A sharp, sweet tooth: Vampires, junk food, and dangerous appetites in the lost boys and the hunger

Abstract

Next to blood, fast food and junk food make up the most common meals in ‘80s vampire fiction. Whether munching on chips, devouring a Big Mac, or slurping down soda, humans use these foods to satisfy hunger, assuage anxiety, provide a needed jolt of caffeine, and pass the time between sunset and sunrise. The vampires in these works tend to function in one of three ways. They can serve as metaphors for the food industry, preying on young and old with products designed to foster overconsumption and addiction. They can symbolize the country’s addiction to processed foods and the excesses of consumerism more broadly. And finally, they can even emerge as ironic images for healthy eating as they seek a natural, more organic diet than their junk-food addicted victims. In each case, these creatures indict an industry that profited from turning consumers into junkies, craving foods that promised heart disease, high cholesterol, and obesity. Films such as Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987) and Whitley Strieber’s novel The Hunger (1981) offer two examples of the way this genre explored the nation’s appetite for junk food and challenged audiences to find a way to save themselves from this addiction before it was too late.

Keywords:

• Junk food
• fast food
• addiction
• vampires
• sugar

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 See “Crack Cocaine: A Short History.” http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/crackcocaine/a-short-history.html

2 See Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia: Volume 1, 30.

3 7-Eleven launched the Super Big Gulp (a forty-four ounce drink) in 1986. For more on the history of 7-Eleven and supersized drinks, see Robert Klara’s “The Tall, Cold Tale of the Big Gulp,” Adweek February 16, 2015. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/tall-cold-tale-big-gulp-162960

4 See N. R. Kleinfield’s “Hershey Bites Off New Markets.” Candy consumption was actually higher in the 1960s, and he attributes this dip in the 1980s to rising candy prices and growing concerns about weight gain. However, this article does not include data about the overall consumption of sugar in the American diet, which was skyrocketing.

5 Poole examines the way food functions “as a code, a sign, a system, a leitmotif of fascinating complexity, to expand the possible repertoire of readings of a play, performance, or film” (4). She also briefly discusses the cannibal motif in horror films (75–82). Dunn views kitchens in literature and film as a crucial space for “[providing] the setting and structure for a drama of pain and redemption, sorrow and joy” (33). And Cynthia Baron considers the connection between food and the emotional development of male and female characters in Bagdad Cafe.

6 More specifically, Davis notes that that “Creators of 1930s horror movies used food scenes in part for their power to show the monsters’ potential for becoming civilized. At the same time, since eating is such a common activity, these same scenes, while showing monsters hoping to become accepted by humans, to become human even, could expose the hidden appetites within audience members and cause them to wonder if within their own civilized beings there lurked some share of monster-like appetites” (295).

7 In her examination of the fragmentation of urban landscapes in Celluloid Vampires, Abbott notes that “the young vampires ride motorcycles with attitudes like Marlon Brando, challenge Michael to a game of chicken on a cliff like the similar challenge in Rebel Without a Cause, and to further make the point, they decorate their underground lair with a poster of the Los Angeles-identified rock ‘n’ roll rebel Jim Morrison” (188).

8 Of course, this is not Grandpa’s only addiction, but food gets implicated in his other obsessive behaviors as well. Immediately following the tour of the refrigerator, for instance, Michael notices a marijuana plant on the kitchen windowsill, and both boys chuckle over his recreational drug use. Grandpa never admonishes them about his pot plants, though. One deleted scene shows Sam trying to burn a pot leaf with a match, but when Grandpa catches him, he doesn’t press the issue. These moments remind the audience once again that junk food is Grandpa’s primary preoccupation. The placement of marijuana in the kitchen—so close to his sacrosanct second shelf—further suggests sugar as a drug. It also probably functions as a humorous nod to the idea of snacking or “having the munchies” after getting high, which again links these addictions.

9 Robert Albritton even considers sugar addiction potentially more dangerous than smoking: “Tobacco often kills after the age of sixty, while sugar attacks the teeth of the young and may in many cases by the main cause of obesity and all of its related chronic illness throughout life” (344).

10 I am using contemporary measurements even though the calorie count and fat content of the fries would have been much higher in 1981 since McDonalds primarily cooked their fries in beef tallow until 1990 (Schlosser 120). Current information about the content of McDonald’s food items can be found through the McDonald’s Nutrition Calculator at www.mcdonalds.com

11 This detail also points to one of the more problematic aspects of The Hunger. In the world of this novel, all transformation that deviates from white, heterosexual norms and Western standards of beauty gets presented as horrific. The shift from human to vampire, in other words, gets aligned with any deviation from heterosexuality, patriarchy, and thinness.