Madam Mina: Dracula's New Boo

We know from reading the book that Mina is described as angelic, maternal and a woman with a "man's brain."  She is vital to the mission of purging the world of the horrible Count Dracula in many ways, whether it's by using her excellent typewriting skills to organize the group's diaries or exploiting her connection with the Count with the help of hypnotism. She is, in my humble opinion , the most important and unappreciated member of the Crew of Light. So what is this bull corn in the movie? Mina goes from being a clever, valiant, faithful women, to someone who literally falls in love with some seemingly random guy on the streets (who just so happens to be the very same vampire sucking the life out of her dearest friend.) While it at first seems that she's going to despise said stranger (which I suppose was way too close to the original story for comfort) she actually ends up dating him! Let me remind you that she is currently engaged to Mr. Jonathan Harker. If that's not bad enough, she actually convinces her newfound lover to change her into a vampire not two minutes after finding out that it was he who killed Lucy. 

Excuse me ma'am, but this is not your fiance.

Why in the world did they choose to portray Mina into this adulterous, absinthe drinking, Van Helsing kissing version of herself when her role in the original story was so pivotal? The only theory  I could come up with is that they wanted to add excitement to the story. I suppose that by changing Mina into a character who is stuck in the middle of Dracula and the Crew of Light, the audience could be left to wonder who's side she will end up on. I mean they've changed the story line so much anyways, why not let Dracula live? At the point in the movie when Mina is conjuring up a storm to assist Dracula's escape, even I  thought that the vampiric pair were going to somehow escape and be together. (I was very concerned about how that would work out in the end.) By creating this other romance in the film, I believe Coppola was also working to attract a variety of audiences. Men, for the most part, would be attracted by the horror-like aspects of the movie, while women would appeal to the emotional and even sensual parts.

I mean let's face it, young Drac was pretty hot. Who can resist a top hat and Ozzy Osborne shades?

 Again, these are just theories in the works. What do you think about this complete flip in Mina's character?

Let's Talk Sex

It is interesting how sexual expression is represented in Bram Stoker’s gothic horror novel Dracula and I want to take a look at the vampires versus the humans. Stoker was writing in an era where sex wasn’t discussed nearly as openly as it is now. Just three years before Dracula was published, Ruth Smyther’s released the satirical Instruction and Advice for the Young Bride booklet in 1894, filled with tips for how newlywed women should “endure” sex. Her tips include: “when he finds her, she should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness” and “if he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her any place else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet.” These “tips” were satirical criticisms on Victorian thought about sex and obviously carry a very negative connotation with the expression of sexual desire. The silence on sex is reflected in the lack of any recorded sexual tension between newlyweds Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray. This is very different from the sexual expression between the vampiresses and Harker. When seeing the vampiresses for the first time Jonathan felt “a wicked burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” and laid waiting “looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation.” Harker was clearly interested in the proceedings. One of the vampiresses “went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating” with a “deliberate voluptuousness as she arched her neck and licked her lips.” This is a sexually confident female. “Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and seemed about to fasten on my throat.” Her lips about to finally touch his neck, Harker “closed his eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited with a beating heart.” I mean we can really see how eager Harker is in this scene surrounded by the sexually empowered vampiresses. So what is Stoker trying to do? Is he trying to explore sexual expression in a way that it hadn’t really been before? What does it imply about the monsters who are behind the sexual fervor?

I got the Smyther quotes from this blog:

http://historyofsexuality.umwblogs.org/pre-20th-century/victorian-era-2/

The Dracula quotes are from the end of chapter 3 

Grendal's Evolvment and Human Similitude Advancement

Grendel initially seems a bit primitive with minimal human qualities/characteristics. However as time progresses, he seems to adopt intelligence along with the capability of rational thought. Often times throughout he may appear as human as the people he interacts with. His past supports this ambiguous characterization and development. He is a descendant of Cain and shares lineage with humans. Aside from his horrible appearance not much seems to separate him from humans. His brutality and violence isn’t too out of the ordinary as well. It seems similar in some ways to human violence depicted by Gardner.

