chapter 3

Flipping the Script?

Queering the Insider/Outsider Status of the Black Vampire Queen
in Richard Wenk’s Vamp (1986)

Kendra R. Parker

In exploring how the vampire is a queer icon, we could easily explore the vam-
pire as the undead monarch of subtextual articulations of Otherness, espe-
cially queer behaviors and desires. Thus, in a teaching volume on Queering the
Vampire, this essay’s focus on Richard Wenk’s Vamp (1986) might seem out of
place. Certainly, we could not ask for a more overtly heterosexual plot than
that of Wenk’s Vamp: “Two fraternity pledges travel to a sleazy bar in search of
a stripper for their college friends, unaware it is occupied by vampires” (“Plot”).
The film’s narrative progression is driven by AJ and Keith’s unwitting foray into
a vampire lair. However, as Kimberly Springer (2008) observes, queerness is
more than an identity; it is “a position or a stance” (p. 86), and as Meg-John
Barker and Julia Scheele (2016) posit, “Queer is something that we do, not
something we are (not)” (pp. 14–15). If we look beyond the main characters
and interrogate the film’s supposed antagonist (a Black woman), if we flip the
script and question the logics of white hegemonic masculinity infused capital-
ism, the film’s heterosexual narrative is worth queering, especially as viewers
are seduced to root in favor of the white triumphalist narrative the film ulti-
mately supports. To put it another way, centering the Black female vampire
character allows us to conduct a queer reading of the film especially because
“The black woman is the original Other, the figure against which white wom-
en’s sexuality is defined. Aren’t we already queer? To queer black female sexu-
ality means to do what would be contrary, eccentric, strange, or unexpected”
(Springer, 2008, p. 86).
This chapter will examine the “insider/outsider” status of Black female vam-
pire, Queen Katrina (performed by Grace Jones) in Vamp. In this film, the Black
female vampire can be read, on the one hand, as the sign and semblance of
“the Dark Plague”—that is HIV/AIDS, and the host of anxieties that come with
such an association. On the other, and perhaps more complicated, Katrina
can be read as an occidental tourist, much like Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula
(see Arata, 1990), as she mirrors the capitalist and imperial enterprises of the
United States by embodying the threat of a sexual and political takeover as

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Flipping the Script? 31

she slowly ravishes, feasts, traumatizes, and penetrates the underbelly of white
suburbia. Throughout the chapter, I will use the term insider/outsider status.
Katrina’s “insider status” is highlighted by the fact that she is a capitalist, so
she is an “insider” because she upholds the capitalist spirit of the American
Dream. However, her “outsider status” is highlighted by the fact that she is
Black, a woman, and an immigrant. Like traditional vampire films with white
male protagonists, what makes Vamp a horror movie is not the presence of
vampires; it is the presence of a transgressive Black female vampire who preys
on the white male protagonists whom the viewers are seduced to sympathize
with. Wenk’s construction of Katrina places her in a tenuous position. She
reifies the socially constructed idea of Black women as predatory sucking the
life out of “well-meaning” capitalists, but she also emulates, appropriates, and
queers the Western spirit of capitalism, by exemplifying American capitalist
­enterprises—to the detriment (and chagrin) of whiteness.
First, this chapter will offer a brief film summary, followed by a discussion
of the film’s positioning of white maleness as the consummate capitalist as
well as a section with a brief investigation of actor Grace Jones as queer icon.
Finally, I move into an analysis of the insider/outsider status Katrina holds in
the film. Ultimately, this chapter invites Vamp viewers to view the film through
a different lens. Instead of viewing the film from the center, view the film from
the historically marginalized edges. Such a reading invites us to consider how
Katrina subverts racialized and gendered expectations by queering the idea of
who can achieve the American Dream.

1 Spoiler Alert, a Film Summary

In Vamp (1986), white male fraternity pledges AJ and Keith (Robert Rusler and
Chris Makepeace) promise to bring “entertainment” to the Dipsa Phi ­fraternity
party in exchange for their initiation into the fraternity. After convincing the
fraternity to allow them to provide entertainment in the form of strippers,
AJ, Keith, and their lackey Duncan (performed by Gedde Watanbe), leave
what appears to be an Ivy League college town and arrive in a decaying, post-­
industrial metropolis in search of a stripper. Unbeknownst to Keith, AJ, and
Duncan, the strip club they choose, the After Dark Nightclub, is owned and
operated by the Black vampire queen, Katrina. AJ, Keith, and Duncan enjoy
the strip performances, but one performance captures AJ’s attention: Katrina’s.
As he watches Katrina’s performance, he gleefully implies that his prospective
fraternity brothers will enjoy the show. After Katrina’s performance, AJ bar-
gains for a backstage conversation with Katrina, where he offers to take her to a

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32 Parker

“more appreciative audience.” AJ’s backstage bargaining is futile; it ends in his

death. After Keith finds AJ’s body and realizes the strip club is a vampire lair,
Keith seeks to escape but first intends to avenge AJ’s death by destroying the
vampires and their lair.

