Obama's Election Means a Return of Vampire Flicks

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.

Comments

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Finally

[TheRealMindChild]

And the fooking "story" tag

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

And all this "change" bullshit. Why isn't music as good as it was back when I was young? You damn kids today and your habit of not doing things exactly the way I did them when I was your age! I'm OLD, damnit! Stop changing things! I told my dad I'd never be an old person, but that's going to happen if everything doesn't freeze in time exactly the way I left it! Get to it! Chop chop!

Re:Finally

[rugatero]

If idle isn't dropped, then it needs to be an option in my profile.

It is. Help&Preferences -> Your Preferences -> Index -> Sections

Re:Finally

[philspear]

Stop reading it then.

Genius.

[SatanicPuppy]

Wow, actually that makes perfect sense. Democrats suck, Republicans are mindless, socialists are hairy lunatics, and the best way to get rid of a libertarian is to nuke the site from orbit...It's the only way to be sure.

//Thinks the vampire movies have been coming out for a while now, actually.

Re:Genius.

[jonaskoelker]

Really?

I'd think that as zombies always come in hordes (Night of the Living Homeless &c), so they represent the mob of the working class. If vampires expose their skin to sunlight, they turn to dust, and likewise with the... "paperless administration work" of socialist governments.

Werewolves never use contraceptives or do abortions, but they do mate when they take a human form; just look at Oz and the red-haired sexy geeky wonderful Willow; *sigh*.

Where was I? Oh yeah, werewolves! They're clearly the republicans. And Libertarianism is so pie in the sky and alien to most Americans that we really, really have to try out plan A through plan H before jumping to Libertarianism.

Re:Genius.

[hobbit]

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

Re:Genius.

[Atario]

Republicans are in need of brains

Fixed.

Libertarians

[bskin]

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

Re:Libertarians

[TrekkieTechie]

We prefer Lunatarian, you insensitive clod!

Return of Blackula?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

Re:Return of Blackula?

[penguinchris]

It's not a Venture Brothers reference; Blacula is a real film from 1972: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068284/. There's a sequel, too.

It's hard to tell with a show like that, but you can be safe in saying that just about everything in there is a reference to something. They wouldn't have a character that hunts blaculas if the blacula precedent hadn't been set previously.

This makes more sense than I expected

[Rayeth]

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

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[forkazoo]

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.

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[Lemmy Caution]

During the 90's, there was a lot of what I call "gnostic cinema" - films like The Matrix, Truman Show, Dark City, eXistenZ, and such were all about radical Cartesian doubt ("is the world all lies? Can I trust my senses? etc.") I really do connect them with the Clinton era, and also with the apparent unchallenged dominance of what was called the Washington doctrine. Although Clinton was a Democrat, the idea that unfettered markets worked best and that we were on the road to permanent prosperity was very much the consensus, far more than under Bush. After all, the Cold War was over. With that consensus came gnawing doubt - expressed in those films - that perhaps things underneath the gleaming, shiny surface weren't so good after all. When the dot.com crash came, and then 9/11, such Gnostic doubt was no longer necessary: that optimism disappeared.

As far as why Democrats are vampires and Republicans are zombies, remember that culture trumps economics in representation. The Democrats are still considered the party of the cultural elite. The Republicans are the populists, at least at the base (so much of the last election was a demonstration of the contradictions between the Republican base and the Republican elite.) Democrats may tax you more, but they also, ironically, believe in a heirarchy of cultural values: that a salad at Chez Panisse is superior to a cheeseburger at McDonalds. Republicans like uneven economics, but flat cultures (which make, after all, simpler and bigger mass markets, which creates economic elites like Sam Walton.)

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[Spasemunki]

I would say that the villain in each movie reflects the type of character most likely to be demonized by the administration. Vampires are ancient, aristocratic white people who suck the life from the young and vivacious- in other words, the dessicated plutocrats that liberals blame for worldly ills. Zombies are poorly dressed unintelligent masses that want to eat the brains of the small number of intelligent protagonists who had the 'good sense' not to become zombies- in other words, the masses of the urban poor who are leeching off of a small number of productive citizens. Zombies are, to a conservative, just brain welfare queens.

Look at the financial crisis: was it the fault of a few Wall Street fat cats getting greedy (Dem view), or financially unfit masses dragging down the economy by not paying their bills (Republican view)?

Socialists I would think would be associated with 1980's teen films and episodes of Scooby Doo. The real villain is always a real estate developer interested in making a public good (teen center) into private property.

Libertarians would be bondage torture movies like Saw or Hostel. The enemy wants to tie you down and dismember you, just like the state wants to restrict your freedom and steal your property.

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[0xdeadbeef]

Actually, vampire movies are about the fear and/or admiration of elites, whereas zombie movies are about the resentment of conformity.

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[Lemmy Caution]

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.

Re:This makes more sense than I expected

[torchdragon]

Suddenly the conversation I had in the car last week about neo-platonic duality doesn't make feel like a total outcast. Thank you.

The obvious question

[DanTheManMS]

I think I speak for everyone when I say: "...what?"

What if Mccain won?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would living dead films be considered horror films or documentaries?

So Obama's a werewolf

[lordnabob]

And Bush presided over the resurgence of Torture Porn

I guess I'll go with the fuzzy fella.

They have it backwards

[jgoemat]

It is not the democrat in the white house that causes the resurgence in vampire media, but vampire media that causes a democrat to be elected. Tru Blood on HBO and the Twilight movie are two examples that have become popular recently, prior to the election. At least the twilight movie was in production and scheduled for release before the election. Maybe the increased visibility of vampires reminds people of the negative qualities of the republican party?

Bush/Cheney were Chaotic Evil

[billstewart]

In D&D terminology, Bush/Cheney were clearly Chaotic Evil. Some of their advisers and henchpersons like John Yoo may have been Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil, and their main enemies were probably Lawful Evil, as well as the Neutral and Good folks who were collateral damage. Seems to be a good environment for Zombies.

Vampire movies sometimes have vamps who are protagonists, certainly since The Vampire Lestat novels. And then you get the occasional Vampires vs. Werewolves sort of movie, which was obviously a literary reference to the Cold War...

put a stake in it

[dmhorus]

I say we get torches and chase idle out of our humble /.

I interpreted it quite the opposite...

[longobord]

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.