            There seems to be a few stages that take part for Grendel. The first being his upbringing, spent mostly exploring. When we first see him it can be interpreted that he possesses intelligence. Also, he has the ability to speak and has freewill, this trait separates him from other monsters including his mother. In the beginning all he knew was himself and his close whereabouts. He says that he understands that the world was “nothing” and that “I alone exist”. (21). It seems once he comes across nature and animals, he discovers a world with much more than he once knew, including a dangerous side. He crosses over the lake (which to me is him crossing over to the next stage). This includes the wonderment of what life really is about and the meaning. I feel his way of attempting to get an answer stems from him observing humans. This seems to draw to him as he develops the capability of making patterns and inheriting these patterns onto the world before him, which creates a sense for him that the world follows a clear system with rules and order. The next stage of his life involves his battle with Beowulf and the time leading up to it. Their encounter seems to provide a violent resolution for Grendel’s quest.

His transformation from being alone and wishing to better himself/broaden his horizens makes for quite the ordeal. The way in which he does this also proves that he is an intelligent monster, capable of human like emotions and rational thinking/logic. In Beowulf I feel we only really see Grendel as his fully embraced evil self. From the story from Grendel’s perspective, this allows us to enter his mind and understand why it is he acts the way he does. It also allows us to take a second look at him, more than just how he was originally portrayed as completely evil.

Vampire's Kiss: Renfield Un-(Nicolas)-Caged

I never thought I would preface a blog post for an English class with this, but man, Nicolas Cage doesn't get enough credit. It doesn't occur to many that some of his roles are actually pretty convincing (he won an Oscar, you guys...) but if you want a role that is simultaneously his best and worst, here it is. If you've ever seen the viral video "Nicolas Cage Losing His Shit" and were wondering where the ridiculous "I'M A VAMPIIIIIIRE!" soliloquy and the infamous scene where he recites the alphabet to his confused psychiatrist came from, this is it. The 1989 film Vampire's Kiss can best be described as an over the top psychological thriller with blackly comic overtones. I appreciate it that much more having read Dracula, especially with the parallel to that novel's depiction of male vampirism through Renfield.

He bought plastic fangs because they were cheaper.

An undercurrent of sexual repression runs through Cage's protagonist Peter Loew, who gets tired of his day job as a top publishing agent, berates his poor secretary Alva to no end, has fruitless sessions with psychiatrist Dr. Glaser, and, in one of his many one night stands, ends up bedding Rachel, a girl whom he thinks is a vampire just because she bites his throat a little. But apparently, in his words, "she's a goddamn vampire!" It seems as if screenwriter Joseph Minion, who also wrote Scorsese's crazy neo-noir After Hours, wanted to take the obvious metaphor of throats in Dracula and drag it in a little bit further. But with that said and done, one question is in the back of my head whenever I look at this film is the question: is Loew really a vampire?

A real twist on the Renfield/Dracula relationship, I'm sure.

Any sane person would say the obvious answer is no, because vampires aren't real. But Loew's sanity reaches a tipping point when he finally gets some excitement in his life, when Rachel bites his neck. Again, throats embody phallic symbols in Dracula, and it doesn't take much searching to find out that Loew, by all means a bitter guy who makes his secretary do a bunch of work and talks VERY openly with his psychiatrist about his job failures and sexual encounters, needs just one last bit of action to regress into a role he can't get out of. It makes me wonder what could have happened if the vampiresses actually bit Jonathan Harker at the beginning of Dracula.

Loew, dancing like he doesn't care.

Even then, I'm certain even Jonathan wouldn't go full Renfield and eat a cockroach on camera, turn his studio apartment into a makeshift vampire pad, get dark glasses and plastic vampire teeth (he couldn't afford the fiberglass fangs), or bite people. When he finds Rachel, she doesn't care at all...and neither does he, as he proceeds to curse her out very profusely. Indeed, Rachel is shown mainly as a figment of Loew's wild imagination up to that point, feeding on him and making him lose it that much more.