2 “You Don’t See the Advantages of Your Position”: The Death of

Supply and Demand

The film’s positioning of AJ as a consummate capitalist informs his approach

to securing access to things he wants and believes he has a right to. For exam-
ple, when the fraternity initiation ritual goes awry, AJ approaches the fraternity
brothers and bargains for entrance into the fraternity by using the logic of sup-
ply and demand:

[G]uys, obviously, you don’t see the advantages of your position. You have
something we want. Now, instead of making us go through all these stu-
pid, immature, asinine tests. Wouldn’t it be much more to your advantage
to take this situation and get something for yourselves? You gonna have
a big party tonight, right? And for this party you’re definitely gonna need
party stuff. What, you’re gonna need booze. You’re gonna need tunes.
You’re gonna need entertainment. We provide it. Anything at all, any-
thing you need, and we’re in. (Vamp, n.d.)

AJ ridicules the series of tests the fraternity makes the pledges endure, and
as Dale Hudson (2008) points out, “the fraternity can most benefit by taking
advantage of his labor. He and Keith can provide something of greater value to
the fraternity than his willing subjection to the hazing rituals: the visual plea-
sure of a female stripper” (p. 137). AJ gives his speech with an American flag
hanging in the background, reinforcing the American logic of entrepreneur-
ship and opportunism. AJ is an entrepreneur; he is an opportunist, willing to
bargain and “[deploy] capitalism’s logic of exchange value as a means to bypass
the fraternity’s hazing rituals” (Hudson, 2008, p. 137).
AJ’s consummate capitalism is also inextricably linked to his hegemonic
masculinity. As a college-educated, privileged, cisgender, heterosexual white
man, who attempts to extort his (presumably white) female college students
to strip as his entrance ticket into a fraternity, AJ is the embodiment of hege-
monic masculinity (the dominant and socially celebrated form of masculin-
ity), one who believes in emphasized femininity (the dominant and socially
celebrated form of femininity that includes accommodating the desires and

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Flipping the Script? 33

interests of hegemonic masculine men).1 He wrongly assumes that Katrina is

going to be interested in him; however, part of his fascination with Katrina lies
in his repugnant attraction to her. He calls his prospective fraternity brothers
“wimps,” suggesting that they are not courageous enough to handle Katrina’s
uniqueness because she is an oddity, a “freak” which Robert Bogdan (1996)
defines as “a way of thinking about and presenting people—a frame of mind
and a set of practices” (p. 24). For AJ, Katrina is an exotic creature and a con-
quest, a freak and fascination, an oddity and object. AJ’s general assumption
that Katrina, a Black woman, will leave her business to entertain him and some
friends, is rooted in assumptions about Black women’s sexuality. AJ assumes
she will succumb to his hegemonic masculinity precisely because she is Black.
For example, after witnessing Katrina’s strip performance, AJ remarks, “Just
wait til those wimps at the Dipsa Phi see this” (Vamp, n.d.). AJ’s use of the
demonstrative pronoun “this”—instead of the personal pronoun “her”—is
indicative of more than his objectification of Katrina; it is indicative of thin-
gification, an attempt to reduce Katrina to something nonhuman, ironically
enough. AJ is intent on reducing Katrina to her body, a thing to be commodi-
fied and capitalized on.
Again, AJ, as the consummate capitalist, attempts to use the logic of supply
and demand to entice Katrina to join him at his fraternity party. After Katrina’s
strip performance, AJ meets Katrina in her boudoir backstage. He compliments
her, hedging with: “I uh caught your act out there. Oooh, some show. Very new.
Very now” (28:55–29:10).2 An invitation follows his compliment; AJ asks for
an “encore performance” for a “much more appreciative audience,” where he
could “definitely make it worth [her] while” (29:16–29:30) and would be will-
ing to “pay [her] top dollar” because he recognizes that she is “a professional”
(29:47–29:52). Here, AJ invokes the logic of supply and demand. His comment
that he can provide Katrina with a “more appreciative” viewing audience and
with financial compensation, suggests that he can supply her with an audience
that is invested in her performance. AJ’s comment suggests that the audience’s
initial dumbstruck silence after Katrina’s performance (25:15–25:38) is indic-
ative of the lack of demand for her, and he offers to give her the appreciation
she deserves.
However, Katrina controls the narrative about her body as well as her on—
and off—stage performances. While AJ views Katrina as a thing to be com-
modified and conquered, Katrina flips the narrative of white male conqueror/
conquered Black female. As AJ waxes poetic about providing Katrina with an
appreciative audience, Katrina pushes AJ on his back on the bed; she mounts
him, and when he attempts to touch her, she forcefully pins his hands over
his head. With a laugh he chuckles, “You like to play rough” (31:42–31:45). AJ’s

