#vampires arent just homophobia... they're white supremacy and classism and antisemitism

[cadaverkeys]

you getting the gay vampires response reminds me I too got a rant about it in my replies. I just blocked the person. My post was half joking (sort of) that 19th century vampire novels were pretty gay and in that therefore vampires in general are officially (more of the joke part but I stand by it because I will) not straigh. And then someone got mad asking if I read about any vampiric folklore, books, or anything about the history of vampires and that “most of us take it seriously”.

As I said I blocked them, but also anyways I did a shit ton of research and stuff into vampires and their folklore including before the modern concept and all over the world because they were my special interest (autism) since I was a kid. And I read the book already. Also Carmilla being a book that exists.

The Dracula Daily thing seems to now be getting some weird people coming out of the woodworks to get mad at people

Absolutely...I believe that vampires are culturally linked to many things. They are a vessel of villiany in that, by their nature, they must hurt people to survive. Vampires are also an ancient myth with many different faces. A vampire can be an animal with three tongues and one eye but it might also be a human with straight teeth and a pleasant disposition. The defining factor of the vampire is not its face or its character- it's the violent acts that it must do to survive, drinking blood especially.

In that way. If you are anyone with a deep interest in vampirism I feel that you must be acquainted with vampires as the depiction of bigotry. I feel the book by Bram Stoker is intentionally homophobic, anti-orientalist, and white supremacist. The plot is LITERALLY "the foreign other terrorises us because he is predisposed to hatred and conquest" and I feel that trying to go all "death of author" on this is...stupid. It's purposefully ignorant, even. Critical media analysis doesn't end when you get uncomfortable!

I originally responded thinking that the user was sincerely mislead on their interpretation of my post and I tried to be gentle in my redirection. But at the end of the day they're arguing apples when I'm arguing pears. The original post is ALL about author intent and their response is trying to invalidate that by arguing death of the author above all else. We just aren't arguing about the same things at the end of the day...

They made note to say about how I'm in a grump about this- that this prevents me from enjoying Dracula as a literary work. Fact is, I LOVE Dracula. I love vampires!! Part of my enjoyment of them is ALSO analysing their position in politics. Theres no way to separate the two, imo.