...Cole Chatterton January 9, 2008 THE MYTH OF DRACULA In October of 1999, a television series began that would run for approximately four and a half years. This series would again sate the American appetite for vampire stories begun by the likes of Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Tanith Lee, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. The name of the series? Angel. The Premise? A vampire, originally named Angelus, had been cursed by a gypsy victim, with a soul, and could no longer kill humans. And if he fell in love with one, his dark side would return, which he feared more than anything else. The series featured many flashbacks to many centuries past because the vampires depicted were several centuries old. Not only that, but the vampire had true eye-appeal for the female audience. He was tall, dark, and handsome, just like almost every vampire in almost every myth America has ever heard (Angel site, 2004). But could such a creature truly exist? Although the vampire myth is present in many societies around the world through the centuries, there is a basis in science and fact, for this legend. To start off with, one of the most popular modern vampire stories, written in 1897, was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. To this day, it sets the bar for the modern vampire. Authors have a tendency to pull juicy pieces of many different tales together to patchwork them into something to hold the reader’s interest. From where could he have gotten this character? First off, the legendary figure...
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...For centuries, vampires have always been the symbol of corruption. It has been said and illustrated by many in books and essays that corruption is extremely similar to vampirism. It starts off with just one and it then multiples like cancer, dominating the society. Once corruption starts, it spreads so quickly that it is as though it is impossible to stop it. In Salem’s Lot, King uses vampires coming into the town to symbolize its destruction due to the corruption within a society. Salem’s Lot vampires’ thirst for blood is represented as the political corruption that destructs the society. The wealth and the power are the blood that the corrupted are in constant hunger for; no matter how much they have, there is never enough to satisfy them. Vampirism is symbolic of corruption. Mirroring vampires’ desire for blood, the corrupted always desire more money and more power; the more they have, the more they want. According to Casebeer, “King has created many novels which allegorically address current social dilemmas: the corruption of school and church, the government, the small town, the family, and etc.” (43) In 1975, King wrote his novel, the Salem’s Lot demonstrating the vampires’ invasion to the town as a symbol of the corruption in the world. Mr. Straker and Mr. Barlow are the outsiders that stand for the beginning of a corrupted society. A vampire comes Chiu 2 to the small town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine. He converts some of the people to vampires, and they transform...
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...day society pretty much everyone has heard of and/or seen an interpretation of vampires and, the supposed king of all vampires, Count Dracula, whether it be in all the several different variations and interpretations that can be seen in movies (most recently the series of Blade movies starring Wesley Snipes) that have been released over the last few decades all the way to “The Count” on “Sesame Street” the long running children’s television show) or “Count Chocula” (on the cover of a children’s cereal box). When people hear either the word vampires or Dracula, most of the time people tend to think about the mythical blood sucking race of immortals called vampires and also some people that know a little more than the average person does about vampires may think about several of their stereotypical characteristics such as: they are from a place called Transylvania, they have sharp, pointy teeth to draw blood from the necks of humans, they can not come outside during the day, they sleep in coffins, turn into bats, and they are killed by pure silver, garlic, and several religious artifacts. However, people do not really think about all the connections between the vampires and all of the religious artifacts that are said to kill them. Religion plays a major role in the story of Dracula, because when one looks closely enough to what vampires and Dracula are all about one can see that vampires are basically the antichrist. Without religion the alternative ways of killing a vampire would...
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...Blood Suckers to Love Suckers Growing up as a kid, Vampires always used to scare me. Even on Halloween when parents would answer the front door I would run away. However, when I watching Twilight, I realized that this movie was more romantic than scary. I have seen other vampire movies such as, Dracula, Mom’s got a Date with a Vampire, and even Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire and those were scarier than twilight. Although I believe the United States of America is the greatest country, I personally believe that there is a case where there is softening in America. Last year, I took an elective class for my senior year that was called, Issues in Modern America. A couple of my friends and I decided instead of the weekly blog post we would do a weekly video podcast. One of our topics for the podcast was the weakening of America. At first, I didn’t think this was an issue, but then I looked at the way we as children grew up and how my parents grew up. There were two words that can easily separate my parents and I and how we got punished as a kid. For me it was getting grounded, not so bad. For my parents, it was the wooden spoon. “Swift flick of the wrist with a wooden spoon to the head if something wasn’t done right.” My dad would always tell me. Although getting beat with a wooden spoon and vampires could not be more opposite, I thought about the podcast me and my friends did and thought, “why are vampires now all about feelings and are not focusing on ‘I want to suck...