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34 Parker

chuckles turn to orgasmic moans, and those moans turn to screams when
Katrina transforms into a vampire and devours his throat. Where AJ once
remarked that his fraternity brothers did not understand the advantages of
their position, it seems Katrina understands hers. She understands that this
outsider seeks her for sex, that he seeks to conquer her. Katrina uses AJ’s faulty
assumption to her advantage. Instead of being the conquest, Katrina is the
conqueror.

3 Grace Jones as Queer Icon

Just wait til those wimps at the Dipsa Phi see this. (AJ, Vamp)

When watching Katrina’s performance on stage, AJ chuffs to himself, “Just

wait til those wimps at the Dipsa Phi see this [emphasis added]” (Vamp, n.d.). I
want to explore the implication of AJ’s use of the demonstrative pronoun “this”
because it goes beyond Katrina’s Blackness, which I discuss in the previous
section. Here, I will focus specifically on the actor playing Katrina: Grace Jones.
Jones, a Jamaican born international model, dancer, singer, and actor, is the
embodiment of the queer subject, known for her androgynous appearance,
gender-inclusive lyrics, and genderqueer presentation. For example, the lyrics
to Jones’ hit song, “Pull Up to the Bumper” (1981) “were “revolutionary because
they were smart, risky, and intriguingly gender inclusive, just like Jones her-
self,” Barry Walters (2015) observes. In her discussion of Jones, Julia Felsenthal
(2015) writes, “Androgyny was always her thing, as was a sexuality that could
swing from remote and alien to animalistic and overpowering” (Felsenthal).
In fact, Felsenthal calls the cover image of Jones’s album Nightclubbing (1981)
an “impossibly idealized caricature of masculinity” because Jones wears “her
trademark flattop, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and wearing a power suit
with lapels so wide and shoulder pads so square, they echo the harsh geometry
of her haircut” (Felsenthal, 2015). Given Jones’s cultural status in the 1980s, we
can interpret AJ’s use of “this” as not only a reference to Katrina’s Blackness but
also as a signifier of Jones’s iconic status. Jones’s rejection of heteronormativity
in appearance, manner, and content manifest themselves in her portrayal of
Katrina. In behind-the-scenes footage of the film, for example, Jones remarks,
“I might as well have a vampire that doesn’t look like any other vampire, mean-
ing she has paintings of herself all over. She’s constantly changing [clothes]
every five minutes, different hair, different eye colors, just having fun because
she really is a narcissist” (Borchers, 2016). Thus, if the temporary U.S. banning
of “Pull Up to The Bumper” (for its sexually suggestive and gender inclusive

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Flipping the Script? 35

lyrics) and Jones’ insistence on fashioning Katrina to be a vampire unlike any

other are any indication, there may have been those outside queer commu-
nities who considered Jones a threat to heteronormative value systems and
emphasized femininity.

4 Insider Status; or Black Vampiric Capitalism

Katrina mirrors the capitalist enterprises of the United States as she slowly pen-
etrates the underbelly of white suburbia. As owner of the nightclub, Katrina
knows that it is necessary for her to amass economic power because without
economic power a pursuit of rights is impossible. Katrina’s sustaining of her
life at the expense of another’s may be monstrous to the viewer, but as viewers
we are invited to tolerate her life-sustaining practices because she performs
what her club bouncer calls an “essential service” to American culture. Katrina
only kills a certain type of man: “the transients, the loners, the strays. The ones
that can’t be traced” (40:55–41:00). In other words, Katrina only kills men who
possess minimal economic privilege. What becomes clear here is that Katrina’s
exploitation of bodies (the consumption of bodies) is only supposed to affect
a few particular people: those who exist on the margins of society. Hudson
(2008) explains:

