Boardwalk vampire: Staking a claim to the edges of the American nightmare
Book chapter
Goodrum, M. 2025. Boardwalk vampire: Staking a claim to the edges of the American nightmare. in: Bacon, S. (ed.) Vampires and the Making of the United States in the Twenty-First Century London Routledge.
| Authors | Goodrum, M. |
|---|---|
| Editors | Bacon, S. |
| Abstract | Boardwalks, like vampires, occupy liminal, ‘between’, spaces; places outside the ordinary. More than this, boardwalks and vampires draw attention to constructions: life, death, cities, leisure practices, race, gender, and sexuality. In the life and death of places and people, and the narratives woven around them, The Lost Boys (1987) dramatizes the ‘death and (after)life’ not of great American cities, but the spaces created alongside them, then largely abandoned following demographic shifts in city living and holiday destinations. 1 In this approach, boardwalk towns function vampirically, drawing in people and revenue to provide an illusion of life for themselves (usually at specific times), and a space where others can project illusory versions of their own lives (casting a glamour, as it were). Bryant Simon remarks of Atlantic City and its Boardwalk that, “from the very start, it was conceived as a make- believe place,” one that “soothed the anxieties and stirred the desires of its audience.” 2 These fantasies of youth, consumption, and desire that were sold on the boardwalk feed into the multiplicity of narrative and visual strategies adopted by The Lost Boys. Rob Latham makes this apparent when he states that “the central site of this militant assertion of empowered independence is the Santa Carla boardwalk, a sort of combination open-air mall, gaming arcade, and amusement park.” 3 The activities detailed here, alongside “cruising for dates or for trouble, and otherwise acting as if they owned the world,” situates the Santa Carla boardwalk firmly alongside the history of other boardwalk spaces, such as that in Atlantic City. 4 While the one thing that Grandpa might never have been able to stomach about Santa Carla was ‘all the damn vampires’, it is clear that it is the space that is vampiric, as well as the actual vampires that dwell within it. Santa Carla is a space of conspicuous consumption where the space itself is conspicuous – an artificial addition crafted through socioeconomic processes – as is the ‘consumption’ of those within it, by those within it. |
| Keywords | Vampires; America; USA; Space; Queer |
| Year | 2025 |
| Book title | Vampires and the Making of the United States in the Twenty-First Century |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Output status | In press |
| File | File Access Level Restricted |
| Place of publication | London |
| Edition | First |
| Series | Advances in Horror |
| ISBN | 9781032251394 |
| Publication dates | |
| 22 Apr 2025 | |
| Publication process dates | |
| Accepted | 05 Dec 2024 |
| Deposited | 06 Feb 2025 |
| Related URL | https://www.routledge.com/Vampires-and-the-Making-of-the-United-States-in-the-Twenty-First-Century/Bacon/p/book/9781032251394?srsltid=AfmBOoqaJwRej3BsOWJK4pXYrP7Zg-WLR_WaDX18mjwxgTD8kjVnaKDS |
| References | Auerbach, Nina, Our Vampires, Ourselves (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, |
https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/99w8w/boardwalk-vampire-staking-a-claim-to-the-edges-of-the-american-nightmare
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