THE HAUNTING OF BISEXUAL VAMPIRES IN NEW YORK CITY AS A CAPITALIST ECOSYSTEM: A COMPARISON OF WHITLEY STRIEBER’S THE HUNGER AND ITS 1983 FILMIC ADAPTATION
Eunju Hwang | 34-48
This article compares Whitley Strieber’s The Hunger and its 1983 filmic adaptation directed by Tony Scott, in order to examine the dynamic of the metaphoric significance of the vampire and illuminate the use of space where the complex politics of class and sexuality intersect. This study attempts to answer the following questions: (1) how does New York City as a setting function in the novel? and (2) what does happen when the strong sense of place is removed in the filmic adaptation? The novel, with the help of the realistic setting of New York, presents the vampire as an avid metaphor of capitalism, and it also succeeds in queering the heteronormative space. However, the film, due to the low budget, had to be shot mostly indoors, thus creating an insular space. Minus the queering effect of the public and heterosexual space in the novel, the expression of the queer desire between Miriam and Sarah is limited within Miriam’s “closet.” Miriam’s class status is also used only to glamorize her and help her seduce Sarah. The significance of different endings—Sarah is destined to suffer the everlasting life-in-death but happy to be reconciled with her heterosexuality in the novel while Sarah usurps Miriam’s place and becomes a bisexual vampire in the film—will be also discussed in terms of Miriam’s sequential bisexuality versus Sarah’s concurrent bisexuality.
Keywords: queering space; bisexuality; New York City; The Hunger
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