I'm not kidding about the cockroach, either. That's real.

And then there's poor Alva. Before Loew has another soulless one-night stand that turns out to be a feeding frenzy, he bites her on the throat, sexually assaults her, and almost kills her. Alva gets her brother to avenge Loew for his mistreatment, and in the final scene, where Alva's brother enacts his revenge by stabbing Loew in the chest with a crude stake from the leg of a chair in Loew's studio apartment/makeshift lair, Loew finally frees himself from his vampirism, repression, madness, and above all, ennui.

In other words, he's Uncaged! And that's a really big stake...perhaps some repressed masculinity on his part?

I may be reading a bit too much into Vampire's Kiss, even as I draw parallels to the major characters in Dracula - but especially Renfield. Loew and Renfield differ in many ways, though. Stoker does not place much of his major focus on Renfield, while Loew is this film's protagonist. Accordingly, the other characters take a backseat to him. Dr. Glaser is most definitely not the Seward type, and the motive of Alva's brother can be categorized as straight up revenge. Finally, Renfield is confined, while Loew is a publishing agent, and thus, the latter is most definitely in the 1%. Thus, it says a lot that a guy spending $$$ on therapist visits, club outings, rent for a studio apartment in NYC, and plastic vampire teeth can be compared to a man who spends his days confined in the squalid conditions of a Victorian asylum.

"R" is for "Renfield would NEVER recite the alphabet like this to Seward!"

In the end, I actually consider Vampire's Kiss to be a forerunner of psychological thriller films such as American Psycho, Nightcrawler, and Gone Girl, which all go deep into the psyches of unlikable characters and get their black comedy from the crazy stuff they do. Yet, what separates Vampire's Kiss from those would, no doubt, have to do with Cage's miraculous overacting. Nothing can hold a candle to his cockroach-eating, pigeon-catching, plastic fang-bearing work here. Nothing, I tell you.

And this film has been immortalized in another way, too: anyone with Internet meme cred knows this as his "YOU DON'T SAY" face.

Champagne, Opium, and Governesses (and most other things relating to Victorian Mothers): How Lucy and Mina Represent Victorian Mothers

                The Victorians were very good at some things: corsets, censorship, and postmortem photography. But one thing most Victorians aren’t well known for are their child rearing abilities.  There were often two types of mothers; the affectionate mother and the unloving mother.  Some mothers doted on their children, while other mothers were…well, monsters (but isn’t this always the case).  Mothers were monsters for whatever reason (just like the Victorians really seemed to blame women for the whole Garden of Eden and apple thing…but aren’t Lucifer and the snake generally men?  Its fine. Its whatever).  But so long as a mother made sure- or hired a governess that made sure- the children were seen and not heard, they were deemed a good mother. 

                Dracula- to me, if it’s so heavy with Oedipal things- could be a comment on the two different types of mothers in Victorian England.  Far reaching?  Yea, okay, but let me actually explain. 

                Lucy was the rejecting mother.  Plenty of Victorian mothers were rejecting; they turned their children over to governesses and had practically no hand in raising their children.  Lucy rejected Quincy and Jack, and also seems to reject the “bloofer boiz”.  She was in love when she died.  Yes, to be a part of the undead generally makes one cold, but I imagine she would need a companion.  Sure, there’s Dracula, but if he’s so busy stealing all the other English women from English men, he can’t actually keep his creations company.  So, why doesn’t she create a little child to keep her company?  Yea, that’s even more far fetched, but it makes sense.  If she’s the symbol of the cold Victorian mother, there’s a chance she wouldn’t want children: there’s a chance that could contribute to why some mothers were so horrid (and why Lucy never kept one of the children).   