Vampirism in Vamp is given the ethical purpose of controlling the makeup

of the US nation through selective ‘waste disposal.’ The vampires make
victims of societal ‘dregs,’ who patronize the strip club, so that the strip
club performs an ‘essential service’ to US culture by eliminating itiner-
ant men, who sustain the market for sexual voyeurism and prostitution,
particularly ones attracted to (and repulsed by) Katrina’s black sexuality.
(p. 135)

Hudson reveals that Katrina attempts to be selective in those she kills, and
that such a selective, discriminating practice again mirrors the Western soci-
ety in which she operates. Katrina’s discriminatory “waste disposal” practices
re-inscribe the logic that works to oppress her and that eventually kills her. As
a black female immigrant, Katrina already exists on the margins of society, but
she becomes an insider (or at least functions as an insider) by creating a posi-
tion of authority for herself, imposing her authority on other social outcasts,
and by participating in the exclusion of other outsiders. In this regard, she par-
ticipates actively in a consumerist culture, one that demands that groups “must
consume or be consumed” (Hudson, 2008, p. 137), but “only white characters,”

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36 Parker

Hudson (2008) offers, “are capable of performing ‘Americanness’ in the sense

of frontier-like survival in a capitalist culture” (p. 137). Katrina’s capitalist prow-
ess is tolerated so long as she uses it as “selective waste disposal” and performs
an essential service by eliminating itinerant, non- productive men.
Katrina’s “insider status” is defined by her connection to American capital-
ism first seen in what I call her dance of death. During her performance on
stage during the first 25 minutes of the movie, Katrina is clothed in red, white,
and blue. Her full body outfit, hair, and lips are red; her contacts are a striking
blue, and her face is painted white. The red, white, and blue ensemble cannot
be ignored especially because she is the club owner and vampire queen. So, the
colors of the American flag coupled with Katrina’s business enterprise make
her the embodiment of an American capitalist.
For Katrina, sexual intimacy becomes a means of conquest, and though she
appropriates the Western spirit of capitalism by exploiting certain bodies and
by selling the enticement of sex, when her exploitation of a privileged body
occurs, Katrina becomes a more palpable threat embodying the fear of an eco-
nomic takeover by black people. Katrina kills AJ, the college-educated entre-
preneur, and his death proves to be her fatal mistake. In selling the enticement
of sex and in appropriating the spirit of capitalism, Katrina functions as a mir-
ror for the society that eventually kills her. After AJ offers to buy Katrina’s time,
she pushes him onto her bed, mounts him, and begins to engage in what AJ
can only imagine to be foreplay. What AJ perceives to be an unexpected bonus
for his exchange of money ends in his death. Instead of providing AJ with a
sexual experience, Katrina rips his throat out. The earlier logic AJ uses on his
would-be fraternity brothers fails him, but it is the logic that Katrina employs
herself. Where AJ contends that the fraternity brothers do not understand
the “advantages of [their] position,” Katrina does. AJ has something Katrina
wants: blood. Instead of going through the “stupid, immature, asinine tests”—
the exchange of money, the flirtation from AJ, and sexual intercourse—to get
blood, Katrina exercises power through a performance of sexual desire. Ironi-
cally AJ, in search of his own object of desire and consumption, becomes said
object, and he finds himself in the position of the exploited victim.
By appropriating the logic of American capitalism, Katrina uses her insider
status and arises as a powerful female who victimizes the would-be victim-
izer, consumes the would-be consumer, and exploits the would-be exploiter,
reversing the implied racial and gender dynamics. In this regard, Katrina is
very much an occidental tourist—in the same way Stoker’s Dracula is.
Stephen D. Arata (1990) offers a compelling analysis of Bram Stoker’s
­Dracula (1897), noting that Count Dracula functions as an occidental tourist
precisely because his “mastery of his British victims begins with an intellectual

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Flipping the Script? 37

appropriation of their culture” (p. 621). Katrina, too, has appropriated the spirit
of Western capitalism and arguably whiteness. As a capitalist, Katrina knows
that it is necessary for her to amass economic power. Without economic power
a pursuit of rights is impossible. However, it is this pursuit of “rights”—a right
to life at the expense of a privileged white male’s life—that positions her as an
“outsider.” In this regard, Katrina has not only adopted the United States as her
home, but she has also appropriated the American spirit of capitalism (bodily
exploitation, selling the enticement of sex, satisfying the one on top, an oligar-
chy). In adopting capitalism, Katrina adopts the cultural logic that later kills
her. Her capitalist enterprise is no different than AJ’s or Keith’s. Her business is
the business of (literally) consuming bodies, and AJ’s intended business is the
public consumption of her body so he and his friend can join a fraternity. What
makes her business horrific, though, is that she consumes and destroys priv-
ileged white maleness in the death of AJ and the attempted murder of Keith.
Driven toward consistent growth and self-preservation, Katrina builds an
empire and accumulates capital by consuming certain male bodies, bodies
that do not actively contribute to the well-being of American society. Katrina’s
accumulation of wealth and her appropriation of the Western spirit of capi-
talism become accepted modes of self- preservation. So long as she remains
within the boundaries of killing specific bodies—bodies that lack privilege and
wealth—Katrina’s empire remains unharmed and unnoticed. Once Katrina
transgresses these boundaries, however, she becomes a significant threat to
white male privilege. Her transgression of this space not only brands her as a
threat, but it also exposes an anxiety of and potential disruption of the histor-
ically persistent white male-Black female relationship.

