RSS
Home
Vampires are so Hot Right Now
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
It's a full-blown trend, ladies and gentlemen, starting with HBO's True Blood, Let the Right One In, the vampire program on facebook that encourages you "bite" your friends and even the pale, emaciated, black-leather hipster thing that's cropping up on bodies all over town. Now, Twilight, relentlessly up in my grill, is expected to gross over $50 million at the box office opening weekend.
Don't get me wrong, I love vampires. Really. I don't believe in God, but I believe in vampires. I have seen every episode of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and relished every second. Vampires are mysterious, sexy, wildly romantic and even wonderful fodder for comedies - take the upcoming indie flick, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead. But like all sexy, cool things, the compulsive marketing at a certain point makes it lose its luster. There couldn't be more of those freaking Twilight posters, strangely evocative of child pornography, plastered onto every surface of this city. If you keep cramming the same thing down a person's throat, that person will eventually throw up.
I'm not saying vampires are a subcultural phenomenon that need to be consecrated as opposed to swallowed up by the mighty mass-culture machine. I realize they've been popular for centuries. I'm saying the thing that makes vampires so seductive is their concealment - they can be anywhere, or anyone. And in this bizarre upheaval of vampire love, it would have been nice to see the Twilight campaign get a little more creative and capitalize on the mystery of these creatures, on their history, as opposed to slapping two pale, airbrushed teenagers together in Photoshop and calling it a day. The Zack and Miri Make a Porno poster is more intriguing, and it's a couple of goddamned stick figures.
As a massive vampire fan, I wholeheartedly encourage the hype, as long as it's true to why they're popular in the first place.
Related Articles:
Comments
