I suppose vampire flicks are interesting in large part because of their associations with Christianity (often Catholicism). Symbolisms involving blood and (holy) water. Children of the light vs. children of darkness. Dracula as a Cain or antichrist figure. And so on.
However the new BBC/Netflix Dracula series seems to be attempting to subvert this relation to Christianity. To secularize Dracula. To background the Christian themes and symbols in Dracula and to foreground secular elements. The series suggests that traditional Dracula tropes (e.g. fear of crosses or crucifixes, sunlight burning vampires to a crisp) are in Dracula's head. Dracula doesn't actually get burned by sunlight. Crosses don't in fact harm him. He simply fears sunlight and crosses. So it's more like a person with an irrational phobia. This in turn (the episode suggests) is because what Dracula really fears is death so he's turned his fear of death into superstitious rituals or the like in the hopes that these will keep death at bay. It's like someone afraid to walk under a ladder because he thinks it'll mean bad luck for him.
If this is the case, then it's further interesting to note the creators and showrunners are Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. Both men are known for their work on the BBC's Doctor Who as well as the BBC's Sherlock. Both are vocal secularists as well as LGBTQ supporters. Indeed, Gatiss is homosexual. As such, I wonder if perhaps Dracula is meant to mirror what most secular homosexual men fear - getting old, losing their youth, a slackening in their sexual vitality, death? Sure, many non-secularists and many non-homosexuals share these fears as well, but it seems to me it's particularly acute among homosexual men. For example, Prof. Christopher Hajek at the University of Texas-San Antonio has concluded based on his research that gay men are "scared of aging more than a lot of other people would be".
At the very least, even if it's not true of homosexual men, or no more so than the general population, it seems quite true of secular atheist or agnostic types. See this 97 year old professor for instance. He "grieves" as those "who have no hope" (1 Thes 4:13) over the death of his wife. He wrote a book arguing not to fear death when he was much younger, but at 97 years old he candidly admits he was wrong in his book. He confesses he's scared of death.
In any case, there's no ultimate hope outside Christ. That's why it's good for us to remember and be thankful that God saved us, for we too "were at that time separated from Christ...having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). God gave us hope who had no hope. And God continues to give hope to the hopeless if only they will forsake the darkness and come into the light.
I was thinking a few weeks ago that Christian film makers should make Dracula movies in the style when Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were making them. But make them slightly more Christian. Not too preachy, yet making distinctions between Catholic and Protestant theology. I think some could become popular among non-Christians. Non-Christians are looking to be really scared and maybe a good old fashioned horror movie with a Christian framework will do that while at the same time put a pebble in their shoes in that it also goes against their anti-Christian bias. It'll kind of be how some non-Christians kind of resented the fact that they liked the song Butterfly Kisses which was recorded by a Christian. They loved it and hated it at the same time. Such pebbles can get people to thinking about the truth of Christianity.
ReplyDeleteI think for example how Andrew Klavan read a novel in which a character he liked was described in passing to have said a quick prayer before going to sleep. He figured that if that character could say a prayer, then he could too. And it changed his life. He describes that in his testimony HERE (already cued up, though it's best to watch the entire testimony from THE BEGINNING). I also recommend his book which I read. Also, his audiobook version where he reads it himself.
I thought about Christians making Dracula movies because I bought a used copy of Dracula 2000 at Goodwill a few weeks ago. The movie is kind of hockey, but enjoyable [to me at least] because of partial Christian element to the story. The Christian Dracula movies could be set any time in the past. Though, I don't think they would work if set in the present. Unless a really good plot were written.
Thanks, AP!