5 Katrina as Outsider

While Katrina may be an insider because she runs a successful business (and
even supposedly performs an essential service by killing people who appar-
ently are not useful and are not going to be missed), much of her existence rel-
egates her as an outsider. Katrina is an outsider in four ways: her species status;
her gender identity; her race; her citizenship/nationality status. Of course, as
a vampire, she is an outsider. Vampires have long represented the fears of the
dominant culture—whether it was the fear of the feminine, reverse coloniza-
tion, economic takeover, sex, sexual expression, or fear of immigrants.
As a Black woman, Katrina is an outsider. Black women in the 1980s were,
according to Ronald Reagan’s presidential administration, “welfare queens”
and leeches who sucked the lifeblood out of the American economy. During

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38 Parker

a 1976 presidential campaign rally, Reagan employed the trope of the welfare
queen remarking, “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers
to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent
deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone
has been running $150,000 a year” (quoted in Levin). As I observe elsewhere,
“Reagan’s popularizing of the welfare queen, however exaggerated, was an
instant success” (Parker, 2018, p. xxv). By “taking an existing African American
woman on welfare and exaggerating her fraud” Reagan “disseminated a dam-
aging message to many people…that this welfare queen was the true image of
African American women” (Parker, 2018, p. xxv). This, of course, is not a new
idea. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, written by Daniel P ­ atrick
Moynihan (1965), cites Black women as the reason for the downfall of the
­African American family (pp. 9–12). Moynihan’s observation precedes the wel-
fare queen stereotype, as do the stereotypes of the Mammy, the Matriarch, The
Jezebel, and the Tragic Mulatta—all stereotypes of Black women that point to
their sexuality (or lack thereof) as reasons for their inferiority to white peo-
ple and as signifiers of Black women’s inherent predatory nature.3 Such beliefs
in Black women’s inherent predatory nature are rooted in white supremacist
patriarchal beliefs about Black women:

Throughout American history, there exists this two-pronged attack

on African American women: they are reduced to fertile, baby-making
machines of the nostalgic era before the Civil War, or there is an attack
on what they have supposedly become: vicious drains on the American
family and economy. (Parker, 2018, p. xxv)

Katrina’s immigrant status further highlights her outsider status. Close shots
and pan shots in the film reveal Katrina’s Egyptian lineage. Her sarcophagus
resembles King Tutankhamen’s, but her face is on the front of it. Katrina, then,
is not simply a Black female vampire, but she is also an African immigrant.
Her status as an immigrant solidifies her as one who is “not from here” and her
Blackness intensifies her otherness. The film’s positioning of Katrina as this
outsider functions as a subtextual articulation of queerness that allows us to
further interrogate the film considering the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In fact, in the
context of the 1980s, her immigrant status also allows her to be read as the sign
and semblance of HIV/AIDS as well as the host of xenophobic anxieties and
stereotypes, particularly sexual promiscuity and deviant sexual practices, that
come with such an association. The conflation of sex and danger is a common
trope present not only in vampire fiction and film but also in teen films of the
1980s, including Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980).4 This persistence

