https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh Exploring the vampire myth through history -An analyses of "Why the Vampire Myth Won’t Die" by Jason Zinoman. en-us 2022-06-01 20:33:19 UTC 2022-06-02 23:50:39 UTC hello@padlet.com https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,h_1248,w_2220/v1555387541/shape/mentalfloss/teeth_1.png?itok=Vn4Mwy4p slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208071709 Through the 11th and 12th centuries, vampires were used as scapegoats for the unscientific masses to blame for disease origins, such as rabies and tuberculosis. The appearance of the original vampire took on the form of a human leech with blood flowing from their mouth, bad breath, and a bloated stomach (Zinoman, 1).]]> 2022-06-01 22:16:24 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208071709 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208088465 In a book written by Karl Ferdinand von Schertz in 1704, Magia Posthuma, cases of alleged vampirism are examined throughout some locations of Eastern Europe. These incidents caused interest in vampires to explode through Europe. The hysteria got so fierce that empress Maria Theresa (the 1740 sovereign of modern day Transylvania and other countries)  passed a law banning the exhumation and destruction of corpses, as well as other acts of superstition (Petersen). Europe was in complete belief of the night dwelling disease spreaders.

]]> 2022-06-01 22:47:29 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208088465 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208093455 It wasn’t until the 1800s that vampires really started to take their quintessential form as wealthy creeps in formal wear. Enter Count Dracula with his fangs full of metaphor. In 1853 the first mandatory vaccine laws were being enacted in England, and the people weren’t having it. Vampires embodied their feelings of bodily violation and fears of possible vaccine repercussions (Zinoman, 2).

]]> 2022-06-01 22:57:10 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208093455 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208096318 In 1881 James Wilkinson published a handbill titled The Vaccination Vampire with the purpose of metaphorically describing vaccinations as vampiric. Wilkinson's fear-mongering handbill pushed the claim that vaccinations would lead to “degradation and extinction,” and were a source of “universal pollution” (Zinoman 2). ]]> 2022-06-01 23:03:01 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208096318 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208103474 When Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897 it set off a chain of monstrous events that would change the horror genre forever. He certainly knew how to prey on people's fears and really stoked the fires of the anti-vaccine movement. Stoker also increased anxiety levels by giving Dracula the ability to shapeshift into a bat and fly, and a raging unrequited libido (Zinoman 3).

]]> 2022-06-01 23:16:26 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208103474 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208112354 Nosferatu translates from German to English as vampire. Being taken as a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the first vampire movie takes audiences by silent storm. The timing of this movie also played to the audiences contagious fears. Nosferatu was filmed less than a year after the end of the 1918 global pandemic which claimed about 25 million lives worldwide (Zinoman 3).]]> 2022-06-01 23:31:42 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208112354 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208119280 Talk about a Glow Up. Bela Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula is what we all envision when we think of the vampire cliche. This rendition of the tale turns the vampire into a charismatic, debonaire, desirable character. With eyes that smolder and a bite that kills, Dracula takes the audiences weakness for attraction and makes it a deadly fear. ]]> 2022-06-01 23:42:07 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208119280 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208146690 The 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson reignited the viral transmission paranoia that originally sparked the public's fascination with the vampire myth.  Recently there has been a link to the novel, and 2007 film, in the covid era anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. The novel  introduced apocalyptic horror onto the scene and made way for countless renditions of this variety (Zinoman 5).]]> 2022-06-02 00:16:32 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208146690 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208167499 Seduction in the search for blood, fanned the flames of many 20th century vampire encounters. With Anne Rice on the scene composing her southern gothic novels, lust was the new rabies.🤣
The 70s did see the use of the vampire in a progressive attempt to shine a light on civil rights struggles with the movie Blackula. This movie was just the start of using vampires to highlight racial disparities in America. ]]> 2022-06-02 00:36:26 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208167499 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208950376 In the 80s the vampire genre starts to see the merger of the  myth and dark comedy. With the 1987 cult classic The Lost Boys hitting horror in the funny bone, the genre then opened up for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel in the 90s.
The AIDS epidemic also brought the disease tie-in to the genre with Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula. The stark tone arcing back to the origins of the vampire myth was met with critical acclaim while playing on the very real fears surrounding blood and sex in the 90s (Vinoman 5). ]]> 2022-06-02 13:05:32 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2208950376 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209154778 Twilight took the 2000s by brooding, steamy, awkward storm and gave every teen girl a team to be on. The movie's storyline  brought the vampires out of the shadows and into the realm of romantic heros fighting their natures for the love of others. The 2000s also gave rise to shows like True Blood and Black as Night which used their story lines as direct challenges to civil rights issues. ]]> 2022-06-02 16:01:01 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209154778 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209484183 In the 2021 thriller, Midnight Mass, Father Paul returns from a trip where an angel gave him his youth back, and gave him the "cure" to all that ails the people of his tiny community, its blood. The Father then begins adding small amounts of the angels blood to the communion wine for the whole town. This show does a major tie in to the vaccine fears of early vampire lore, taking what should be salvation and turning it into damnation, and directly relates to the current pandemic. 

]]> 2022-06-02 22:34:24 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209484183 slahr589 https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209490675 The most recent season of American Horror Story turns to the covid fears of its audience with a character presenting with a hacking cough named Tuberculosis Karen. Now that the world has had its own fresh batch of hell, what's next for the vampire myth seems very frightening indeed. With more to be scared of both politically and medically, the possibilities of where the stories could go seem endless. Veteran horror director, Joe Dante, wrote in an email that “The pandemic has heightened our fear of each other, of infection and contagion, invisible droplets delivering a cataclysmic blow to our physical beings... I think a wave of vampire stories that captures a claustrophobic preoccupation with death and paranoia may be filling our screens next" (Zinoman 6).]]> 2022-06-02 22:46:01 UTC https://padlet.com/slahr589/piugho2axk7yncjh/wish/2209490675