DeleteThis new Dracula (2020) does seem to be primarily in the older Hammer Horror vein of Dracula (as well as the original Bram Stoker novel). Interestingly this new Dracula also seems to make Jonathan Harker look like Nosferatu. Anyway it's definitely not Twilight, Anne Rice, 30 Days of Night, or Let Me In! I think you'd enjoy it if you like the Dracula movies with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
I think Steve's short story "Children of the night" would be a great story for a filmmaker to turn into a film.
hockey = hokey
ReplyDeleteTo put my Dracula review another way:
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily care much for vampires or Dracula, but what's often missing in modern adaptations is the real sense that there are greater forces at work. Cosmic powers which make humanity seem infinitesimal in comparison. Despite this having been true in literature across the ages. Even in otherwise secular or atheistic literature (e.g. H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu). One used to feel the weight of such worlds, but today it's all become something to be poked and prodded at like a scientist. So, sure, Dracula is shown to possess supernatural abilities in this new series, but at the same time Van Helsing is more like a modern-day scientist who seeks to explain it (in order to defeat Dracula) if not explain it away.
The paranormal has become conventional. Secular scientists and the like-minded celebrate this. They'd say it's holding a candle in the midst of a demon-haunted world. Of course I don't think that's even true on factual grounds given the mounds of empirical evidence for the paranormal, but on literary grounds it's quite lacking as well. Dracula was always meant to be a great evil from the great beyond, but if one cuts him down to the size of a regular man, if one domesticates him, then one is left with an impoverished literary imagination.
Not unlike Richard Dawkins:
After a little girl of six pointed out some flowers, Dawkins asked her what she thought flowers were for?
She gave a very thoughtful answer. "Two things," she said, "to make the world pretty and to help the bees make honey for us."
"Well, I thought that was a very nice answer and I was very sorry I had to tell her that it wasn't true. Her answer was not too different from the answer that most people throughout history would have given. The very first chapter of the Bible sets it out. Man has dominion over all living things. The animals and plants were there for our benefit. We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. Flowers are for the same thing as everything else in the living kingdoms, for spreading 'copy - me' programmes about, written in DNA language. That is EXACTLY what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self sustaining process. It is every living objects' sole reason for living."
https://www.scienceandchristianbelief.org/articles/dawkinspoole1.php
Another thought:
DeleteI think the Netflix Dracula series evokes the other-worldly eeriness of the original Dracula novel (Bram Stoker) better than most other Dracula fare I've seen, but it also makes Van Helsing a nun who is skeptical about God's existence and/or God's goodness and it tries to demythologize the supposed myths about vampires (e.g. Dracula's aversion to sunlight is just his own phobia rather than there being any significance in the symbolic contrast between darkness and light).
However in Stoker's novel the two go hand-in-hand. Remove the one and the other doesn't seem so spooky anymore. Take crosses. If crosses don't really harm Dracula, then why still have crosses in Dracula at all? Same with all the other religious themes and symbols in the series. Why not go all the way and make vampirism explicable on purely secular scientific grounds? The series balks at this point. In this respect, it's like Van Til's quip about a girl sitting on her father's lap and slapping him in the face.
--The series suggests that traditional Dracula tropes (e.g. fear of crosses or crucifixes, sunlight burning vampires to a crisp) are in Dracula's head. Dracula doesn't actually get burned by sunlight. Crosses don't in fact harm him. He simply fears sunlight and crosses. So it's more like a person with an irrational phobia.--
ReplyDeleteOTOH some media took a different track - it is the faith of the wielder which harms Dracula, the cross by itself is a just a piece of wood in a particular shape.
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/True_Faith - True Faith is a power held by the truly devout. With True Faith, for example, a brandished cross can have an effect on a vampire, fallen, mage, werewolf, wraith or changeling instead of being merely an empty symbol of the creed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhqrjV8nF3A - Fright Night 'big cross' scene
--Indeed, Gatiss is homosexual. As such, I wonder if perhaps Dracula is meant to mirror what most secular homosexual men fear - getting old, losing their youth, a slackening in their sexual vitality, death?--
An infection passed through intimate transmission of bodily fluids, where the 'turned' gradually becomes a pale, gaunt, walking corpse who can similarly infect others?
I'm not the first to point out the similarities with HIV/AIDS.