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Obama's Election Means a Return of Vampire Flicks

Posted by samzenpus on from the pet-monsters dept.

gyrogeerloose writes "In a column in Saturday's San Diego Union Tribune, Peter Rowe makes a connection between the popularity of horror movie genres and the political party in the White House. A Republican administration presides over a period of zombie movies while a Democrat in the Oval Office brings on a cycle of vampire movies. Why? Possibly because the two genres 'are really competing parables about class warfare.' Hmmmm, maybe. On the other hand, it might just be a coincidence." Socialists are best represented by lycanthropes, and the Libertarians are most closely tied to any sort of horror from space.

9 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Finally something on idle that isn't a complete turd. I still say idle should be dropped.

    1. Re:Finally by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And the fooking "story" tag

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:Finally by philspear · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stop reading it then.

  2. Libertarians by bskin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Aren't libertarians tied to freedom lovers on the moon?

    --
    hot foreign sheep.
  3. This makes more sense than I expected by Rayeth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Which maybe isn't saying much, but this makes more sense than expected. However I doubt that zombies will suddenly drop off the map (Evil Dead 4 where are you!?) just because Obama took over the reigns. Also the line about competing tales of class warfare is total nonsense. Vampires = scary liberal democrats while zombies = brain dead republicans? I think some writer was just trying to be funny while letting his political bias show.

    Assuming this was right, why wouldn't democrats out of power want to portray republicans as vampires too? And ditto with republicans showing democrats as zombies. The door swings both ways on this, clearly the argument was made without thinking it through.

    And now I have officially spent as much time on this post as the writer did on the column

    1. Re:This makes more sense than I expected by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which maybe isn't saying much, but this makes more sense than expected. However I doubt that zombies will suddenly drop off the map (Evil Dead 4 where are you!?) just because Obama took over the reigns. Also the line about competing tales of class warfare is total nonsense. Vampires = scary liberal democrats while zombies = brain dead republicans? I think some writer was just trying to be funny while letting his political bias show.

      No, Vampire movies are about the danger of a centralised danger preying on the masses, and slowly bleeding them dry. That is, big government and overtaxation. You never have a sole hero in a Vampire movie - it's always a sole villain. It's about the people needing to keep an evil elite in check.

      Zombie movies, however, are all about the individual struggling to overcome the masses. You always have fewer heroes than zombies in this type of picture, which strikes a chord with the Republican rhetoric of rugged individualism and self reliance. It's about an elite needing to keep the evil masses in check.

      I love BSing.

    2. Re:This makes more sense than I expected by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Absolutely not: the idea that the world of the senses was an illusion, and that the true lay behind a veil of lies is central to gnosticism. Gnosticism is more a religious version of neo-Platonism (after all, Cartesian doubt has its origins in Plato's cave.) There were Christian and non-Christian versions of Gnosticism as well: Gnosticism developed independently of Christianity in other parts of the Roman Empire and its vicinity, though it was soon blended with various Christian practices and beliefs.

      I think the political situation in which Gnosticism flourished in some ways echoed that of Gnostic Cinema at the end of the 20th century: a hegemonic force looked like it was "the end of history," Rome was unrivaled in its power and an uneasy sense of totality dominated the cultural scene, as if the Empire seemed to envelop reality - like the Matrix.

  4. Re:Genius. by hobbit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Calling Bush or the Democrats socialists is pretty laughable from anywhere outside America.

    --
    "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
  5. I interpreted it quite the opposite... by longobord · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The way I interpret the popularity of one type of horror movie over another has more to do with what people fear. People who tend to vote for republicans fear the throngs of poor huddled teaming masses coming to eat their brains (and their hard-earned cash). People who tend to vote for democrats find it more fear-inspiring to think about some powerful unseen force swooping in and draining them from above. So zombies would represent fears of tax and spend while vampires would represent corporate greed.