The Vampire Moment
Posted on July 13, 2009
The Vampire Moment
According to the New York Times, a series about vampires, “True Blood”, is pulling HBO out of the ratings doldrums, “pulling the channel out of a dry spell that began when several hit shows like “The Sopranos” ended.”
We are in the vampire moment, led by Count Obama.
President Obama is the lead vampire. He is seductive, with impossibly high popularity ratings, given the circumstances facing the country. He prefers the nighttime to party (he turned down a dinner invitation from Vladimir Putin so he could party with the Washington Capitals hockey start Alexander Ovechkin). He is debonair, with a winning smile, and a certain elegance that plays well with women voters, especially.
And he is interested mainly in sucking the blood out of the more productive members of society in order to keep alive organisms that will never die (mainly, government programs).
The Republicans, his main opposition, remind me of Darrin McGavin in the old television series, “Kolchak, The Night Stalker”. They appear to a little off, slightly unhinged, and in comparison to Obama, rumpled and somewhat delusional. They yell loudly about the dangers of Count Obama’s policies, but nobody seems to listen.
I have never understood the allure of vampires in popular mythology. Hollywood seems to find them very sexy, just as they love Mr. Obama. Every five years or so, it comes up with a new blockbuster movie. The best vampire in my mind, was Frank Langella. He also played a very convincing Richard Nixon, in the very entertaining Frost V. Nixon.
Like Langella, Count Obama has a certain sex appeal to him. But the women who loved the Langella version in the movie pretty much all ended up dead. It seems that those who love Obama won’t end up dead, but if he has his way, they will end up in a government job. That’s more undead than dead, because everybody knows that government jobs never die.
That HBO has found a way to revive its fortunes by tying it to a bunch of vampires. It is unlikely that the American economy will revive its fortunes by tying itself to policies that will suck the blood out of productivity, and rapidly expand the size and power of the federal government. But we are in a vampire moment, and the American people are still caught in President Obama’s trance. We will see how long that lasts.