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Flipping the Script? 39

of this trope throughout Vamp is of note because of the growing concerns

over HIV/AIDS. Scholar Jennifer Brier (2009) notes that the 1980s Health and
Human Services (HHS) “feared the cost of treating noncitizens with HIV as
well as the potential health threat HIV-positive immigrants posed to U.S. citi-
zens” (p. 105), because there were unfounded “historical fears of immigrants as
vectors for disease” (p. 104). As Brier (2009) also notes, such fears “created the
conditions under which the U.S. government, through [Public Health Service],
began excluding immigrants with HIV beginning in 1986 by adding AIDS to the
list of dangerous and contagious diseases” (p. 104). This bit of “foreign policy”
or “immigration policy” is xenophobic; the United States’ “health policies” were
merely a cover to maintain the “purity” of the United States by blocking rather
than assisting in global HIV/AIDS cases. What Brier (1990) gets at is deceptively
simple: when it came to HIV/AIDS issues, the impetus in the United States was
to demonize those affected with the virus, sanction mandatory blood tests, and
educate the America public on the disease not through preventative methods,
but through a return to heteronormative family values. Given this context, it
becomes clearer that Katrina’s immigrant status is threatening for it is linked to
dominant fears about HIV/AIDS and immigrants as diseased.
Clearly, as a Black woman, an immigrant, a vampire, and a metaphor for
HIV/AIDS,5 Katrina is the “threat” of infection on several different levels per-
sonified. Though she is a threat, Katrina tries to contain her own threat by
limiting and quarantining it. She tries to self-domesticate, self-quarantine,
and self-limit. In fact, she displays self-control. She only wants to affect and
infect the “low lifes,” the “scum bags,” the “degenerates” of society who “can’t be
traced” (Vamp, n.d.). The idea that the infection is supposed to only take hold
of a few people, those who are deserving because they have no connection to
a privileged existence, is troubling; however, it mimics the white supremacist
capitalist mindset. In this regard, Katrina is absolutely acting the same way
white people are. She is, truly, playing the capitalist’s game—and winning!

6 Katrina—Still a Cautionary Tale?

Taking these things of her “insider/outsider” status into consideration, Katrina

functions as an “occidental tourist” participating in the reverse coloniza-
tion of the post-industrial urban landscape as she “holds up a mirror” to late
­twentieth-century America to reflect the monstrosity of their own imperial
efforts. Katrina’s immigration from what appears to be Egypt reflects the grow-
ing American anxieties of an epidemic disease, and I am using “epidemic dis-
ease” in the literal sense—the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s—but also as

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40 Parker

a metaphor, the metaphor being previously colonized bodies (Black people

and women). Katrina’s empire, the After Dark Nightclub, thrives off bodies and
money—two prime factors when it comes to capitalism, and Katrina derives
her prowess from her capitalist enterprise—selling the fantasy of foreplay, for-
nication, and fellatio—to feed from her patrons’ wallets and necks.
What becomes problematic in this representation of Katrina as vampire
queen is her reification of Black women as tempters and seducers. In fact,
Vamp in many respects, functions as a cautionary tale—do not fall prey to
the enticements and allurements of Black women—they only end in death.6
Arguably, of course, the film can be read as a cautionary tale against unbridled
sexual passions in general. As with many “slasher” films of the 1980s, teenagers
engaging in premarital intercourse were often killed (and frequently during
the act of copulation) (see Shary, 2005, pp. 57–58). The suggestion, of course, is
that pre-marital sex ends in death, particularly when these white teenagers are
killed by a “silent killer” (Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Katrina)7—perhaps a
coded reference to the rising HIV/AIDS in the 1980s—a “silent” killer? Further,
too, Katrina’s capitalist enterprise is the strip club, a “moral aberration,” that
threatens the Family Values campaign. According to Elaine Tyler May (2003),

the term ‘family values’ first appeared in the American mainstream news
sporadically in the mid-1970s. By 1980, the term had become much more
commonly used. In the single year of 1980, there were more articles that
discussed ‘family values’ in mainstream newspapers than in the entire
decade of the 1970s combined. (p. 22, note 2)

What is supposed to be horrific about Vamp is the apparent longstanding, suc-

cessful Black woman who exercises agency. She invites others to gaze at her, and
she is in control of the gaze. She is a Black woman who is enterprising (she owns
a strip club); she controls her own body, who gets to view it, and she sustains her
practice until she steps out of bounds by feeding on a white male who was not “a
degenerate, a lowlife, a scum.” Arguably, 21st-century viewers might be tempted
to view AJ, Keith, and the other Dipsa Phi members as a different type of degen-
erate, lowlife scum” (and I certainly make room for that reading); however, the
film’s triumphalist narrative does not support such an assertion. Indeed, AJ is
killed and turned into a vampire; however, he survives Keith’s attack on the vam-
pire lair, saves Keith and Allison (DeDe Pfeiffer)8 from one wayward vampire,
and plans to enroll in night school. AJ may be a vampire but even in his vam-
pirism he will continue to pursue the human life he always planned to. The film
positions Keith as a hero, one who rescues the unwitting Allison, avenges AJ,
and leaves the Nightclub walking into the sunrise with Allison in tow.

