What We Do in the Shadows, a sitcom based on the eponymous 2014 movie, debuted on FX in March 2019. The show follows three European vampires: Nandor, Laszlo, and Nadja, who live on Staten Island with their “familiars” and, through antics both large and small, mirror and exaggerate the grotesque realities of late capitalism.
The Baron, an elder vampire from the Olde Country, arrives to assess the attempted conquest of the New World and is frustrated that the vampiric domain is only two blocks surrounding their Victorian mansion (1.1). In showing him around the borough, the group visits a dollar store where the Baron details the fate of the “New World” after vampire conquest, “We will fill this place with the carcasses of the conquered. Some humans will become slaves. The rest, food.” He points to the cashier saying “Slave” and at another patron, “Food” (1.6).
This scene exemplifies the social function of the working class in society; slaves to the pursuit of profit or fuel for relentless accumulation of wealth. Living on generational, accumulated wealth, the vampires do not work and live lives of leisure; Laszlo is shown sculpting topiaries. In contrast, the humans enact recognizable anxieties of the working class in late capitalism. Guillermo, Nandor’s familiar, pays $1,200 to rent his windowless room, and in the season finale, remarks on how he wishes he still worked for Panera Bread. Other B character jobs include a parking attendant, carnival workers, and a security guard at an animal shelter. The vampires, symbols of inherited wealth and imperialist power, are figuratively and literally sucking the blood of working-class people.
The vampires represent a wealthy class who refuse to allow for other economic systems, while the humans continue to struggle under the gaze of late capitalism with bullshit jobs.
About the presenterTimothy Wotring
Timothy lives in Philadelphia where he works as the Program Coordinator for a homeless youth shelter, mentoring and tutoring high schoolers. He holds an M.Div from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.