The Vampire Era
The Vampire Era Vampires today seem to be a very popular trend amongst Western society, such as Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. A common trend that can be seen through these vampire movies are the roles of femininity and masculinity. What defines masculinity and femininity? Both femininity and masculinity can have various interpretations, but “masculine characteristics are used to identify persons as males, while feminine ones are used as signifiers for femaleness” (Devor, 672). These gender roles can be clearly seen in the new hit tv show about vampires called The Vampire Diaries. The Vampire Diaries consists of a young and average teenage girl Elena, who has tragically lost her parents in a car accident in where she was the only survivor. After this accident Elena’s life changes and she falls in love with Stephan who in a shocking twist turns out to be a vampire. Along with these new changes in Elena’s life, more problems ensue and a clearer understanding of gender roles between the women and the men in the show is more vivid. The Vampire Diaries plays with different gender roles for both men and women on the show, brings sexuality into this hybrid mix, and depicts the non-normative standards of the world today. Signs of femininity can be clearly seen through the main character Elena. She is seen as a normal human being whose choices she makes are not well supported by everyone else around her. The producers make it seem as if her life is miserable after losing her parents in the car accident and just add more problems when she finds out her best friend Bonnie is a witch and her friends have been turned into vampires. This gives a sense of compassion to Elena because she happens to be the only normal human being in the group. Usually, when Elena makes a decision something ends up going horribly wrong and either Stephan or his brother Damon have to come and rescue her while her best friend Bonnie might be doing her
Cited: Craig, S. 2012. Men’s men and women’s women. Signs of Life in the USA, 7, 189. Devor, A. 2012. Gender roles behaviors and attitudes. Signs of Life in the USA, 7, 672. Hatch, J. 2011. From buffy summers to elena gilbert: How millennial convergence interacts with third-wave feminism and enlightened sexism in the vampire television show. Movable Type: the university of Virginia graduate media studies journal, 3.1.