ABSTRACT
Vampires are everywhere, and they have been for a long time. They take on various forms as they show up on our televisions, in our books, and at the movies. Mention of vampires used to conjure a familiar image of an exoticized, Orientalized male with a widow's peak and a cape. But the vampire myth goes deeper than a benign cultural image, and the current form of the vampire as white suburban teenager emphasizes one way in which it does so. In a significant way, the vampire is a symbol of the “other”—of that which is considered to be separate, inferior, and perhaps even nonhuman. For the most part the vampiric image represents something monstrous, evil, and an object of fear.
