Why is there a widespread fascination of the Vampire genre, with particular focus on The Twilight Saga's, and how influential is this in youth culture?
The word genre has no “fixed” definition. The vampire genre has been around since the 19th century and "Over the decades the genre has been far from static, as vampire narratives changed and evolved with the appetites of their viewing public." However over the last four years the vampire genre has become increasingly popular once again, hitting its peak with the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer. The saga is series of four novels which have been also been converted into five Hollywood films (one of which is still to be realised). I will be focusing more on the films with slight a reference to the novels. The saga looks at the “unorthodox romance between human Bella and vampire Edward, as well as the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob, a werewolf.” It portrays the struggles they go through to finally be together in harmony. The primary audience for this particular text are, young teenage girls, aged 12-18, from a C1C2D social economic group. They have become so consumed in the recent uprising of the vampire genre that it is said to “claimed the oddest trend of 2008” For the older audience 21+ it is an “escapism from dark economic times” that “is contributing to a boom in vampire themed entertainment”. During the course of this essay I will explore why there was a rapid demand for this genre and how it’s affected today’s youth culture, through the ideologies being portrayed.
The vampire genre codes and conventions have been altered to fit audiences’ preferences from what they used to be. Before the outbreak of the Twilight Saga when we heard the term “vampire” we immediately thought of someone like Dracula. An immortal deadly creature of the night that was vicious. During the time of the novel, Dracula “created great moral panic as it touches on themes such as the role of women in Victorian culture, sexual conventions, immigration, colonialism, and post-colonialism.” Dracula is different to my text because he is seen to be the “perfect villain” whereas Edward is the “tragic hero. Over time “the vampire has undergone many transformations in recent years” from bad to good. Vampires like Dracula enjoyed being inhuman, causing and inflicting pain onto their pray however in today’s world vampires like Edward are becoming total opposites and wanting to fight the urge to drink human blood. One could say that "vampires themselves change so much, and reflect contemporary society". Today’s vampires are glamorous and sexy, and have an emotional side thus making them more appealing to the female audience. As society has changed it has forced “genre to adapt” thus making the vampire fiction less frightening and there has been a growth in “paranormal romance” across this popular culture. The change in codes and conventions of the genre connote to why audiences are now so attracted to the genre. The main consumer of the these vampire texts are females, so stereotypically we associate the genre of romance and fantasy with them thus creating a greater appeal to the vampire genre. The genre now romanticises the vampires and puts them on an unreadable pedestal which creates an image of so called perfection amongst impressionable teens.
After years of having “scary” vampires, we were all blown away when the Twilight Saga hit the screens. The novels became more popular between the younger audiences through the mass coverage of the films. The Twilight saga created the picture of the “ideal boyfriend”
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