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...Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Timur Bekmambetov is based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, which offers a vivid description of the untold story and secret life of the 16th president of America, Lincoln Benjamin Walker from his days as a boy to his presidency, which apparently shaped America as a nation. It often construed that many movie adaptions do not necessarily do justice to the well-written books that they are based on; however, in the case of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Timur Bekmambetov, it does quite well. The narrative of the movie takes the form of secret journal entries, in which Lincoln as a young boy reports witnessing the death of his mother at the hands a plantation owner who he claims was vampiric. As a result, he swears vengeance; and with the guidance and help of another hunter, Henry Sturgess, a role played by Dominic Cooper, Lincoln starts a life-long mission to find and destroy all the vampires lurking amongst humans, and they hold on the mortal society. After several years, Lincoln’s attraction towards politics, mostly fuelled and motivated by his belief that he had the opportunity and ability to make a difference in the mankind war, not as an assassin, but as a leader. We also witness Lincoln’s election, we see him signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and the outburst of the American Civil War. In addition, we also get to see how these abrupt changes in his life affect the vampires, the interests they...
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...guide and tracker,who are placed in common survival situations and demonstrate how to survive with only the things they find. The internet gives me the freedom to choose what information I want to view. Most of the information is entertainment or sports related. The word culture is defined as, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor defined culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Three major characteristics of culture are: (1) Culture is acquired by people. (2) A person acquires culture as a member of society. (3) Culture is a complex whole. Popular culture is defined as “contemporary lifestyle and items that are well known and generally accepted, cultural patterns that are widespread within a population; also called pop culture.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/popular+culture Three major trends in popular American culture are, smartphones, fitness, and vampires in movies and television. By the end of 2011, “one in two Americans will have a smartphone… compared to just one in 10 in the summer of 2008.” Fitness has become a major trend in recent years. Almost every infomercial is promoting the newest workout dvd, the newest weight loss product, or the newest exercise machine. All of these infomercials portray both men and woman as being slim and having hard rock bodies. The media does place significant emphasis on looks and physical...
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...The Origin of the Vampire Vampires, are they a mythical creature that was created by superstition and folklore or did they begin from someone’s fantastic imagination based on a real live person? Or maybe it was created to explain a cluster of misunderstood medical conditions that began before the medical world had advanced science and knowledge on the body and its psyche. It’s a word that inspires awe, fear, and romanticism all at once. Vampires are known in every culture and have been kept alive through stories that have been told throughout the generations. When someone utters the word “vampire” most people’s mind jump to Dracula from the great love story written by Bram Stoker. Dracula was created because Stoker was inspired by a real live man, the infamous, Vlad Tepes from Romania. That story is where love and vampires were intertwined and a kind of admiration was born. Only till recently they have become these seductive beautiful men and women in movies like ‘Twilight’ and ‘The Lost Boys’. So we are going to embark on the journey of where vampires began and explore the different aspects and origins of vampires. How these creatures were created was recorded in European folklore, Greek Mythology, found in medical conditions, and even taken from an excluded book of the bible. What is a vampire? Where did they come from? Well to get some answers we must first start at the beginning. First we must look at the word vampire. It is also spelled “vampir” or “vampyre”...
