Kiss of the Vampire

• 1963:

  -audience familiar with the tropes of the horror genre

  -still a patriarchal society

  -growing sense of female liberation and position in society

  -developing female sexual liberation
• Subversion of gender expectation

  -equality of male and d=female antagonist

  -equality of male and female victim

  -male vulnerability

  -female strength and dominance
• At the bottom of the poster, male names listed before the women showing they get paid more and it's a male dominated production and industry
• Van Zoonen

  -The idea that gender is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context

  -The display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture
• Stuart Hall


  Women reduced through sexual and subservient stereotypes. Inequalities of power, male dominated industry. Powerful female 'othered' through connections to the supernatural

  -women: cleavage on show, high heels to represent modesty

  -men: unbuttoned shirt could be seen as seductive, in classic high class vampire costume
• Levi-Strauss : Binary opposition

  evil is privileged over good through the female antagonist

  female antagonist foreground
• Birth control pill available on the NHS 1961


  -Made women feel safer and more confident when having seggs

  -Women have more control over their reproduction
• Abortion Act 1967


  -Women now allowed to abort a child due to unwanted pregnancies, not financially stable

  -Abortion was made legal
• Divorce reform act 1969


  -Allowed to leave their partner, escape relationships giving more freedom
• Feminists were campaigning for equal pay, and end to sexual harassment and more equality between men and women
• David Gauntlett : identity

  -the media provides us with 'tools or resources that we use to construct our identities'

  -whilst in the past media tended to convey straight forward meanings about idealised males, the media today offers us a more diverse range of icons and characters
• title 'kiss' opposes the vampire genre as they usually bite or attack instead of experience romance
• text font is in typical gothic font, looks wooden (coffin like), bats associated with vampires
• both couples are heterosexual - ideological of the 1960s
• Theoretical perspectives:

  -semantic code: conventional association of bats with horror and vampirism

  -symbolic code: darkness and fear reinforced by the moon

  -hermeneutic code: suspense created through enigma to do with male/female vampires
• Dress Codes


  Women's pale dresses of light materials highlights their curves and figure - skin coloured dress could also represent nudity asking for attention from men

  Revealing flesh of upper body: vulnerability and sexualisation