The New Romantic Vampire, Sex, Love, and Violence

The New Romantic Vampire, Sex, Love, and Violence

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The New Romantic Vampire, Sex, Love, and Violence

In the recent past, there has been an exponential rise in the number of vampire movies, novels and TV series’, and franchises made for the public. The vampires depicted today are however not similar to the vampires of lore. Vampires today, through at timed depicted as horrible are not only boyfriends, they are romantic leads and lovers, primarily meant to appeal to teen girls (Erickson, 2012). In addition, some of the more recent vampire texts and Hollywood productions such as The Twilight Saga movies, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood seem to focus on the promotion of a bad boy masculinity and constant portrayal of women as victims (Erickson, 2012).This has meant that the rise of the new romantic vampire has led to new outlooks in sexuality, violence, gender roles and relationships between vampires and human beings, in essence heralding a new era in the position vampires occupy in human societies; that of contemporaries, rather than of monster and human beings.

When Bram Stoker wrote, Dracula, the vampire that he depicted therein, was twofold. He depicted a monster and a man, a feminine figure, yet a powerful one, parasitical, yet wealthy and repulsive but fascinating (Halberstam, 1993). This is because Dracula was created to represent that which man in conventional society cannot be and enjoy. Thus, Dracula represented the facet of man which cannot come out due to societal norms; traits that include repressed desires, and “. . . anti-social tendencies and similar dark elements which the ego was too ashamed of to consciously admit” (Bishop, 1998, Para. 5). So, the bottom line was that Dracula was a monster, who though fascinating, was a creature of the dark, one to be feared and vilified. However, today, vampires are depicted in a completely different manner. Li (2013), observes that in The Vampire Diaries,...