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...the media affects society’s habits and forms ideals for interaction seems as if the television is controlling the way society interrelate. The media creates false expectations for the rest of society. It’s the false accounts- the fictional stuff- that sells but also becomes the expectation in real life as society models the behaviors from the movies. It is a paradoxical concept that the entertainment industry creates movies with actors in roles that need to be exaggerated in order to sell; this obviously implies that the lifestyles portrayed on the television are not representations of the average person’s life. However, when viewers- normal people- watch these television roles, these false lives are assumed to be the norm for real-life so that creates a false system in which we approach interpersonal relationships, such as in dating. Romantic realism deals with creating stories of high-level stimulation, not something boring to bring a movie to life, etc. Unfortunately, this influence from the media and the humane aspect that we are never fully satisfied with what we have are vast contributions for the increase of friends with benefits in contemporary dating culture. When one looks at what plays on the television, the perfect, utopian, or ideal accounts of the characters’ lives raise the standard for how normal people are expected to behave and interact. As television and movies promotes the sense of casual relationships or casual sex without relationships, society assumes that...
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...“The role of women in the gothic genre is as victims, always subject to male authority.” By comparing the presentation of women in your three chosen texts, say how far you would agree with this view.” Women are central to the narrative of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and within Christina Rossetti’s poetry. All three texts were written during significant times in history: Rossetti and Stoker’s works during the infamous reign of Queen Victoria, and Carter’s collection during the year Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of Britain. As a genre, the gothic is often regarded as being dominated by men, with women featuring in the role of victim subject to patriarchy. Many early gothic texts feature women in the role of victim under the authority of predatory men, perhaps most notably in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Matthew Lewis’ The Monk. However, Stoker, Rossetti and Carter all at times break with this convention by characterising some of their females as strong, independent and liberated. As writers, they experiment with the characteristic features of the gothic genre, particularly Carter and Rossetti who challenge the traditional conceptions by presenting many of their female characters in dominant, authoritative roles which break convention. There are occasions in all three texts when the passivity traditionally associated with femininity in the gothic genre can be perceived to be a direct result of oppression...
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... In the different parts of the world, be it in Africa, the Caribbean or the European nations, the early human societies would use narrations for a variety of purposes such as entertainment, passing time or more importantly to communicate the values, traditions and principles that governed the specific society (Tudor, 1997). With the emergence of different religious schools of thought, narrations and later film work developed an inclination towards the depiction of evil versus good. The descriptions of the horrific nature of hell and the terrible demons there in was meant to scare shaky religious affiliates from deserting their faith. Since then the development of the horror film genre has advanced. According to Hogan (n.d) the first ever horror film to be produced in America was Frankenstein by Thomas Edison. In the contemporary day, the production of horror movies has been exaggerated with hard headed teenagers being the most preferred characters. As a matter of fact, some horror movies such as Friday the 13th and Freddy Vs Jackson were so popular that they made 234.6 and 224.8 million US dollars respectively. There are three most popular types of horror movie genre. The first type, and also the most common, is that in which involves some scientific procedure which goes wrong leading to the creation of horrific creatures or out of this world happenings which affect mankind severely. The second genre of horror movies are those that involve characters acting as dysfunctional...
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...sexuality in media these representations are shaped by ideologies; the way people think and interpret the word. In turn, different ideologies promote discourse and the discussion of ideas in relation to sexuality. In relation to specific media texts such as True Blood, there are several ideologies in the program, social, political and cultural which show a non-heteronormative view on sexuality. Ideologies are ways of thinking and how we interpret the world around us. It’s through ideology that representation in media text functions to reinforce the view of that particular school of thought. Representation can be through stereotype, strengthening sometimes negative views or typecasting those who are represented. Looking especially True Blood, vampires are being “re-presented” as the gay community which have to struggle and fight for equal rights(Dhaenens, 2013). The concept of Ideology, a way of thinking which impacts how you view and world and interact with people directly influences the discourse, how we discuss the ideology in relation to the representation of sexuality. Media representations are the ways in which the media text portrays particular groups of people, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective. In relation to sexuality, sex and gender are not the same thing and are not always...
