{"id":176,"date":"2016-02-24T16:54:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T16:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=176"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","slug":"the-1972-hit-movie-blacula-and-american-anxieties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/02\/24\/the-1972-hit-movie-blacula-and-american-anxieties\/","title":{"rendered":"American Anxieties and the 1972 Hit Movie: Blacula"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Crain\u2019s Blacula<\/em>, released in 1972, was an American adaptation of Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. The film follows Prince Mamuwalde, an Abani African prince who went to Transylvania to seek Dracula\u2019s help in ending the slave trade in 1780. Instead of helping Mamuwalde, Dracula turns him into a vampire, giving him the name of \u2018Blacula\u2019, and Mamuwalde lays in rest until 1972 when his coffin is bought by interior decorators in an estate sale and shipped to Los Angeles. After slaying the interior designers Dr. Gordon Thomas, a pathologist for the LAPD, begins to investigate their deaths. Blacula therefore changes the nuances of the story itself, but preserves the undercurrents of fear of foreigners by the invaded society, changing the nuances to create the same feelings in American society in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

One of the clearest anxieties felt by Victorians was the anxiety towards foreigners, entering their nation and causing disorder and uncertainty of ones\u2019 place within society. The story of Dracula is particularly blatant about this fear. Dracula is a nobleman from the far reaches of Eastern Europe who enters British society and wrecks havoc on those who aided him in entering the nation in the first place. Since Blacula<\/em> was an adaptation, it would make sense that the general premise of the vampire as the foreigner falls in line with Dracula, since he, as an African Prince, is an undoubtedly an outsider. The anxiety towards those from the Balkans, whose culture was not understood or commonly replicated in Britain, can be compared to the lack of understanding that white Americans in the 1970s held towards both African and African American culture. Even in the trailer<\/a> for the film, Blacula is pronounced Dracula\u2019s \u2018Soul Brother\u2019, and the use of Funk for a horror movie\u2019s soundtrack makes it clear that Blacula<\/em> is different, and \u2018othered\u2019 from other horror movies.<\/p>\n

As a film Blacula<\/em> has a unique focus on the repercussions of slavery. Blacula was hailed the \u201cBlack avenger\u201d in his film, since Mamuwalde originally sought out Dracula to end the slave trade. When he arrives in Los Angels, he is a bought good from the estate sale \u2013 making the coffin he was shipped over in even more symbolic. Mamuwalde then turns Americans into vampires, and therefore enslaving them for his dark purposes. This can be seen as a product of the slave trade, as Mamuwalde enslaves Americans before they\u2019re given the chance to enslave him. He was unable to stop the slave trade in 1780 and therefore still holds the fears of that time period in relation to America. Once this line of thinking is worked out, it can also be applied to the original Dracula. Dracula hails from a nation untouched by the British during this period, but in the course of Britain\u2019s history, England has invaded 90% of the world\u2019s countries, and during this time is was an Imperial power. Dracula could therefore be seen as attempting to colonize England before it attempts to colonize him. Even when talking with Harker about his anxieties of moving to London, Dracula mentions that he is a noble in his homeland and that common people know him to be a master. Dracula does not want to give this position in society up; therefore he would attempt to exert dominance in England. By entering a country that is not his own and forcing those already there to accept him as a man of power, Dracula is colonizing England.<\/p>\n

Through the way in which foreigners are presented and interact with their adopted societies within the vampire genre, it is apparent that they represent not only the fears of the unknown held by society, but the fear that the harm countries like Britain and America have done on to others, will be done on to themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Crain\u2019s Blacula, released in 1972, was an American adaptation of Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. The film follows Prince Mamuwalde, an Abani African prince who went to Transylvania to seek Dracula\u2019s help in ending the slave trade in 1780. Instead of helping Mamuwalde, Dracula turns him into a vampire, giving him the name of \u2018Blacula\u2019, and … Continue reading American Anxieties and the 1972 Hit Movie: Blacula<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2767,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2767"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}