Author

Publication

2002-05-15 - University Of Chicago Press

Language

English

Word Count

84,000 words, Guess

Page Count

336 pages

Physical Format

Paperback

Identifiers

and 3 more
  • Library of Congress Control Number2001037803
  • Goodreads856900
  • LibraryThing113528

Classifications

  • LCCHC110.C6+
  • LCCHC110.C6 L37 2002

Description

From the novels of Anne Rice to The Lost Boys, from The Terminator to cyberpunk science fiction, vampires and cyborgs have become strikingly visible figures within American popular culture, especially youth culture. In Consuming Youth, Rob Latham explains why, showing how fiction, film, and other media deploy these ambiguous monsters to embody and work through the implications of a capitalist system in which youth both consume and are consumed.Inspired by Marx's use of the cyborg vampire as a metaphor for the objectification of physical labor in the factory, Latham shows how contemporary images of vampires and cyborgs illuminate the contradictory processes of empowerment and exploitation that characterize the youth-consumer system. While the vampire is a voracious consumer driven by a hunger for perpetual youth, the cyborg has incorporated the machineries of consumption into its own flesh. Powerful fusions of technology and desire, these paired images symbolize the forms of labor and leisure that American society has staked out for contemporary youth.A startling look at youth in our time, Consuming Youth will interest anyone concerned with film, television, and popular culture.

First Sentence

In my introduction I focused principally on the political-economic implications of Marx's metaphor of the vampire-cyborg: how it allows a critique of the capitalist factory as an undead machine that feeds upon and incorporates workers' living substance.

Description

From the novels of Anne Rice to 'The Lost Boys', from 'The Terminator' to cyberpunk science fiction, vampires and cyborgs have become strikingly visible figures within American popular culture, especially youth culture. This book explains why, showing how fiction, film, and other media deploy these ambiguous monsters to embody and work through the implications of a capitalist system in which youth both consume and are consumed.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • Consuming YouthPaperbackUniversity Of Chicago Press2002-05-15

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