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...42068711 COM 3703 08 October 2015 42068711 COM3703 Media Studies PORFOLIO ASSIGNMENT: 04 OPTION 01 08 October 2015 1 42068711 COM 3703 08 October 2015 DECLARATION: I, THE UNDERSIGNED, HERBY DECLARE THAT THIS IS MY OWN AND PERSONAL WORK, EXCEPT WHERE THE WORK(S) OR PUBLICATIONS OF OTHERS HAVE BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED BY MEANS OF REFERENCE TECHNIQUES. I HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD TUTORIAL LETTER CMNALLE/301 REGARDING TECHNICAL AND PRESENTATION REQUIREMENTS, REFERENCING TECHNIQUES AND PLAGIARISM. NAME: Ashley Vercueil STUDENT NUMBER: 42068711 DATE: 08/10/2015 WITNESS: Sheree Gloss 2 42068711 COM 3703 TABLE OF CONTENT 08 October 2015 PAGE DECLARATION 2 1. INTRODUCTION 4 2. QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS 2.1 The research problem 4 2.2 Research question or hypothesis 4 2.3 Method 5 2.4 Findings 6 2.5 Analysis 7 3. FIELD RESEARCH IN MEDIA STUDIES 8 4. MEASURING MEDIA AUDIENCES 11 5. FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM 14 5.1 Film: An overview 14 5.2 Theoretical discussion 14 5.3 A German expressionist analysis of film 15 6. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND TELEVISION 17 7. CONCLUSION 20 8. SELF-EVALUATION AND SELF-REFLECTION 21 SOURCES 23 Addendum 24 3 42068711 COM 3703 ...
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...Those amazing women writers I decided to do this topic because so much information I found online connecting to it surprised me so much. I have seen that much of the research papers common opinion was ”Women writers can never write as excellent as men.” Is that true? In my opinion, these thoughts are too narrow and bigoted. The people who have this opinion probably already have their own preconceived notions before they’ve made their judgment. I know there are more men writers than female writers, but you can’t deny that there are a lot of excellent female writers in this world too. Some of them are very famous and the fictions they created are so popular nowadays. They affect countless reader’s minds and how they chosed their next books. For example, Agatha Christie’s << Murder on the Orient Express>> and Charlotte Brontë’s << Jane Eyre>>, are better than most books which are in the same genre. We can never ignore what women writers did to help build the history of world literature and their amazing fictions. They have their own advantages and disadvantages. One big positive quality that female writers have is that they can describe their character’s feelings and minds very well. Most of the time they can express feelings with their pens far better than men. Kegan Gardines believes that these differences in experience will be apparent in the writing. She gives examples of the characteristics of women’s writing that differ from men’s writing: “recurrent...
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...Social Problems; Article Review Sociology 142, MW 11 28th October 2009 Table of Contents 1. Newspaper * Pornography- “Filter can shield kids from smut” * By: Rebecca Hagelin’ * Summary of newspaper article 2. Journal * Drugs & Alcohol- “Alcoholism; Recent findings in alcoholism” * By: B.J. Mason * Summary of journal article 3. Magazine * Violence- “Cartoon violence makes children more aggressive” * By: Laura Clark * Summary of magazine article 4. Bibliography The Washington Times April 27, 2009 Monday “Filter can shield kids from smut” BYLINE: By Rebecca Hagelin, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES SECTION: CULTURE; HOW TO SAVE YOUR FAMILY; A14 LENGTH: 659 wordsCulture challenge of the week: Internet pornographyAmerica is raising a generation of children on porn - and your child just might be one of them. According to the London School of Economics, nine out of 10 teens who go online will view pornography. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 70 percent of those who viewed porn stumbled across it - many while innocently doing their homework - and had not been looking for it.The purveyors of hard-core porn are so fixated on creating addicts out of our sons and daughters that they have made it virtually impossible for children to escape their clutches. Even one mistyped letter can lead your child into a sordid world where women are objectified, where there are no lines...
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...term effect simply cannot be ignore. Television viewing is a major activity and influence on children and adolescents. Studies have shown that children in the United States watch an average of three to four hours of television a day. By the time of high school graduation, they will have spent more time watching television than they have in the classroom. With this high amount of time children spent watching television, they will surely be expose to violence in various shows. In fact, the level of violence that they see on prime time television is about five violent acts per hour and the level of violence on Saturday that includes cartoons morning programming is about 20 to 25 violent acts per hour. Shows such as CIS, Buffy the Vampire, Jack Ass, and WWE wrestling, depict many violent acts with gory scenes that often times reward these acts. I can remember as a kid growing up, one of my favorite shows was WWF...
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