Monster in the Mirror: Ep. 2 - Dracula's Tale of Two Conspiracies
When it was first published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula immediately triggered a spate of strong emotional responses. These responses partly stemmed from its action-movie depiction of Christianity, but also partly from the xenophobic fears of European Jews that lurk beneath its titular monster. Dracula also introduced the idea of a holy conspiracy, whose members must conduct their sacred fight against evil in secret. In this episode, we talk about how a century of adaptations has preserved the notion of dueling conspiracies, and thereby provided the narrative that fuels QAnon, the Oath Keepers, and other modern Crusaders consumed with their own secret plot to take America back from the "globalist" monsters they fear and loathe.
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Voice acting: Christian Young Valdovinos, Alfred Kwong, Lucas Kwong, Naomi Kwong
For Further Reading:
Stephen Arata, Fictions Of Loss
Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker: A Biography Of The Author Of Dracula
Roger Luckhurst, ed. The Cambridge Companion To Dracula
Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search Of Dracula: The History Of Dracula And Vampires
David Skal, Something In The Blood: The Untold Story Of Bram Stoker, The Man Who Wrote Dracula
Bram Stoker And Valdimar Asmundsson, Powers Of Darkness: The Lost Version Of Dracula.
Bram Stoker, Dracula.
Audio from various films used under fair/educational use laws.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
AXIS Moondi AXIS Moondi Hello friends, and welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
I'm Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Today we are thrilled to launch our brand new limited series, Monster in the Mirror, created and written by Dr. Lucas Kwong.
Monster in the Mirror explores the Gothic genesis of Christian nationalism, and it's a little bit unique for our platform.
What you're going to hear is a mix of sound collages and original music mixed with Lucas's narration of certain histories and texts, along with dramatic readings of various books and other events.
I'm incredibly proud to present it to you, and I hope you really not only enjoy it, but learn a lot from it.
Thanks for being here.
Here is our series, Monster in the Mirror.
And now, this week's episode of The Monster in the Mirror!
You have no idea how much pleasure your time machine gave me, Mr. Wells.
And the great fortune of Berlin, Recorded on my phonograph device.
Would you care to listen?
Demand truth.
Demand InfoWars.
InfoWars.
Tomorrow's news.
Today.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very, very special guest that's going to be joining us.
Oh, Alex, you're making me blush.
You know, at the end of the day, I'm just a patriotic American.
You've been in the Army, you've been in the Marines, you've been all over the world, you've been Blackwater, you've been State Department security.
You've seen it.
Uh, okay, yeah, that is true.
I'm a patriotic American who's also an extremely big deal.
But, you know, I'm not here to talk about how much I can bench press, although I will say it's a lot.
No, I'm here to talk about a new energy drink that will revolutionize your life.
That's very interesting.
I knew some of this.
Tell me more.
Okay, Alex.
Well, let me ask you something.
How many times has this happened to you?
You're fighting a sadistic cabal of shadowy vampires who will stop at nothing to transform America into a hellhole.
You're ready to fight back by replying to one of AOC's tweets.
There's just one problem.
You're extremely thirsty.
Now, Alex, what would you do in that position?
Drink a San Pellegrino like a liberal?
Fizzy drink that is so essential and so good for your body.
What?
No, Alex, we rehearsed this.
You're supposed to say, screw that, I want to try your new product.
It's incredible what it does for me, for energy and happiness.
That's more like it.
I was in a really bad mood yesterday.
Uh-huh.
Had a fizzy drink, 30 minutes later... Stop.
Happy as a pig in slop.
Okay, first of all, weird analogy.
Second of all, you're supposed to be helping me hawk my product, Alex.
It's insane.
Not in... Okay, you know what's insane?
The fact that you could get in on the ground floor of this delicious, viscous, red, vaguely rust-smelling, miracle drink for only a trillion dollars.
That's right.
One time only.
Why are we paying a trillion dollars for those pieces of garbage?
Wow, Alex, that escalated quickly.
Look, you're gonna give yourself a heart attack.
Hey, listen, stop shooting your mouth off, claiming I'm the enemy.
Okay, well, you know what?
This interview's over.
I got Peter Thiel on speed dial.
He's ready to make my miracle drink the official beverage of his floating private kingdom.
Go have fun with it.
Oh, I will, Alex.
You know what?
I'm gonna enjoy my own drink right now here on your show.
That's what I call a real diet supplement, Alex.
Oh, you're a sexist, oh, oh.
But you've got a feeling hurt in your spine.
Comparable, oh.
I see you there, you're a nice, let's go.
This is Dracula, the original terrifying story of a maniac and a man who lived after death, lived on human the original terrifying story of a maniac and a man who lived after death, lived on human blood, took the form of a vampire bat and lured innocent girls Dracula!
In 1931, Bela Lugosi was interviewed on the eve of his new film's release.
Asked whether he ever wanted to reprise the titular role, Lugosi responded in a way that sounded more like the character's victims than the character himself.
Lugosi said, The curse Lugosi feared the most wasn't the curse of becoming a vampire.
through with this picture, I hope to never hear of Dracula again.
I cannot stand it.
I do not intend that it shall possess me." The curse Lugosi feared the most wasn't the curse of becoming a vampire.
It was the curse of being typecast as one.
Lugosi didn't know it at the time, but being typecast as Dracula would cement his place in movie history.
Lugosi turned out to be just the first of several iconic actors to don the cape and fangs.
Christopher Lee, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman.
This year, the novel itself received renewed attention with web designer Matt Kirkland's Dracula Daily, a substack that sends readers the original text in excerpts on dates exactly corresponding to those on which the excerpts are written in the novel.
And when it comes to film, this year alone sees the release of at least four different Dracula adaptations and spinoffs, not to mention the 30th anniversary re-release of Gary Oldman's turn in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
After a century of countless movies, video games, TV shows, and books about Bela Lugosi's least favorite role, Dracula continues to possess us.
The original plot of Dracula has undergone so many on-screen contortions that it's helpful to review the plot of the novel Bram Stoker actually wrote.
Dracula can be summed up in three words.
East.
West.
East.
In the first section, readers travel eastward with Jonathan Harker, a young, naive, English real estate agent who takes a train ride to the Transylvanian home of his newest client, Count Dracula.
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