September 12th, 2009
by
Ariel Wetzel
(This post contains mild spoilers for the HBO vampire series, True Blood.)
The most recent episode of True Blood, “Frenzy,” had a feminist reminder coming from a jock of all people. In this episode, the second to last of season two, the town-folk of fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps are brain-washed/possessed by maenad Maryanne and run around partying, having outdoor orgies, and eating human hearts. Police dispatcher Rosie hits on Jason Stackhouse, a promiscuous jock whose sexual escapades frequently get him in trouble, when Jason tries to break into the police station to arm himself and fight his possessed neighbors. He plays along enough to tie Rosie up so she can’t sound the alarm until he tells her, “Rosie, I ain’t never taken advantage of someone while she was fucked up.”
Rosie quickly offers an example of a time one of Jason’s intoxicated lovers passed out during sex, and earlier episodes have featured Jason having sex with drunk women as well as blowing off those who care for him. But what I appreciate about this scene is that a jock, someone we’d expect to be an aggressor, is the one declaring that folks can’t give consent when they’re wasted or possessed. I don’t think men deserve gold stars for not being rapists, but it will take men challenging other men on unacceptable behavior.
I look forward to seeing where True Blood goes with tomorrow’s season two finale. I just started watching the show a few weeks ago, and I quickly caught up to the current episodes. As an activist, I’m intrigued by the premise of vampires “coming out of the coffin” after the invention of a synthetic blood. Some vampires want to “mainstream” and be accepted into human society, while others see humans as mere food. Accordingly, there are human allies supporting the rights of vampires and a Christian right trying to destroy the undead. True Blood is by no means exclusively a progressive show (for example, female characters are much more likely to die violently than male characters), but the questions of allies and assimilation (as well as lovable side characters and vampires who text message and play Wii) will keep me watching.
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Ariel Wetzel at
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Filed under TV & Film, horror | Comments (7)
Ehh…I’m less than impressed with the “coming out of the coffin” plot, though would love to see a full-blown race, gender & sexuality analysis of this show. The first book in the series struck me as a pretty good example of the “fantastic racism” trope gone wrong, with big problematic stereotypes affect all of the black and gay or bisexual characters. The show seems to have made some interesting changes, though, especially with the characters of Tara & Lafayette. I’d like to see more.
I do like your point about men calling men on consent issues, especially since there seem to have been a lot of “no! it’s not rape!” things floating around lately…
I am reading the first book, and something does seem to be missing without Tara and Lafayette. I have a feeling the producers of the TV show decided to develop their characters so there would be more diversity in the cast.
In the book so far, all the characters of color so far seem pretty minor, and the only queer characters I’ve gotten to so far have been presented as skanky villains.
What’s the “fantastic racism” trope? Is that where a group of magical beings experience racism, like in Harry Potter?
Yes, I could say much more about that book, but fear spoiling you. Skanky villains, yes. But it’s not just that the portrayals of non-white and queer characters are overwhelmingly negative or barely there (Lafayette does show up for a couple of seconds toward the end, as does a black woman cop) it’s that the negative portrayals draw on well-established stereotypes (gay men as vectors of disease, black women as sex-crazed Sapphires, members of x ethnic group as thieves, etc.). I stopped reading after the first book because I couldn’t stomach that much racism and homophobia in my escapist entertainment.
The “fantastic racism” story uses the tropes of sf or fantasy to address prejudice in a metaphorical manner. Most often, a group of people who are “special” or “different” (i.e., vampires, or people with magical powers) face widespread prejudice from the mainstream, who are afraid of them. The X-men mutants are a classic example.
I actually really love this trope–done well it can be quite powerful, reflecting the experiences of those of us who are marginalized and inviting those of us who are dominant (and aren’t most of us both?) to examine assumptions. But it’s often done badly–and then it reaffirms prejudice.
If you make your stand-in for the marginalized genuinely dangerous to society, or deeply alien, you send a message that those others out there should be ostracized, or (worse) are not really human. (I did not see District 9, but judging from the reviews it seemed to do this.)
There’s no question that True Blood, with its Deep South setting, Vampire Rights Amendment, and jokes about “coming out of the coffin” is deliberately invoking this trope and trying to parallel its vampires with the civil, women’s, and LGBT rights movements. But vampires suck people’s blood. They actually DO pose a serious threat to human society–much like white people imagined black men did. The plot valorizes the mainstream POV, and reaffirms mainstream prejudices.
Then there’s the way TB tackles exceptionalism, which is a thorny problem for many marginalized communities. The book gives us a lot of badly-behaved scary vampires, and a couple “good” one like Bill, who are trying hard to fit in to mainstream society. In other words, it pushes a strong assimilationist message. The vampires who don’t want to accommodate the mainstream are evil and deserve to die, and usually do. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Bill is white, straight, and a Confederate soldier, either.)
