Kiss Of The Vampire Flashcards
Political and Social Contexts
1960s: women’s sexual liberation
- introduction of contraceptive pill
More women entering paid workforce
- feminists campaigned for equal pay, end to SA +equality
-1963: equal pay legislation
Dress codes
Pale, light material dresses
- emphasise femininity
Curves + revealing flesh
-Van Zoonen- sexualisation
- ‘men not objectified in this way’- argued in this poster due to male victim’s costuming
Vampire in red shirt
- connotations to blood- essential for horror genre
-paradigm- used in the blood drop in title (adds cohesion)
-shirt- westernised power?? (Gilroy’s post-colonial theory)
Gesture code
Woman on left
-stereotypical victim (on knees, head tilted back, blood)
-vampire holds her with one arm- signifying power
Woman on right
-bitten by bat, seems unaffected (aggressive?)
- male victim on knees with her above
- both characters represented in a non stereotypical way (against Hall’s representation)
Vampire
-fearful gesture code
-arms in defensive position, looking into distance
-protecting himself from female vampire??
-Barthes hermeneutic code- adds mystery
Stuart Hall- Representation
‘Shared conceptual roadmap’
-bats
-darkness
-vampires
-blood
Audience decodes generic iconography- horror
Power balance between gender
- representation is not alluding to stereotypes
David Gauntlett- Identity
Female vampire= role model for those struggling against male oppression
- want equality
- feminists protesting in 60s
Liesbet Van Zoonen- Feminist
‘Co-antagonist’ role of female vampire
-contributes to social change
-non traditional roles
-breaking ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype
Cultural Context
1960s audience familiar with conventions of ‘monster’ film poster
-composition, font, representation
Monster with likely female victims
Capitalised Serif Font
Connotations to vampire genre
Wooden style- signifying a coffin??
Blood dripping from V
-fang
-symbolic code of vampire (Barthes)
‘Painted’ Main Image
Convention of 60s film poster
Colourised
-‘in Eastman colour’ - new for 60s film
-contrasting old tale with modern story telling
- Levi-Strauss- binary opposites??
Natural/ gloomy colour scheme
VISUAL SIGNIFIERS
Reinforces horror genre conventions
Contrast
Hints of red- emphasising attacking bats + blood
Listed stars
Male celebrities
- in order of fame and amount paid
4/5 are men
-two female characters on poster
Roland Barthes- Semiotics
Hermeneutic code
- creates suspense though connoted relationships between vampires and victims
Semantic code
- bats, the moon, old architecture
- associations to horror genre
Symbolic code of horror
- gesture code displays characters’ fear
- male victim’s ’submissive sacrifice’- (against Van Zoonen, men also sexualised??)
Claude Levi-Srauss- binary opposites
Representation of vampires + victims
-men as victims
-dangerous female??
Romance + horror
-new concept of mixing genres for 60s
