Question no. 01: Why are vampires romanticized in common culture?
The reason why vampires are romanticized in popular culture storytelling as bloodsucking creatures is their power of seduction like women. They appear ‘beautiful,’ seducing, alluring, yet their beauty is alarming for those who remain vigilant always. One of the traits of human beings is that they get attracted to the thing that is conventionally beautiful or have the terrible tendency to compel people to be in awe of its beauty. So, in my opinion, this phenomenon is significantly reflected in the depiction of a vampire having alluring physical features. However, this comes with the heavy cost of feeding on human blood through sexy gestures, deceitful smiles, and beautiful features. You might have heard the famous proverb “A person catches more flies with honey than vinegar.” This seems true in the case of a vampire who seduces her human prey through her ‘beauty’ and ‘sexy gestures’ to bite a person on the neck (Bartlett, 2006). So, they are romanticized as a metaphor representing the taboo of sexuality through their seductive aristocratic figures.
Question no. 02: What are some main differences between vampires in folklore and vampires in pop culture?
From folklore, the vampire is completely a bloody evil creature that is utterly black in its conception. She is a corpse who awakens at night to suck the blood out of living creatures (Bartlett, 2006). They were presented as scapegoats who were killed to restore civilization as in olden times they were seen as the cause of the plague. However, the vampire of pop culture has changed drastically as per the need of the hour. You will see her as a beautiful, alluring, and charming creature that falls in love with a damsel in distress. The fictional vampire of contemporary pop culture has a face of healthy color and a tail-like extension of the hair over the spine. She first puts an allured man into sleep through hypnotism of her beautiful facial features, frightens him with deadly dreams, chokes him in his sleep, and then sucks his blood from his thorax (Barber, 1990). In the fewest words possible, the vampire in folklore is a hideous, revenant, and a demon-like figure with long-finger nails, a mouth and left eye open, a plump Slavic fellow, and a ruddy face (Barber, 1990). Contrary to that, the observant people in pop culture might notice that now vampires are presented as heroic and attractive may be to hide their bad intentions and qualities.
Question no. 03: Why is the concept of immortality favorable and how does it go against most religious beliefs?
From the start of the religious practices on the planet Earth until today, the concept of immortality is always seen as prohibited by religion. There is a common concept in each religion of the world that the Lord God has made human beings in reflection of Himself. They have to return back to their Lord as everything has a beginning and an end, too. However, Science has always been investigating the ways to explore where man has come from and where he goes when death comes. In search of that, Science has made much advancement and discovered that when a person gets murdered he comes back to this planet to take his revenge either in the form of a zombie or a vampire. Religion always seems to be suppressing the advances of Science, especially in terms of researching the notion of immortality. It does not believe in the awakening of corpses from death such as zombies, vampires, or the still unknown aliens as this concept has big bio-ethical implications. A number of religions, however, extend their views on the concept of immortality. Most religions nicely incorporate the idea of immortality into their religious practices such as Egypt in its Osiris myth of a real human being who received glory for fighting a civil war in his reign (Kidd, 2013). Whereas, the majority of the world’s religions do not think it favorable as they deem God and Jesus immortal in their own specified way.
Question no. 04: Why did older cultures worry so much about loved ones returning from the dead?
The fear of people returning from the dead is a common phenomenon in today’s modern men’s life. However, adults of old age used to worry about it the most. Chinese tradition is one example of older adults fearing the return of their beloveds as they clean their houses a day before New Year’s Eve. They believe that cleaning houses on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day would bring the bad evils of their ancestors that might bring bad luck and bad spirits with them. Jesus resurrects from the dead but that resurrection process was for the good of humanity as He sacrificed for His people even for all mankind without any racial or ethnic discrimination. Christian culture also affirms their adults feared the returning of their loved ones from the dead. They also were in fear of Zombies and believed that zombies in Africa and neighborhoods are the living examples of bad spirits that have resurrected from the dead. The reason is that they think the resurrection of their loved ones from the dead would bring illnesses, bad spirits, and annihilation. They fear that the bad resurrection of their loved one would cause extinction and destruction to the living people’s minds, bodies, and souls. Older people of Medieval Poland were in the fear of vampires due to strange burials that they might be able to rise after death but not in a good way.
Works Cited
Bartlett, Wayne B., and Flavia Idriceanu. Legends of Blood: The vampire in history and myth. Praeger Pub Text, 2006.
Barber, Paul. “The real vampire.” Natural History 99.10 (1990): 74-81.
Kidd, Angelina. “Imagining the Unknown.” (2013).
Beam, C. (2008, November 20). Why movie vampires always break all the vampire rules. Slate Magazine. https://slate.com/culture/2008/11/why-movie-vampires-always-break-all-the-vampire-rules.html
