Blade- The Double-edged Sword Between Two Communities
Humans subside in a world that thrives on community, society, and relationships. Within each of these categories people function together, believe in the same morals and values, and create their own divisions within these groups. Through excluding certain groups or individuals the society would cease to function, while enabling the community to feel normal and safe in their ideals.
In the movie Blade, the human race is unable to grasp the nature of the vampire realm. The people reside in a place where their everyday lives are unscathed by the dark world of the night. The night is an outlet for the vampires to feed, and thrive. Blade is a combination of both human and vampire. This gives him limited access into both worlds, because both groups fear Blade. These communities cannot embrace him because they cannot identify with him. He possesses greater strengths than humans and vampires. He is ultimately feared by both groups, and is not recognizable in either society that he dwells. His only outlet is to help the one race that does not know what kind of man/thing he is. As indicated in this movie, when an individual possesses the defining characteristics of two diverse communities Blade will inevitably choose the one least threatening to him.
Humans live in a sugarcoated world. They like to think of themselves as individuals within a community. The truth is that they are part of a community that makes them feel secure with themselves. Whether it is a country club, a union, or a church, they attach themselves to something to make them who they are. The human race lacks any type of empathy towards anyone outside of his or her group. They cannot relate to outsiders.
In the movie Blade, the human race is wearing a blindfold. They cannot see the truth that lurks in the night. They may not be able to accept the truth because it would disrupt the reality they have created for themselves. This makes them weak to the predators that are hunting them. Within the movie Blade, the human race is lacking any knowledge of the vampire race that thrives in the night. They are so fixated on believing that the world is a good and fair place that they have neglected to see what s staring them in the face. Dr. Karen Jenson states, This is like a bad dream. She cannot fathom a life filled with such hideous beings. She automatically hates them, without understanding what they believe in or what their ideals are. She has excluded the vampires from her social connections because she cannot comprehend the idea of becoming or engaging with a vampire.
This action embodies the entire human race. We cannot accept what we do not know. We are a society that divulges itself into assumptions and lies. We allow categories to consume our lives, which make us susceptible to losing the society we thought we knew.
Vampires live in a society that is much darker than the human race. They think of themselves as a superior race. They try to blend in with humans for their own livelihood, so they can sustain their own power within the circle they encompass. In the movie Blade, vampires have a set of rules. They use these rules to govern the ways in which they will increase their population, but also they need them to function as a society. Within this community there is a council. It is made up of twelve members from the House of Erebus. These are pure blood vampires, that is, they were born a vampire. They control the rules and regulations of the vampire community. Each member of the council in inscribed with a tattoo. This allows other vampires to know who you are, what your strengths are, where you came from, and what seat on the council you belong to. The vampires speak a different language and have their own set of archives or bible. This is not much different than the human community.
Within this particular society vampires exclude humans. Humans are the ugly, ostracized, and unwanted species in the group. Vampires do not feel that humans have a right to be in their society. Deacon Frost states, The world belongs to vampires not humans. This idea that vampires are greater than humans, or their feeling that they are not like humans, gives them the power to exclude the human race. It empowers them to rationalize their structure of living and helps them to create their own idealistic reality.
Blade is the most important element in this movie. He is the key into the worlds of vampirism and humanism. Blade is a hybrid that is bound by human laws but also by vampire laws. He is almost forced to choose between the two. How does one go about doing that? As a vampire he possesses all the strengths of the vampires but none of the weaknesses. As a human, his morals will never be questioned, and more than likely he will be accepted. The problem with Blade is that even though it may seem that he is choosing to fight the vampires for human kind, the real motive may be that he will never be accepted by the vampire race. He is a threat to all vampires. He possesses the ability to walk during the day. This makes the vampires feel that Blade is in one higher or more advanced than they are. He was born a vampire and it is encoded into his DNA. This makes him elite with the rest of the vampire council. This is threatening for the vampire community and therefore, they deny him access to the society that they embrace.
In turn, Blade is not really human. He has a thirst for blood, and needs a serum to help stop his cravings. He is a loner. He cannot fit into human society because he is a hybrid. Blade would be excluded from human society because he is of unnatural design. It would be almost impossible for society to include him as a member of their group, because Blade interferes with societies ideas of humanity. Does Blade really have the choice of fighting for the human race? No. He fights for the human race because they haven t identified him as a vampire yet. He has not yet been excluded from their society as he has been with the vampires. Blade is doomed to be an outcast in either society because neither can accept the abilities he has acquired, and therefore, his existence will forever rely on society.
All societies have their own ideas and assumptions. How they formulate their choices and expand their community can only depend on their actions. Everyone should be treated equally, whether they are or are not the typical person, depends on that community. Acceptance is a great power that every man, woman, and child possesses, and with that, society needs to learn to accept not tolerate others. Blade is a person who is searching for acceptance from the two societies surrounding him. He is forced to make decisions to protect his sanctity of life, and even though Blade fears the human race, he is forced to protect them from the vampires. He has already been stigmatized by the vampire community, which leaves him to defend the only society that will allow him to pretend he is a member of.
Works Cited
Blade. Dir. Stephen Norrington. Perf. Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorf, Kris
Kristofferson, N Bushe Wright.
1998. DVD. New Line Productions, 1998