Gahhh… I was sure this question had come up before, but a search yields nothing. Perhaps I saw it somewhere else. Or I’m using the wrong search terms. Or I imagined the whole thing in a drug-induced haze…
Anyway. AFAIK, Dracula’s medallion is an Eastern European order of nobility, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. It’s star-shaped because that looks impressive in a medallion. It’s got nothing to do with the Star of David…
… awww, who am I kidding? Of course Dracula’s Jewish. And all mathematicians are Christians, too, look how they keep using + signs everywhere…
"By the time I locate it and gather up the answer, that damn Eve will be in here being the hero again. "
—Not this time, I’m stumped. Though my grandfather was born in Transylvania, and I hear Dracula’s real name was “Dracustein” before they changed it . . .
In the 70’s UK’s children’s programme ‘Chorlton and the Wheelies’, the mega bad evil witch character had a book of spells with a six-pointed star of David on the cover. This caused lots of furore at the time about the programme being some kind of anti-Semitic parable, etc. In fact (at least according to the programme animators) the guy who made the book didn’t know how to draw a five-pointed star so approximated.
So maybe the Dracula designers meant to do a pentacle but gave up cos it was too hard.
I’m reminded of a line from Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers, when a lovely blonde tries to thwart an evil bloodsucker with a cross, he chuckles and in a thick shtetl accent says, “Oy, have you got the wrong vampire!”
Dracula is definitely a Gentile, and the decoration is not a Magen David, but a pentagram, indicating his occult nature. (I have the DVD, and I looked.)
The Magen David has a fair claim to “occult symbol” status, due to its associations with the Kabbalistic tradition, as well as with King Solomon (from whom the demon-summoning and control tradition of western occultism has claimed descent for centuries).
While I think there is something to the idea of a racial/sexual xenophobic tradition regarding Dracula, and vampires in general, I doubt that Browning had any symbolic agenda regarding the medal, given its reported absence from the Spanish language version. If the two versions had different propmasters, on the other hand, it’s possible that he had some sort of joke or statement in mind.
Another possibility, given the medal’s absence from the Spanish version, is that it belonged to Lugosi himself, and was something he had previously worn in stage performances to signify the count’s noble rank. Any pictures or anecdotes to confirm or refute this?
I’m looking at a publicity still of Lugosi in his costume for the movie, and the medalion doesn’t look like a Star of David at all, or at least it doesn’t look like a star.
At its center is a circle, surrounded by lines radiating outwards, suggesting the rays of the sun. (Okay, I know the sun is really just a star we see relatively up close, but you get the idea.)
At regular intervals around the cirlce, the lines are longer, perhaps suggesting the points of a star, but this is not the sharp triangular look one associates with a pentagram or hexagram.
Some commentators, including David Skal, have tried to read anti-semitic undertones into the literary Count Dracula, but I’ve never found the argument convincing. As for the film version, the medalion is supposed to suggest some kind of chivalric order, emphasizing the character’s nobility, which hides his evil vampire nature beneath a deceptive facade.
I think that perhaps ScriptAnalyst has the right idea.
Anyone who is truly interested in going further into the Orders and Decorations which existed in Europe and Asia in bygone years could go to a Borders or Barnes and Nobles and look for a book picturing such stuff. Probably in Hobbies/Collecting or some such.
These “radiant star” orders were usually give for distinguished service, incredible bravery, etc.
I’m sure that an imitation of such was what Lugosi was wearing.
Dangit, Cal, you beat me to the armadillos. What was Browning thinking?
I can see why Renfield went nuts–I mean, you expect to find spiders and bats and rats and vampires in a crumbling Transylvanian castle–but armadillos?
[really anal nit-pick]Actually, most old west sheriffs wore five pointed stars, often inscribed within a circle; six pointed stars were reserved for marshals (This is one of those things that drives me nuts when they get it wrong in movies, and when moviemakers seem to think that a sheriff is the same thing as a town constable or city marshal).[/really anal nit-pick]
Many modern Sheriff’s Departments use seven pointed stars, I suppose to avoid any associations with pentagrams/pentacles and Stars of David. Metro police usually wear a sheild.
Stars, both five and six sided, in occult situations are seals of Solomon or derived from that tradition. They are used to protect from evil spirits, demons, djinn, etc. For example, the pentagram one summons a demon into, and the symbol on the stopper of the djinni’s bottle.
I think that would actually be okay, though kind of weird, because it is Christ/Christianity/the cross to which he is “allergic”, so to speak. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t accept the concept of Christ as savior.
