Blood+Race=Vampire Fun!
The speech was fun, informative — entertaining, too, because of all those film clips. It’s about time I become properly addicted to a TV show, and I think that show will be True Blood. I’m off to get a Netflix account.
But before I lose myself in the joys of out-of-the-coffin vampires, a few of my thoughts:
- The “original” vampire was from Transylvania, and Dr. Benavides talked about “the ambiguity” of it — how Eastern Europeans are not quite “white,” but are still European. Anyone who’s read The Wages of Whiteness is familiar with the idea of the white race being, to a great extent, a social construct. This is relevant, I think, because the place where we come from always molds who we are. Often many people assume that certain groups of people have no “backstory,” no bias. But as Sonia Sotomayor has shown us, old white men have as many biases as a middle-aged Hispanic woman does.
- The more general idea of race being used in many vampires movies/novels is also really interesting. I was surprised, I’ll admit, that Dr. Benavides thought race was relevant, but the more I thought of it, the more the idea made sense. I still have to think more about racism as “a denial of desire.” It’s a comforting notion if you’re facing discrimination (“They hate me because they really want me…”), but I don’t yet know if I agree. But it’s food (or TruBlood, as the case may be) for thought.
Tags: race, social constructivism, vampires
