WEBVTT 00:00:07.841 --> 00:00:10.077 Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! 00:00:10.077 --> 00:00:13.280 They're everywhere and they want equal rights too dammit. 00:00:13.280 --> 00:00:17.551 Yes I'm talking about True Blood. The problem I have with True Blood is 00:00:17.551 --> 00:00:22.322 I feel like it's structurally flawed. The writers are equating vampire rights with the struggle 00:00:22.322 --> 00:00:29.429 of civil rights and queer rights. Let's be clear, vampires are evil, manipulative, 00:00:29.429 --> 00:00:33.508 blood-sucking, monsterous, undead beings. 00:00:33.908 --> 00:00:40.574 Now to equate these evil beings with Black folks and Queer folks is not a far cry from the 00:00:40.574 --> 00:00:46.146 actual accusations against Black folks and Queer folks both historically and currently. 00:00:46.146 --> 00:00:55.322 To make this show that's this sort of serious drama but fun commentary is offensive, at best. 00:00:55.322 --> 00:01:00.093 Good old Sookie Stackhouse who the story is actually based on. 00:01:00.093 --> 00:01:09.670 She's so boring, really... okay I take that back, there are some things that are 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:14.241 interesting about her like the psychic ability is kind of interesting, but ultimately 00:01:14.241 --> 00:01:21.915 she is the white, female, blonde, cute, virginal protaganist. 00:01:21.915 --> 00:01:26.653 Which is very typical, there's not anything super special about that representation. 00:01:26.653 --> 00:01:31.558 I do appreciate that she stands up to Bill occasionally, even though she always go back to him 00:01:31.558 --> 00:01:36.597 and even though he's this 'I have to save you' creepy guy just having those little 00:01:36.597 --> 00:01:43.403 lines, you know, makes me happier in general and I think it's also a good representation 00:01:43.403 --> 00:01:49.276 for women to see that resistance, it just falls short, constantly, 00:01:49.276 --> 00:01:53.213 because she still goes back to his ridiculous patriarchal behaviour. 00:01:53.213 --> 00:01:56.083 In season two there is a really great example of the backlash against women if they 00:01:56.083 --> 00:01:58.719 want to defend themselves against their patriarchal boyfriends. 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:02.910 "That does not give you license to behave like an irresponsible child!" 00:02:02.910 --> 00:02:08.161 "She is a loaded gun Sookie, not a doll for you to dress up and play with." 00:02:08.161 --> 00:02:09.427 "What are you doing?" 00:02:09.427 --> 00:02:11.461 "Walking!" 00:02:11.461 --> 00:02:14.431 "Don't be ridiculous, Bon Temps is nearly twenty miles away." 00:02:14.431 --> 00:02:19.115 "I'd rather walk all night then spend another second in that car with you!" 00:02:24.592 --> 00:02:26.289 "What the--" 00:02:41.827 --> 00:02:47.367 So now look what happens, Sookie's getting punished by a near death experience 00:02:47.367 --> 00:02:52.706 because she decided to stick up for herself. Now that's not cool, the writers are writing 00:02:52.706 --> 00:02:56.910 this, they could have written it in any other way, but instead they are going with the very 00:02:56.910 --> 00:03:01.381 archaic storyline of women as fragile and need to be protected, 'and don't you dare 00:03:01.381 --> 00:03:04.386 stick up for yourself or be strong willed.' 00:03:04.386 --> 00:03:10.090 Now Bill the other main characters is also incredibly boring and annoying and you 00:03:10.090 --> 00:03:13.627 would think that if you've been alive for a hundred and some odd years 00:03:13.627 --> 00:03:19.600 you would adjust to the way of life now just like every other vampire on the show has, 00:03:19.600 --> 00:03:22.870 but no, you don't. 00:03:22.870 --> 00:03:28.208 Bill is positioned as this sort of romantic old school, 'I'm gonna take care of you and 00:03:28.208 --> 00:03:34.681 respect you' but it's just so contrived and really messed up. I mean do we really want 00:03:34.681 --> 00:03:40.821 to celebrate these old sort of victorian ways of engaging in relationships? 00:03:40.821 --> 00:03:45.092 I mean, almost every other word out of his mouth is something about having to 00:03:45.092 --> 00:03:46.238 protect Sookie. 00:03:47.183 --> 00:03:51.899 "The more people know what you do the harder it is for me to protect you." 00:03:51.899 --> 00:03:54.401 "Sookie must be protected." 00:03:54.401 --> 00:03:57.538 "And I need you to watch over Sookie, protect her while I'm gone." 00:03:57.538 --> 00:03:59.806 "My only desire is to keep you safe." 00:03:59.806 --> 00:04:03.277 And now Sookie will demonstrate the appropriate response to these comments. 