Metaphorically, this choice promotes the exorcising of difference. Really all you people are terrible, but there are a selected few who deserve to be treated OK. You know. The Good Negroes. The immigrants who learn our language. The women who will still dress feminine. The ones who will jettison their own culture to be just like us.
A similar example is the TV show Merlin, whose protagonist has magical powers that would get him executed if the king ever got wind of them. The writing seems to deliberately parallel the persecution of magic with homophobia (e.g., “I was born like this”), and the plot revolves around Merlin having to save Arthur while keeping a central part of who he is secret.
But because the vast majority of magic-workers in the show (including all the women, and the only disabled character) are evil (or strongly implied to be headed that way, in Morgana’s case) and have to be defeated by Merlin, it undercuts the potential accept-people-with-differences theme. In essence, it says that those of you who want acceptance must not only cut ties to others like you, but fight against them. Which undercuts the struggles of marginalized communities to band together against oppression from without.
(A third way this trope goes wrong: some writers use it as an excuse to not include people of color, actually queer characters, etc. in their cast–’cuz really the aliens are already doing the job! A fourth: it often lets the audience sympathize with a palatably white or straight etc. figure who struggles with prejudice without having to include a truly different character in their sympathies. The Time Traveler’s Wife, which has some real racism & homophobia problems, is a great example of the last.)
I could say more on Harry Potter front, but I think I’ve covered it for now. Love to hear what you think when you finish the book. There’s a lot to say about Sookie as a working-class white woman and the whole female virginity thing too…
Feel free to spoil the book, I’ll be through with it today. I appreciate Sookie’s working-class pride and how she defends the murdered women when her neighbors want to write them off as poor, dumb, and sluts. But Sookie being proud of who she is and knowing its a bad idea to seep with her boss is about the end of the class consciousness. There doesn’t seem to be much analysis–Sam is the only boss in the book, and Sookie seems fine with him looking up her skirt when he’s in dog form.
Yes, the class consciousness doesn’t go so far–but I do think making a working-class woman in a dead-end job your heroine is still a significant move. Unfortunately, I found that move overwhelmed by the intense emphasis on Sookie’s whiteness and virginity, which are linked. All the more since there are characters like the black vampire Sapphire around to serve as Sookie’s foil. It’s the white virgin who must be protected v. the black slut who has it coming, which has propped up racism and sexism in the US, particularly the South, where the book is set, for centuries now.
*****Spoiler space******
Every significant non-white and queer character in the book is evil or ends up dead or both. It’s been a year since I read it, but I recall: evil gay man deliberately trying to spread vampire-AIDS because of a tragic gay past (death of a lover, I think, because when gay people lose their loves they must turn evil), evil gay or bisexual vampire, evil sluttish black woman vampire (the Sapphire figure I mention above).
The submystery about the theft (I think it’s stolen money) in the vampire bar is particularly bad. There is only one non-white man in the room, a Native American (sic). Who do you think did it? (Note that accusing indigenous peoples of theft in this country also has a long, and ironic, history.) And, of course, he dies brutally for his crime.
I realize I’ve gone on at length here, but I took this book to the beach a year ago and nearly threw it into the ocean. It bothered me immensely. And I would love to see some analysis of how the same themes play out, or don’t, in the TV adaptation; I gather they changed the white best friend to a black woman named Tara, and gave Lafayette something to do?
I think your analysis of the book is pretty spot on. I’d go back and watch the TV episodes again before making a formal argument, but I think the show has better politics than the one book I’ve read so far. Tara and Lafayette both fit into stereotypes, but also grow beyond those stereotypes and get to be real people. Tara in the TV series is the big reader, not Sookie, and in the first scene introducing Tara she is reading Naomi Klein, which made me happy. Tara is openly resistant to racism and criticizes Bill’s family for owning slaves (which everyone seems fine with in the book). I also like that she’s insubordinate and stands up to her boss (she won’t wear a skimpy waitress uniform), but at times I can see how viewers could dismiss her as being an uppity black woman.
Lafayette is an interesting character because he lives up two stereotypes: tough black drug dealer and promiscuous, effeminate homosexual. I do appreciate seeing a man in makeup win fights!
The bar owner, Sam, also struck me as being really creepy and in-appropriate in the book (stalking Sookie to “protect” her, watching her undress) is toned down. I think the folks making the TV show are trying a bit harder than Charlaine Harris to be progressive, but there’s still room for improvement.
Thanks. I’m glad to hear that the TV show is trying harder, and what you say about the ways it tries and does or doesn’t succeed is intriguing.
I had forgotten about the makeup bit! In the book, Lafayette’s makeup came across very much as “All gay men must wear makeup!” It sounds like he’s more interesting in the series, although I don’t know what the later books did with him. Thanks again for the conversation.