Through the internet service and the SNS(Social Network Service), “globalization” became the key of cultural content industry. People are no longer evaluate a work of art with the result from the country where the production was occurred, they see...
Through the internet service and the SNS(Social Network Service), “globalization” became the key of cultural content industry. People are no longer evaluate a work of art with the result from the country where the production was occurred, they see the whole world wide market’s result to figure out the success of the work. Due to these changes, building up the concept of “global cultural content” became necessary study in cultural content industry.
Global cultural content is the work targeting the global market so the work can be sold in the extended market. We need to exterpilate the work to determine it as a global content or not. The internal factors to be a global content are “universal narrative” and “remarkable characters.” While, the external factors are “numerical value in world wide market” and “influence over other types of cultural content including OSMU.”
As we can see the “remarkable characters” as an internal factor of global content, CHARACTER is at the important position of global content. From this point of view, this study tries to figure out the possibility of historical character as a material of global cultural content and VAMPIRE is the character which this study follows the tracks since Bram Stoker’s 『Dracula』(1897).
VAMPIRES are un-death being and they subsist by feeding humans’ blood. The stories of VAMPIRES were stared from myth, folk-tales, and legend. Bram Stoker created a VAMPIRE character ‘Dracula’ based on actual historical person with folk-tales in east european country. And the book has been selling over 100 years in world wide literary market and has been re-created as many different types of cultual contents. Bram Stoker’s 『Dracula』 is a definitely global cultural content and not only in literature, VAMPIRES are consistently reproduced to comic books, plays, films, TV dramas, animations, musicals, etc. This study started with the idea of “VAMPIRES are the creating material for global cultural contents and VAMPIRES have variety ways to be used in cultural contents.”
To concrete the idea, this study analyzes two films and one animation, UNDERWORLD, TWILIGHT saga, BLOOD THE LAST VAMPIRE. They have all different genre, narrations, also their VAMPIRE characters have all different qualities, images and functions. Under the story of a long period war between the vampire and werewolf, basically UNDERWORLD follows 『Dracula』’s character images but some of elements were changed to adapt to action genre. The main character from UNDERWORLD, Selene, is a beautiful female warrior and all the physical ability and appearance are god-like. In a hierarchical VAMPIRE society, VAMPIRES are originally villains as the other to human but in the film, vampire Selene is the subject to drag audiences’ eyes and mind set. The TWILIGHT saga(movie), emphasizes the beauty of VAMPIRES to adapt to romance genre and tells the story of love between a girl(Bella) and a vampire(Edward). In the film, audiences equate with Bella and they don't feel the vampires as the other. VAMPIRES are at the between position and the subject and the other became identified. Lastly, BLOOD THE LAST VAMPIRE is the theatrical animation which was targeting adult audiences, and it tells a story about SAYA, the female pure vampire, who kills monster vampires. The basic narration of this animation is the fight between good and evil and it’s a horror and gore genre. So, there are very strong images with a lot of blood. Despite the fact that SAYA is a vampire, she kills other vampires. For that reason, she cannot belong to any of groups(humans or vampires) and perfect the other character to people. Also, it turns out that all these 3 titles have the factors of global cultural contents. Judging from this, we can say that the VAMPIRES have possibility to be a subject matter for global cultural contents.
As a result of this study, VAMPIRES are the possible material of global cultural contents and can be used in various type of cultural contents. This study aims to help the up-coming global cultural contents with VAMPIRE characters. To-be-produced VAMPIRE contents’ creators should be aware of the concept of global cultural content and the necessary factors to be a global cultural content.