00:04:03.277 --> 00:04:06.102 "Shut the fuck up" 00:04:06.102 --> 00:04:13.344 Tara is Sookie's best friend and I really like Tara. I think that she is really kind of 00:04:13.344 --> 00:04:19.860 dynamic and interesting. I really believe her character. I believe that she has had a really 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:24.218 messed up childhood and her mom's an alcoholic and she's lashed out and 00:04:24.218 --> 00:04:29.770 been promiscuous and hasn't had the emotional support and doesn't really know 00:04:29.770 --> 00:04:33.574 how to, you know, love herself because nobody's really ever loved her. 00:04:33.574 --> 00:04:39.913 So that when this evil god like creature masked as a beautiful woman, who eats 00:04:39.913 --> 00:04:44.618 a lot of organic food, comes in and gives her that emotional love and support 00:04:44.618 --> 00:04:46.653 she's going to fall for that, I buy that. 00:04:46.653 --> 00:04:51.525 What I don't buy is that unfortunately, even though I think Tara is really interesting 00:04:51.525 --> 00:04:56.930 she's still the Black sidekick, she's still the loud, pompous, aggressive, hypersexualized 00:04:56.930 --> 00:05:03.904 Black woman. Lafayette, oh, you know we all love him. He's really dynamic and really 00:05:03.904 --> 00:05:07.174 interesting and funny as some definitely some choice lines. 00:05:07.174 --> 00:05:14.248 But he is every stereotype about Black queer men all rolled into one little pretty package and 00:05:14.248 --> 00:05:20.187 it constantly infuriates me because we don't want to reinforce these stereotypes 00:05:20.187 --> 00:05:24.324 we want to dispel them and break them down and make very interesting complicated, 00:05:24.324 --> 00:05:29.062 textured characters that are beyond stereotypes but NO, True Blood can't do that. 00:05:29.062 --> 00:05:33.667 We see Layfayette working in the kitchen of Merlotte's but on the side he's also a 00:05:33.667 --> 00:05:37.722 prostitute, and he runs his own porn website and he's a drug dealer. 00:05:37.722 --> 00:05:42.242 I mean, really? Could there be any other stereotypes thrown in here? 00:05:42.242 --> 00:05:46.613 Putting Lafayette's character into the greater context of the True Blood universe 00:05:46.613 --> 00:05:50.517 there's no other Black men and no other Queer men on the main cast so he's 00:05:50.517 --> 00:05:59.390 really all we get in terms of alternative sexuality and as far as Black male masculinity. 00:05:59.390 --> 00:06:03.297 Eric's character has developed a lot more in season two and I'm kind of disturbed by the 00:06:03.297 --> 00:06:07.644 direction it's going. So in season one we establish that he's this pompous arrogant 00:06:07.644 --> 00:06:13.140 sort of quiet but very powerful asshole. He doesn't really care about humans very 00:06:13.140 --> 00:06:17.544 much they are just kind of toys to him and he can get whatever he wants because he 00:06:17.544 --> 00:06:22.726 is the most powerful vampire in the area. So in season two we start to see a bit of his 00:06:22.726 --> 00:06:28.555 emotion as far as being concerned about his maker and he even cries, which I think it's 00:06:28.555 --> 00:06:32.926 totally acceptable and great that men are crying on television but I don't think 00:06:32.926 --> 00:06:38.932 this gives us license to feel sympathy or attraction towards Eric. I think that he is 00:06:38.932 --> 00:06:47.040 still continuing to be a perpetrator really. The scene in which he tricks Sookie into drinking 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:51.044 his blood is really reminiscent of sexual assault and unfortunately that sexual 00:06:51.044 --> 00:06:57.084 assault hasn't been dealt with in a respectful way. So he thinks that it's totally okay and funny that 00:06:57.084 --> 00:07:01.088 he did that, Sookie's pissed but what is she gonna do? And he gets to emotionally 00:07:01.088 --> 00:07:05.492 stalk her. I think it's characters like Eric in the scene that I described that really 00:07:05.492 --> 00:07:09.759 reminds me that there are people behind the scenes who are purposely writing things 00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:14.101 and get to choose which directions these stories and characters go and more often 00:07:14.101 --> 00:07:19.173 then not, they are not in the direction in which fans want to see them. 00:07:19.173 --> 00:07:25.712 Especially female fans because we live with the constant fear of violence towards 00:07:25.712 --> 00:07:29.683 us on a daily basis we don't need that to be dealt with on TV 00:07:29.683 --> 00:07:33.187 in a very negative, dismissive sort of way. 00:07:33.187 --> 00:07:36.924 I could probably go on for hours about the specifics of how messed up True Blood is 00:07:36.924 --> 00:07:41.695 but I will leave you just with those gems and I'm also going to provide some links to some really 00:07:41.695 --> 00:07:46.162 awesome articles that talk more in depthly about race and gender in True Blood. 00:07:47.234 --> 00:07:54.137 "I don't know who you think you are but before the night is through 00:07:54.137 --> 00:07:57.744 I wanna do bad things with you."