Media Meditation #2: Have You Taken a Bite?

Some may associate this "vant of blood"with Stephanie Meyer's 2005 release of Twilight but in reality, it started with Heinrich Ossenfelder's The Vampire in 1748.
The word vampire traces back to 1745 when it first appeared in the English dictionary. The word was associated in the same sense that it is today, except it was believed that vampires were created from suicide deaths, witches, or being bitten by a vampire. In 1897, Bram Stoker regenerated the vampire belief with his release of Dracula.

Since then Dracula has appeared in all forms of media, and triggered the sucking blood fad. I in the process of reading this gothic novel depicting Count Dracula as a man who lives in Transylvania, and comes to London, scales walls, sucks blood and stays away from garlic flowers. There are numerous other characters including Dr. Van Helsing, who comes to the realization that his friend, and patient is suffering from a vampire's bite. I'm only half-way through but after reading the current vampire fiction books, I wanted to know where it started, and I would recommend it. If though you are one of those people who would rather watch the movie, there are over 60 movies with the character of Count Dracula. Since Dracula became a big hit in theaters,other vampire movies have been released including Interview with a Vampire, Van Helsing, Lost Boys, Underworld, Blade, and Stephanie Meyer's quartet of the Twilight series.
Besides growing up with these movies, I grew up watching many shows with my parents including Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched the episodes but unlike some people I know, I wasn't a fanatic. Many people watched Buffy religiously, crying at each of Buffy's death. As Buffy was on its way out, TV was graced with spin off of Angel.



The show uses every tactic, from Beautiful People with the cast, and cameo stars, to stimulating all three levels of the brain. The music stimulates the limbic system, with the images catching the brains attention. The repetition of show structure captivated audiences nationwide, wondering who with this strong, high school teen have to save next. The show even went as far as having a mentor to teach Buffy knowledge of vampires, incorporating "scientific evidence" in the form of the Professor. The fighting stimulates the reptilian system, showing Buffy's need to stay alive and save her school, instead of letting the vampires take over, and all the interactions between the characters and body language is consumed by the neocortex. Buffy triggered a personal shift within the nation causing blogs to spring up on the internet, and people forming fan clubs to those devoted to the essence of slaying vampires. Is this a good thing? Some would think yes, it's an interaction and a hobby people enjoy, but some people take it to far to wanting to become just like Spike, dying their hair, and sharpening their teeth to look like fangs. Even TV Guide recognized its following rating Buffy the #3 Best Cult Classic TV Show. Unfortunately the owners of Buffy (WB) believed the show wouldn't continue to do well, and thus the show changed networks and only lasted one more season.
Besides the Buffy series, HBO has recently launched the mini series True Bloods, along with many big shows having episodes featuring vampires, including X-Files, Charmed, Smallville, Supernatural, and Wizards of Waverly Place. Even music and games didn't go unscathed with Billy Idol's "White Wedding," and the player can be a vampire in many computer and video games.
One of the last forms of media and the most commonly associated with the vampire trend, is literature. As stated before, Stoker has been attributed with starting the gothic horror fad, creating one of the best villians of all time, Dracula. But that isn't the only vampire novel. Since then vampires have been commonly associated in not only horror novels, but young adult fiction. There are books from Stephen King's Salem's Lot, released in 1975, followed by two miniseries, to my favorite historical fiction novel The Historian by Elizabeth Kostavo, to Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods young adult series and Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.
Each era has a new type of vampire. The late 1800's was graced with Dracula, followed by the silent and film noir era with the typical vampire being Count Dracula, to now the most recent fad has been middle and high school students attending the midnight releases of the Twilight books and movies. Stephanie Meyer has proved that vampires aren't just for adults, but can be adapted into a multi-million dollar profit, ranging from the original books to clothes, movies, and a interactive site, where the author blogs with her readers.Even I attended the midnight release of the fourth book, participating in games and trivia. I will admit that I had fun. Not only did I attend the midnight book release but the midnight release of Twilight and last Saturday I went and saw New Moon.


If I could recommend a few things about this current fad, 1.) please read where this trend all started with Dracula, 2.) watch The Lost Boys, it's a typical 1980's classic with poor special effects, cheesy lines, smoking, and the typical bad boy image complete with long hair and motorcycles, and 3.) read The Historian. If you ever read The Da Vinci Code, this novel is quite similar to the effect that it's a historical fiction novel of a person roaming around in search of this great treasure. Unlike Dan Brown's novel, Elizabeth Kostavo knows how to write transforming a beach book into an intellectual learning experience that I loved every minute of it.

Media Meditation #2