Men with Teeth: Portraits of Vampires and Masculinity in Mexican and Russian FilmOctober 27, 2023 at 3–5 p.m.

Depictions of the male vampire in film have varied wildly from the first terrifying vision of otherness in Nosferatu (1922) to a romanticized, homoerotic portrait in Interview with the Vampire (1994) and, more recently, to the feminized, “sparkly” reluctant revenants in the Twilight saga (2008-2012). In each case, the vampire offered viewers a snapshot of evil and men in their respective time, offering viewers insight to how men envisioned their relationship to death. This presentation focuses on two disparate cultural representations of the vampire in film, Russian and Mexican, to offer a cultural comparison of how the universal frame of the vampire is used to portray images of masculinity in their respective worlds in late 20th and early 21st centuries. Specifically, it suggests that the image of the vampire comments directly on the inherent relationship men have to their own masculinity within the social constraints of their cultures.