly to young people is to him. Be it good writing or less good writing.
In Salem’s Lot (1979) the children in the movie are children, the vampires are truly scary and their characteristics are those of traditional vampires, the hero is an adult and the townspeople are either adults or children. In Twilight (2008), we are introduced to another generation the “teenagers”. These are the lead characters, the vampires, and the social backdrop (the school). Suddenly the adults are taking the backstage and the teenagers are making all the decisions, carrying the plot, and occupying all the leading roles. This mirrors contemporary society in general, where for the first time in history, because of open access media as well as consumerism, the teens/tweens very often control their parents. To prove this all one would need to do is look at Miley Cyrus’s bank account to discern the financial power behind this demographic.
According Adler (1998), teen movies tend to center on the social world of teens as teen years are characterized by a time of relationship and identity growth and struggle (Adler, et al., 1998).
From the work of Stephen King we can see that teen culture was already around in the 1950’s so to say that teen related films have only emerged in the past few decades would be inaccurate. However, I can state that the movies have been tailored more and more over the years to accommodate teens. There is certain innocence in how the vampires are portrayed in Twilight that is not apparent in Salem’s Lot and I believe that it has a lot to do with teenage sensitivity or more precisely how the creators of the movie believed it would help teenagers to relate to the characters in the movie and subsequently profit from the popularity of the film. Teenagers are more open minded and impressionable than adults, they want to believe in all kinds of things (magic, ghosts, vampires, unicorns…) and they don’t always have the life experience to make the most well thought out decisions.
These characteristics can be found in the twilight characters and are indicative of how targeting a teenage audience can restructure how vampires are depicted. The vampires look like us and don’t have fangs, they shimmer in the sunlight like stars that teens love to idolize. They are bigger, better, faster, richer, and live forever. They are extremely beautiful, and in the case of the Cullens, they are very moral. Basically, they are not vampires but the embodiment of what every teenager would be willing to sell their soul for – to be rich, glamorous, live forever and be extremely attractive. There is less of a moral in this story and more of a direct attempt to create content that will be purchased by teenagers, based on what they want to see.
Summary
The main purpose of this paper was to investigate the portrayal of vampires in movies and understand how and why vampires are depicted differently in movies. Time and social environments were a crucial factor in understanding why a long time folklore character such as a vampire who has always represented fear and our darkest thoughts could suddenly turn into a cuddly and peace loving creature and also why the thirty year old, male protagonist was replaced by a teenage girl.
So why does one movie confirm to the classical thriller model and the other doesn’t? The main conclusions of this paper are that each decade has its own others and identities. What was relevant in terms of who we are and what we fear in the 1970’s, is less relevant in the 2000’s. We also know now that the relationship between society and cinematic content is multi-sided. Society and our others influence our perception which is brought out into cinema which is then produced by people who are influenced by the same influences. In addition we see that financial and political agendas can easily influence movie creators to twist the perception slightly in order to assist in either changing or restructuring fears and perceptions into something that is more suitable to their needs. This is the reason why over time conforming to strict genre characteristics is not possible and changes have to be made in order to suit changes in time and popular demand.
In a more granular aspect, the actual empirical research provided here, shows a direct correlation between political climates and genre selection where film industries pick and choose what genre to focus on based on political climates.
One of the most interesting aspects of this research was discovering how well the film industry manipulates representations of others in film in order to accommodate fears that are relevant to the time a movie is released. It is interesting that these sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle changes are not just limited to external appearance but also to plot placement and even to agenda and character motivation. Moreover, there do not seem to be any “holy Cows” as far as the film industry is concerned and if a tradition conflicts with their agenda they have no qualms about revising certain aspects to further suit their needs, such as portraying vampires without fangs.
As great an example as this paper is of the chicken and egg theory, it is still a wide area for research. Apart from political and identity issues there are many other sides to otherness that can be investigated such as getting into the deeper aspects of feminism and other gender definitions. There are also several other ways to compare the decades to see just how social and cultural perceptions have changed or change throughout the decades. An area that I stayed away from but I think can be very poignant is religion and vampires. It would be interesting to see how the author’s and auter’s religious beliefs influenced how the vampires are portrayed.
