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Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!

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They're everywhere and they want equal rights too dammit.

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Yes I'm talking about True Blood. The problem I have with True Blood is

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I feel like it's structurally flawed. The writers are equating vampire rights with the struggle

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of civil rights and queer rights. Let's be clear, vampires are evil, manipulative,

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blood-sucking, monsterous, undead beings.

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Now to equate these evil beings with Black folks and Queer folks is not a far cry from the

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actual accusations against Black folks and Queer folks both historically and currently.

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To make this show that's this sort of serious drama but fun commentary is offensive, at best.

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Good old Sookie Stackhouse who the story is actually based on.

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She's so boring, really... okay I take that back, there are some things that are

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interesting about her like the psychic ability is kind of interesting, but ultimately

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she is the white, female, blonde, cute, virginal protaganist.

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Which is very typical, there's not anything super special about that representation.

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I do appreciate that she stands up to Bill occasionally, even though she always go back to him

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and even though he's this 'I have to save you' creepy guy just having those little

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lines, you know, makes me happier in general and I think it's also a good representation

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for women to see that resistance, it just falls short, constantly,

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because she still goes back to his ridiculous patriarchal behaviour.

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In season two there is a really great example of the backlash against women if they

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want to defend themselves against their patriarchal boyfriends.

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"That does not give you license to behave like an irresponsible child!"

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"She is a loaded gun Sookie, not a doll for you to dress up and play with."

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"What are you doing?"

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"Walking!"

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"Don't be ridiculous, Bon Temps is nearly twenty miles away."

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"I'd rather walk all night then spend another second in that car with you!"

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"What the--"

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So now look what happens, Sookie's getting punished by a near death experience

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because she decided to stick up for herself. Now that's not cool, the writers are writing

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this, they could have written it in any other way, but instead they are going with the very

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archaic storyline of women as fragile and need to be protected, 'and don't you dare

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stick up for yourself or be strong willed.'

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Now Bill the other main characters is also incredibly boring and annoying and you

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would think that if you've been alive for a hundred and some odd years

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you would adjust to the way of life now just like every other vampire on the show has,

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but no, you don't.

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Bill is positioned as this sort of romantic old school, 'I'm gonna take care of you and

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respect you' but it's just so contrived and really messed up. I mean do we really want

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to celebrate these old sort of victorian ways of engaging in relationships?

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I mean, almost every other word out of his mouth is something about having to

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protect Sookie.

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"The more people know what you do the harder it is for me to protect you."

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"Sookie must be protected."

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"And I need you to watch over Sookie, protect her while I'm gone."

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"My only desire is to keep you safe."

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And now Sookie will demonstrate the appropriate response to these comments.

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"Shut the fuck up"

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Tara is Sookie's best friend and I really like Tara. I think that she is really kind of

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dynamic and interesting. I really believe her character. I believe that she has had a really

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messed up childhood and her mom's an alcoholic and she's lashed out and

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been promiscuous and hasn't had the emotional support and doesn't really know

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how to, you know, love herself because nobody's really ever loved her.

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So that when this evil god like creature masked as a beautiful woman, who eats

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a lot of organic food, comes in and gives her that emotional love and support

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she's going to fall for that, I buy that.

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What I don't buy is that unfortunately, even though I think Tara is really interesting

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she's still the Black sidekick, she's still the loud, pompous, aggressive, hypersexualized

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Black woman. Lafayette, oh, you know we all love him. He's really dynamic and really

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interesting and funny as some definitely some choice lines.

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But he is every stereotype about Black queer men all rolled into one little pretty package and

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it constantly infuriates me because we don't want to reinforce these stereotypes

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we want to dispel them and break them down and make very interesting complicated,

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textured characters that are beyond stereotypes but NO, True Blood can't do that.

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We see Layfayette working in the kitchen of Merlotte's but on the side he's also a

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prostitute, and he runs his own porn website and he's a drug dealer.

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I mean, really? Could there be any other stereotypes thrown in here?

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Putting Lafayette's character into the greater context of the True Blood universe

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there's no other Black men and no other Queer men on the main cast so he's

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really all we get in terms of alternative sexuality and as far as Black male masculinity.

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Eric's character has developed a lot more in season two and I'm kind of disturbed by the

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direction it's going. So in season one we establish that he's this pompous arrogant

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sort of quiet but very powerful asshole. He doesn't really care about humans very

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much they are just kind of toys to him and he can get whatever he wants because he

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is the most powerful vampire in the area. So in season two we start to see a bit of his

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emotion as far as being concerned about his maker and he even cries, which I think it's

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totally acceptable and great that men are crying on television but I don't think

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this gives us license to feel sympathy or attraction towards Eric. I think that he is

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still continuing to be a perpetrator really. The scene in which he tricks Sookie into drinking

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his blood is really reminiscent of sexual assault and unfortunately that sexual

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assault hasn't been dealt with in a respectful way. So he thinks that it's totally okay and funny that

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he did that, Sookie's pissed but what is she gonna do? And he gets to emotionally

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stalk her. I think it's characters like Eric in the scene that I described that really

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reminds me that there are people behind the scenes who are purposely writing things

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and get to choose which directions these stories and characters go and more often

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then not, they are not in the direction in which fans want to see them.

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Especially female fans because we live with the constant fear of violence towards

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us on a daily basis we don't need that to be dealt with on TV

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in a very negative, dismissive sort of way.

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I could probably go on for hours about the specifics of how messed up True Blood is

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but I will leave you just with those gems and I'm also going to provide some links to some really

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awesome articles that talk more in depthly about race and gender in True Blood.

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"I don't know who you think you are but before the night is through

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I wanna do bad things with you."