Beyond heros and monsters. New vampire metaphors on TV series

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the changes in contemporary textual representations of heroes as opposed to classic models. The opposition between monsters and heroes moves to the center of the scene, which is something rather new on the critical arena. The representation of vampires as a “rhetoric trope” will be analyzed from the point of view of Semiotics of Culture. Beyond time and cultures, vampires are frontier creatures bound to break norms, consequently becoming equals with subjects accused of “otherness.” Thus, the figure of the vampire becomes a metaphor for the dissolution of the frontier between monsters and heroes in American TV series. In them vampires upturn heroic myths at the same time as they strive to achieve their “human” condition. This deprives vampires of their monstrous condition and gives them a heroic status. We focus on the TV series True Blood (HBO, 2008-2014) and its construction of the distinction between human and monster, where the frontiers between vampires and heroes are blurred.