Living by Society's Standards - Vampires and Zombies

Vampires and zombies – two things that haven’t crossed my mind in at least a couple of months. Call me crazy, but I was never the one to be overcome with fascination when The Walking Dead came out or True Blood gained such popularity. However, I will shamefully admit that as a young, irresponsible, way too easily impressionable girl in middle school – Twilight was my thing. It’s a sad thing to think about. Besides that, bringing these things back to mind introduced exceptionally intriguing points in this article. Personally, the idea that vampires have responded “to a seeming epidemic of body dysmorphic disorder and an obsessive fear of ageing that [has] plagued Western culture in recent years”, stood out to me the most. I had never thought about it before, but my assumptions prior to reading this about media and television and such is that it creates an unrealistic expectation for a certain type of body for both women and men. Vampires, however, at least in the modern day, play largely into this way of thinking. And we are feeding it into the very people who need a completely opposite message! Young teenage girls look for identity and worth in nearly every issue they encounter, and yet so much of our society configures a distorted image that we have become obsessed with. What perplexes me further is why the general media continues to play into this, even though we realize the implications – such as sixteen-year-old girls expressing desire for plastic surgery.  Although modern vampire movies restore the idea that sense of Self can overcome demonist tendencies that lie within each of us, which promotes an empowering message to the abilities of the Spirit, the way they silently destroy self-confidence and instill fear of growing older outweighs, in my opinion, this positive aspect.  While it is an impossible thing to hope for, I dream of a future where we are not as concerned about outward appearances, but strive to focus on the power of the inner self, as these new vampires embody.

Questions:

 1) Why does society constantly need a horror instilling monster (zombies replaced vampires, something else will replace zombies)? Why do we need to be scared? What does it do for us?

2) Although technology and advancement are often advertised as such a wonderful tool in today’s society, why, and how, is it also effective at selling stories about the danger and demise of the human world as we know it? How can we have both and not have some kind of change?