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Flipping the Script? 41

For some viewers, Katrina represents a dangerous social, sexual, and polit-
ical eccentricity and challenges patriarchal controls. While Katrina’s killing of
other men goes unremarked, the death of AJ leads to her demise. AJ succumbs
to the whims of Katrina, and his attraction to her ends in his death, which
Keith and Allison avenge by penetrating Katrina in the mouth, the chest, and
then finally by burning her with sunlight. Justice, it seems, prevails. The threats
of a sexually liberated woman and of Black women’s economic power are erad-
icated. The problem, then, is not that Katrina is a capitalist; the problem is
when her entrepreneurial efforts impede those of the white supremacist male
capitalist. She is a business-savvy Black woman, and any efforts she tries to
make at usurping certain types of power from white patriarchy will be trun-
cated. After AJ’s death, the fear of an economic takeover by a Black woman
becomes a palpable threat. Katrina reinforces the cultural logic that says a dark
body that is capable of a reverse takeover at the expense of privileged white
bodies must be monstrous and must be destroyed. In this regard, Vamp (1986)
sells the message that Black women can be successful doing what they do if
their success neither infringes upon nor supersedes the success of privileged
white men who are considered valuable members of society.9 In other words,
Black women in the United States can only be successful if they fit within
the narrow stereotypes of “appropriate Blackness” all of which are rooted in
showing deference to whiteness through a politics of respectability.10 If we end
our analysis here, we are left with no choice but to understand Vamp (1986)
as a cautionary tale; it reveals that not everyone, certainly not Black women,
should be allowed to have access to the power of capitalism, particularly when
that power impacts elite groups, and in this case, privileged white men.

7 Queering the Cultural Logic; or, Who’s the Real Villain?

A Conclusion

Perhaps a more complicated and revolutionary view is to read Vamp (and in

this regard Katrina) as queering the cultural logic that says a dark body that
is capable of a reverse colonization at the expense of white bodies, must be
monstrous and must be destroyed. As Arata (1990) observes in his discussion
of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, concerns about reverse colonization exist because
the so-called “civilized” world believes it will be colonized or infiltrated by
so-called “‘primitive’ forces” (p. 623). Arguably, Vamp concerns itself with
the anxiety of reverse colonization. Katrina’s emergence from Africa to the
­Americas reflects the growing American anxieties of a “takeover” by “Others.”11
The apparent “reverse colonization” that Katrina seems to embody functions

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42 Parker

as a mirror for the American viewing audience to understand that their own
monstrous imperial efforts are being reflected at them. In Vamp, this metaphor
is two pronged. First, the teenagers who “visit” a strange, sleepy town in search
of a stripper to entertain their would-be fraternity brothers are no less mon-
strous than the vampire Katrina’s sucking of their blood.12 Second, at the time
of the film’s release, HIV/AIDS had yet to be addressed publicly by Reagan, and
his refusal to address it as a national and international health issue signals a
decline with the relations of the “East” (Africa, Soviet Union) and the West,
a deterioration that perhaps reflects on the United States’ own nuclear war
efforts but also a deterioration that reflects on the United States’ own response
to emerging crises, particularly the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and welfare
reform, at home.
Katrina’s power is one of ambivalence. On the one hand, it shows Black
femaleness as attractive, powerful, and full of a rich, ancient history. It even
carries a subtle message celebrating the elimination of the would-be colonizer.
On the other, the film suggests that the formerly or representative oppressed
can have access to power if that access to power does not impede upon or hin-
der the power of the elite group—the elite group in this case being a white man
born into a specific set of privileges. The appropriation of the Black woman as
vampire in this movie reveals that Katrina mimics dominant culture to thrive
and to survive. She needs some sort of economic agency and stability. Her
mimicry of the dominant culture through an exploitation of bodies—her own
body, the bodies of other women, and the bodies of those whom she eats—
allows her to survive and to remain unharmed if she does not disrupt the larger
social order by eating valuable members of society.
Ultimately, in the era of over privileged yuppies,13 Richard Wenk’s Vamp
(1986) offers a film where such yuppies are being hunted—and by a Black vam-
pire queen, no less. While the film attempts to comment on the foolhardy nature
of white hegemonic masculinity by showing the consequences of what happens
when white men invade under-recognized and out-of-the-way places and spaces
in expectation of something material, the film’s outcome—where the white
infiltrators triumph over the Black vampiric body—shies away from the full cri-
tique the movie has the potential to make, ultimately reinforcing the status quo.

8 Discussion Questions

1. Watch the movie Vamp, then compare AJ/Keith’s goal to get into Dipsa
Phi with Katrina’s choices to achieve the American Dream. In what ways
are their choices determined by their race, and gender?

