Why Are Vampires Romanticized In Common Culture?

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, and 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 things that are conventionally beautiful or have the terrible tendency to compel people to be in awe of their 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 high 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, according to the need of the hour. You will see her as a beautiful, alluring, and charming creature who falls in love with a damsel in distress. The fictional vampire of contemporary pop culture has a face of healthy colour 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 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 vampires are now presented as heroic and attractive, maybe to hide their bad intentions and qualities.

Question no. 03: Why is the concept of immortality favourable, and how does it go against most religious beliefs?

From the start of religious practices on planet Earth until today, the concept of immortality has been 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 investigated ways to explore where man came from and where he went when death came. 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 bioethical 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’s Osiris myth of a real human being who received glory for fighting a civil war during his reign (Kidd, 2013). At the same time, the majority of the world’s religions do not think it favourable 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 lives. 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 was resurrected 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 that adults feared the return of their loved ones from the dead. They also were in fear of Zombies and believed that zombies in Africa and neighbourhoods are 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 will cause extinction and destruction to the living people’s minds, bodies, and souls. Older people of Medieval Poland were in 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