Bibliography
Adler, Patricia A. and Adler, Peter. 1998. Peer Power: Preadolescent Culture and Identity. New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Clover, Carol J. 1992. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film . New Jersey : Princeron University Press, 1992.
Peterson, Richard A. and Berger, David G. 1975. Cycles in symbol production: the case of popular music. s.l. : American Sociological Review, 1975, Vol. 40, pp. 158-173.
Hess, Judith. 1974. Genre films and the status quo. 1974, JUMP CUT A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA, Vol. 1, pp. 1,16,18.
Gillis, Charles. 2009. American Cultural History. [Online] 08 2009. [Cited: 05 20, 2010.] http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade70.html.
Gomez, Raul Alvarez. 2009. Terrorism and Social Panic in British Fantastic Cinema. s.l. : http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/, 2009.
Sánchez, Antonio. 2010. Hollywood and the rhetoric of Panic: The popular Geners of Action and Fantasy in the Wake of the 9/11 Attacks. 2010, Journal of Popular Film & Television, 38(1), pp. 10-20.
Holte, James Craig. 2002. Resurrection in Britain: Christopher Lee and Hammer Draculas. [book auth.] ed. James Craig Holte. The Fantastic Vampire. s.l. : Praeger Publishers, 2002, pp. 77-81.
http://www.filmreference.com/. 2010. CINEMA AND THE MIRROR . [Online] 2010. http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Psychoanalysis-CINEMA-AND-THE-MIRROR.html.
Karlyn, Kathleen Rowe. 2003. Scream, Popular Culture and Feminism’s Third Wave. Genders. 2003, 38.
Moya, Paula M. L. 2001. Introduction. [book auth.] Paula M. L. Moya and Michal R. Hames-Garcia. Reclaiming Identity. London : University of Califormia Press, 2001, pp. 1-29.
Robins, Robert S. 1997. Political paranoia as Cinematic Motif: Stone’s JFKPolitical Paranoia as. New Orleans : Tulane University, 1997.
Tajfel, Henri. 1982. Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Bristol : Annual Review of Psychology, 1982, Vol. 33, pp. 1-39.
Stern, Susannah R. 2005. Self -Absorbed, Dangerous, and Disengaged: What Popular Films Tell Us About Teenagers. 2005, pp. 23-38.
ThinkQuest. 2010. ThinkQuest – Vampire Characteristics. [Online] 2010. [Cited: 05 12, 2010.] http://library.thinkquest.org/28516/pages/vw/vampcharacteristic.htm.
Totaro, Donato. 2002. The Final Girl: A Few Thoughts on Feminism and Horror. [Online] January 21, 2002. [Cited: May 17, 2010.] http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen/final_girl.html.
Weaver, Jabes B. and Tamborini, Ronald C. 1996. Horror films: current research on audience preferences and reactions. New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996. pp. 34-35.
Wood, Robin. 1976. An Introduction to the American Horror Film. [book auth.] Bill Nichols. Movies and Methods: Vol. I. s.l. : University of California Press, 1976, pp. 195-220.
Zisman, Alan. 1995 . Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. Carlsbad, CA : Compton’s NewMedia, Inc., 1995 .
Zukernam, Ezra W and Youung, Tai. 2003. The critical trade-off: identity assignment and box-office success in the feature film industry. 2003, Vol. 12, 1, pp. 27-67.
[2] ThinkQuest is a protected, online learning platform that enables teachers to integrate learning projects into their classroom curriculum and students to develop 21st century skills.
[6] This information is based on the general sociological concepts in the course מבוא לסוציולוגיה 10134.
[7] I use the term non-humans loosely as to encompass the entire range of non-human beings addressed in movies be it aliens, talking animals, fantastic creatures or fictional characters.
[9] Let’s not forget Ridely Scott’s Alien (1979) who’s lead role was a woman.
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