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Flipping the Script? 43

2. Black vampires in US cinema are consistently played by iconic characters

like Grace Jones in Vamp. Explore the life and work of Grace Jones and
why she was chosen to play this character.

Notes

1 For more on hegemonic masculinity, see R. W. Connell’s Gender and Power (1987) and
Connell’s and James W. Messerschmidt’s “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”
(2005)
2 AJ’s emphasis on the newness of her performance recalls what Bernth Lindfors (1996)
describes as ethnological show business or the “displaying [of] foreign peoples for commer-
cial and/or educational purposes” (p. 207) which “have a long history in Europe” and by the
end of the 19th century had “grown into a major form of public entertainment in the Western
world” (p. 207).
3 For more on the controlling images of Black women, see chapter four of Patricia Hill Collins’
Black Feminist Thought (2000) titled “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images.”
4 In his discussion of teen films of the 1980s, Timothy Shary (2005) writes, “The youth in these
films also remained rather firmly divided between the sinners and the sinless, with death
coming to those of lesser virtue…such transgressions as pre-marital sex and youthful hedo-
nism were not resulting in punishment by social institutions…[but] resulting in death at the
hands of a greater evil” (p. 58).
5 The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States was at its peak in the 1980s, with its beginnings
commonly acknowledged as 1981 with the first confirmed case in the U.S. For much of the
epidemic, HIV/AIDS was linked with “specific social groups and their behavioral ‘failures’”
(Lyle, 2017, p. 166), including same-gender loving men and black Haitian immigrants. As
Timothy S. Lyle notes, the “heterosexual panic” regarding HIV/AIDS did not begin until 1985
with the death of Rock Hudson (p. 166). Hudson was a popular white closeted gay Hollywood
actor who died of AIDS-related complications. Because Hudson was a closeted gay man,
many perceived him as heterosexual thus Lyle’s reference to “heterosexual panic.” For addi-
tional context, I suggest Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS
Epidemic (1987).
6 Also, James Bond III’s Def by Temptation (1990) offers a similar caution because the Black
female vampire feeds on Black men.
7 Michael Myers (Nick Castle) is a serial killer in the Halloween film franchise. As a child,
Michael murdered his teenage sister, and the authorities later placed him in a sanitarium
until he escaped, terrorizing his old hometown. Jason Voorhees (Ari Lehman) is the serial
killer in the Friday the 13th film series; he is recognized by his hockey mask, though the
hockey mask does not become Jason’s (Richard Brooker) signature look until Friday the 13th
Part III (1982).
8 Allison is a human working at The After Dark Nightclub. Allison knows Keith from childhood
but he does not remember her. When AJ goes missing, Keith and Allison look for him, and
together they discover that the Nightclub is a vampire lair.
9 Consider, for example, the misogynoir Stacy Abrams and Kamala Harris experienced when
they announced their bids for governor of Georgia and Vice President of the United States.
Abrams, who announced her first bid for governor in June 2017, would have become the
first African American woman governor of Georgia if she was elected. Harris accepted the
Democratic nomination for Vice President in August 2020, and on Wednesday, January 20,

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44 Parker

2021, Harris was inaugurated as the first woman, first Black woman, and first Asian woman
to the vice presidency. “Misogynoir” is a term coined by Moya C. Bailey and Trudy, and it
describes the misogyny directed towards Black women where race and gender intertwine
and have a role in the bias Black women experience. See Bailey and Trudy (2018).
10 Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham coined the term “politics of respectability” in 1993 to describe
how early 20th-century African American women publicly presented themselves as sexually
pure in hopes of rejecting stereotypes of African American women as immoral, childlike,
and undeserving of protection and respect. For these women, politics of respectability was
a resistance and survival strategy. However, the politics of respectability also excludes those
who cannot or choose not to adhere to a sanitized way of living. For more on the debate
about Black respectability politics, see Higginbotham (1993), Frederick C. Harris (2014), and
Damon Young (2016).
11 “Others” being a label for a host of associations—women’s movement of the 1980s, ACT UP
(LGBT movement of the 1980s), the historically marginalized (black and Latinx people in
particular).
12 For instance, AJ consistently objectifies his (presumably white) women collegiate peers for
entrance into a fraternity and he extorts Duncan, his Asian classmate. His manipulation of
women and ethnic/racial others for his own gain is precisely the same energy Katrina uses.
13 A Yuppie is “a 1980s acronym meaning young urban professional” who is “a young, ambitious,
and well-educated city dweller who has a professional career and an affluent lifestyle” (Lowy,
1991, p. 448).

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