Dracula on Netflix

Dracula on Netflix Episode 1

By: Rylee Simpson

Over time Bram Stoker's novel Dracula has become a piece of literature known by people across the globe. With multiple adaptations in the form of books, television series, and movies, Dracula seems to be a classic story and character that never dies. When searching through an extensive adaptation line-up, there's classic Dracula movies and stories meant for both horror movie lovers and a Disney Dracula starring Mickey Mouse for younger audiences it seems there's a Dracula for people of all ages and tolerance to horror. But one adaptation of such a classic story that is more readily available to today's audiences is the Netflix series Dracula.

Before watching the first episode of Dracula, I had no idea how different these versions of such a classic story could be so different.  By the time I was finished with the first episode, it had become evident how differently creators could add their touch to the story and make it different from other versions. While there were some similarities between Bram Stoker's Dracula and Netflix's Dracula, I saw far more differences between the two regarding both the delivery of the story and gender. One example of a similarity I picked up on was the baby, sure the scene may not have happened exactly the same way as it did in the book, but there was still a baby the was used for feeding. When it came to differences, I felt there were many more when comparing the two. Thinking about the order of events, it's sort of backward from the book with the treatment for Jonathan from the nuns being shown as the first scene rather than halfway through the story. Also, there was a scene that show Jonathan's "journal" which is extremely different from the book because, in the Stoker's version, Jonathan has a journal that Mina ends up reading whereas, in the show, the nun claims he never brought a journal with him,  but that he asked for a pen and paper once he arrive and wrote small phrases about Dracula over and over. While there were many more differences through the course of episode one, these a just a few to make a point that every version of a classic story can be presented differently through ideas and methodology.

When I started to think about how gender was incorporated into this episode, I found that many elements were similar to the book, with the exception of how much more extreme gender was used in the Netflix series. While in Stoker's Dracula, Jonathan Harker is feminized by making him seem weaker than Dracula through his stay in the castle; the movie feminizes Jonathan even more by showing him in countless vulnerable moments such as the scene in which he begged Dracula to spare his life. The series scriptwriters even went as far to have Dracula call Jonathan on of his brides. While Jonathan was feminized throughout the episode, I feel Mina was given more masculine characteristics. There are not as many scenes involving Mina, but the only that spoke to me was when Mina held a sword after Jonathan tried to put the stake through his own heart. With the time period the story is supposed to be set in women wouldn't typically ever hold any weapon that a man would use for protection from something. One last major thing that jumped out was when Dracula admitted to biting Jonathan; in the book Stoker only used female characters as the victims. This may be due to the change in the way LGBTQ is viewed over the course of history. During Stoker's time, he most likely wouldn't even think of writing something so controversial due to a fear of backlash or rebellion. But today, the LGBTQ community is not a topic that many would avoid to include in their writing so because it is more widely accepted throughout the world.

If you've read Bram Stoker's Dracula and watched season one of Netflix's Dracula, you may be excited to hear that there is already rumors of a season two to follow in 2021. To read some of these rumors check out this site.