Horror and Vampires and What They Say About Us
Hearing Professor Benavides’s lecture made me remember why I love the horror genre and it’s ability to jam-pack current socio-political and economic issues under masks of entertainment. As kids, my best friend and I would wait for $.99 Wednesdays to run to the corner video store and get a new horror film. From Halloween to Children of the Corn, we loved them all. One of our all-time favorites was Scream and let’s just say that I’ve never been comfortable answering the doorbell since. As I grew older, I wondered what effects those films had on me and why we were so addicted to being so scared.
I still haven’t been able to figure it out, but I think Professor Benavides’ was onto to something when he said that society uses characters like the vampire and attaches different cultures and identities to them depending on their own. Through this method, they are able to begin to think about and possible better understand issues that just may be too uncomfortable to deal with directly. I think the first example that came to mind as he was talking was George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and it’s representation of racism in sixties America. True Blood is one of my favorite series on television and the first time I watched it I was struck with the amounts of layers of smart social commentary that was taking place in this campy, sexualized HBO show.
Professor Benavides said some things that really hung around my head for days and I’m certain I am not alone, namely that racism may be looked at as a denial of desire and that love and hate are the same, but indifference is the opposing factor. I’m still unsure how I feel about these two statements, but I think they begin to get at the heart of last week’s discussion of vampires and societal representation. Vampires represent so much of what we love and hate in our world and we can’t get enough of them, as seen by the current craze. There is still so much to consider.
Tags: horror, Hugo Benavides, vampires