                Mina is definitely the stereotypical mother; affectionate, loving, and a comfort (also she’s made to seem a little weak, but ideal women automatically being weak is a different blog post).  While mothers in the Victorian ages still believed that children should be seen and not heard, a number of them were still mothers that loved and cared for their children.  Mina would be one of those.  She helps to nurse Jonathan back to health, holds the men when they cry over Lucy, and even mothers Lucy as much as her own mother.  Mina is the ideal mother of all ages and time periods, and if Dracula is turning women based on their ability to mother, it’s no wonder he chose her in addition to Lucy.  Lucy was the prototype- Mina is the perfected version of the mother Dracula wanted.  In Coppola’s Dracula, Dracula uses Jonathan to get to Mina.  Perhaps Dracula’s original motives were not too far off (just like the rest of the movie is from the rest of the book, but again, that’s a different blog).

                Dracula was more than likely not read as Oedipal when it was first written, but it has defiantly developed into the monster it is today.  With Dracula and Van Helsing as the obvious fathers, the two women are the mothers, and the “Van Helsing boiz” are undoubtably the sons.  The two women not only represent The Angel in the House and New Women, but they represent the two different types of mothers that were famous then and are still famous now.  

Da Na Na Na Na Dracula!

A Shadow in the Night, crusader for a cause QUICK LOOK! Is it the hero Gotham deserves on that ledge or is it something else? Now I’m not saying that Dracula and Batman are the same person, but tell me have you ever seen them in the same room together? Of course not! I may not be a judge but I can recognize surmounting evidence when I see it, and there are several convincing arguments that suggest billionaire crime fighter and the ever pertinent Count of Transylvania are one in the same.

The Biggest and most convincing argument for Batman and Dracula being one in the same is their fixations with the night. For all purposes of this article the Dracula in question is the one from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both Batman and Dracula come alive in the night with very similar purposes. In a sense one could say they both are in search of blood. Batman stalks his prey with superhuman reflexes and prowess striking terror in his foes, draining them of their ability to fight but never killing them, In the name of “justice”. Dracula similarly stalks his prey at night not only with superhuman agility but the ability to be super stealthy and in the 1999 Coppola film seemingly teleport and disappear in the blink of an eye. Now Batman is known for disappearing in a flash, at first he is talking with Gordon and the second Gordon turns his back Batman silently vanishes into the night without a word. This also works in reverse for both of them where they can appear without notice in front of their prey and then quickly vanish immediately after.

Continuing the previous argument, both batman and Dracula can move about during the day time but their powers are quite diminished. Now you may say that Bruce Wayne’s powers aren’t diminished but without any way to conceal his identity Bruce will never demonstrate his amazing acrobatics and crime fighting skills, almost as to say that without the cover of the night he is powerless. Dracula when moving about during the day is very similar to Mr. Wayne, Dracula becomes Prince Vlad, a wealthy man of royalty new to the town, he dresses fashionably and moves with the crowds of the streets somewhat normally. During the day however, Dracula’s powers are extremely diminished and reflect almost nothing of the caped cursader ( not a type, it’s a pun) of the night that he is.

Thirdly, for some reason both of the men in question have an odd fixation with bats. Dracula and Batman in some degree both turn into bats, Dracula literally becomes a bat, beast, thing… and Batman dons spandex and a very pointy mask with a long cape to resemble what he fears most. Not only do both Batman and Dracula have a fixation with bats but similarly they choose to live in large manors or castles all alone in isolation miles away from the nearest town or even Gotham city. Inside their respective manors are many secrets which those that come to visit are forbidden to exploring the house. Now Batman hides his super suit and all his gadgets while as far as the reader of the Stoker novel knows, only horrors are hidden in Dracula’s home. Finally the biggest tie between both characters is that they both seek something they lost, which is their love. Batman broods and seeks to find his love Rachel, while Dracula seeks to find the ancestor or reincarnation of his long lost bride to be Elizabeth.

At the end of the day most people will say that Dracula and Batman are not the same person for whatever reason they choose. However I am not so sure. Next time you see a shadow figure running through the night or a bat flying through the cold night air you choose, but if it’s up to me their probably the same person. After all Dracula is immortal and has to find some way to keep up with the times right?