Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods (Traditions in American Cinema)

The figure of the vampire serves as both object and mode of analysis for more than a century of Hollywood filmmaking. Never dying, shifting shape and moving at unnatural speed, as the vampire renews itself by drinking victims’ blood, so too does Hollywood renew itself by consuming foreign styles and talent, moving to overseas locations, and proliferating in new guises. In Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods , Dale Hudson explores the movement of transnational Hollywood’s vampires, between low-budget quickies and high-budget franchises, as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas and off-shores to Canada, Philippines, and South Africa. As the vampire’s popularity has swelled, vampire film and television has engaged with changing discourses around race and identity not always addressed in realist modes. Here, teen vampires comfort misunderstood youth, chador-wearing skateboarder vampires promote transnational feminism, African American and Mexican American vampires recover their repressed histories. Looking at contemporary hits like True Blood, Twilight, Underworld and The Strain , classics such as Universal’s Dracula and Drácula , and miscegenation melodramas like The Cheat and The Sheik , the book reconfigures Hollywood historiography and tradition as fundamentally transnational, offering fresh interpretations of vampire media as trans-genre sites for political contestation. The figure of the vampire serves as both object and mode of analysis for more than a century of Hollywood filmmaking. Never dying, shifting shape and moving at unnatural speed, as the vampire renews itself by drinking victimś09 blood, so too does Hollywood renew itself by consuming foreign styles and talent, moving to overseas locations, and proliferating in new guises. In Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods, Dale Hudson explores the movement of transnational Hollywood́09s vampires, between low-budget quickies and high-budget franchises, as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas and off-shores to Canada, Philippines, and South Africa. As the vampiré09s popularity has swelled, vampire film and television has engaged with changing discourses around race and identity not always addressed in realist modes. Here, teen vampires comfort misunderstood youth, chador-wearing skateboarder vampires promote transnational feminism, African American and Mexican American vampires recover their repressed histories. Looking at contemporary hits like True Blood, Twilight, Underworld and The Strain, classics such as Universaĺ09s Dracula and DrÃŁcula, and miscegenation melodramas like The Cheat and The Sheik, the book reconfigures Hollywood historiography and tradition as fundamentally transnational, offering fresh interpretations of vampire media as trans-genre sites for political contestation This book proposes that vampire films and series constitute a different way of understanding Hollywood and the United States. It explores the movement of transnational Hollywood’s representations of the vampire, between low-budget quickies and high-budget blockbusters and franchises, even as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas. Vampires allow us to refocus on Hollywood as __plural__, US history as __transnational__, and race as having __afterlives__. The book proposes three overlapping contributions: (1) reconfiguring Hollywood historiography and traditions as transnational in terms of film, television, and web production, distribution, and exhibition/transmission; (2) offering fresh interpretations of vampire film and television as a transgenre (rather than subgenre of horror) and transmedia site for political contestation; and (3) situating constructions of race in/and the United States as constitutive of nation. At the intersection of migration and commerce, vampire films and series are examined for the __textual meaning__ of their stories, characters, styles, and performance and the __political economies__ that determine their production, distribution, and exhibition. In "Vampires, Race, and Transnational Hollywoods", Dale Hudson explores the movement of transnational Hollywood's vampires, between low-budget quickies and high-budget franchises, as it appropriates visual styles from German, Mexican and Hong Kong cinemas and off-shores to Canada, Philippines, and South Africa. As the vampire's popularity has swelled, vampire film and television has engaged with changing discourses around race and identity not always addressed in realist modes. Here, teen vampires comfort misunderstood youth, chador-wearing skateboarder vampires promote transnational feminism, African American and Mexican American vampires recover their repressed histories. Looking at contemporary hits like True Blood, Twilight, Underworld and The Strain, classics such as Universal's Dracula and Dracula, and miscegenation melodramas like The Cheat and The Sheik, the book reconfigures Hollywood historiography and tradition as fundamentally transnational, offering fresh interpretations of vampire media as trans-genre sites for political contestation VAMPIRES, RACE, AND TRANSNATIONAL HOLLYWOODS 4 Copyright 5 CONTENTS 6 ILLUSTRATIONS 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 11 INTRODUCTION: MIGRATIONS AND MUTATIONS 16 1. BLOOD, BODIES, AND BORDERS 36 2. “MAKING” AMERICANS FROM FOREIGNERS 60 3. CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES: THE UNNATURAL WHITENESS OF AMERICA 83 4. INTERNATIONAL HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES: COSMOPOLITANISMS OF “FOREIGN MOVIES” 115 5. VAMPIRES OF COLOR: A CRITIQUE OF MULTICULTURAL WHITENESS 149 6. TERRORIST VAMPIRES: RELIGIOUS HERITAGE OR PLANETARY ADVOCACY 178 7. OTHER VAMPIRES, OTHER HOLLYWOODS: SERIALIZED CITIZENSHIP AND NARROWCAST DIFFERENCE 208 CONCLUSION: HISTORY AND HOLLYWOOD, MASHED-UP 244 FILMOGRAPHY 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY 260 INDEX 279 Introduction: Migrations And Mutations -- Blood, Bodies, And Borders -- Making Americans From Foreigners -- Classical Hollywood Vampires: The Unnatural Whiteness Of America -- International Hollywood Vampires: Cosmopolitanisms Of Foreign Movies -- Vampires Of Color: A Critique Of Multicultural Whiteness -- Terrorist Vampires: Religious Heritage Or Planetary Advocacy -- Other Vampires, Other Hollywoods: Serialized Citizenship And Narrowcast Difference -- Conclusion: History And Hollywood, Mashed-up. Dale Hudson. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.