An Instagram DMs essay translated into fulltext
When I tell you that vampirism has gotten less and less progressive over the decades as the concept gets gentrified and romanticized by cishet white people, I fucking mean it.
Used to be vampires were seductive demons - same vein as succubi, but less actively sexual.
Now they're just ugly bastards who run around saying Abra cadaver and chugging rabbit blood.
And by "used to be" I mean straight up in the 1700s,, all the way through Lugosi's time.
I think it started changing probably around the 50s, when the end of WWII and the Red Scare meant a return to traditional Christian values. That means no more gay subtext in movies, no promiscuous women, and definitely nothing that could be misconstrued as positive towards the gay experience.
The Last Man On Earth, for example (great movie, Vincent Price), has vampires that are clearly shown to be vampires - but they're really more like zombies. The narrative has changed so that these new vampires are no longer charming, malicious people you might meet on the street. These aren't people you'd see in positions of power - they're not rich from living lifetimes and eating relatively cheaply. They're not skilled or particularly eloquent. These vampire-zombies are instead the downtrodden lower class, the majority, and they merely want survival.
It's like I, Robot (I think, I've never read I, Robot but I saw the Phineas and Ferb episode and know the Laws of Robotics)
Then in the 80s and 90s we had a brief return to original form - nostalgia made people miss the old vampires, and we saw stuff like Buffy The Vampire Slayer showing us vampires both old and new, showing the generational gap between said vampires, and showing the difference between the brutish, physically aggressive ones and the more innovative, strategic ones - and, most importantly, how both methods can work just fine, depending on the intended victim.
That stuff, of course, got rid of all subtext. The most you'll get is that even people who look monstrous are still people.
Love the whole demon face thing though. Really makes it nice, cause I'm getting tired of vampires that look boringly human. The thing about Nosferatu and Lugosi's Dracula is that they both look REALLY STRANGE. They're very odd. Nosferatu's fucking goofy-creepy to excess, and Dracula is a very eccentric dude - and that's perfect, because they've lived for a very long time and are of course demonic creatures. If they just looked like loser twinks it wouldn't be scary or cool.
Which brings us to Twilight! It sucks
And that brings us back to Moffat's Dracula. Moffat is a fucking whore who hates women almost as much as he hates gay people and if Lugosi was alive today he'd beat the shit out of him.
Politely...Bela was a lovely man.
The only interesting thing about Moffat's Dracula are Dracula's massive eyebrows.
