I'm frankly thrilled at the way the show keeps relentlessly hammering at the idea of redemption and family at every turn, or the way it tricks you into thinking you're only watching cartoonish religious vampire-hating bigots attempt a massacre or demi-god-bespelled townsfolk engage in orgies when I think we're really being schooled in the far reaches of fanaticism and religious ecstasy, and in thin dividing lines.
You see, these two things are among things that I personally find very "bad taste" and trashy in "True blood" (but this is of course, my own understanding). The family values are a fine theme by itself, but when taken to cheesy extremes like in "True Blood" this gives me a feel similar to when eating too much sugar and being nauseous.
"Religious fanaticism" theme in the season 2 also could have been good and there were few genuinely funny moments with the crazy couple, but:
b) I find the thing that is hammered too much from the episode 1, namely "vampires are the new gay" to be way too bad taste for me. I mean - gay people don't actually drink anyone's blood, right? And they didn't spend thousands of years of killing people?
c) The amount of orgies I have seen in the season 2 (and I re-winded some) was absolutely too many for me, to the point of making them incredibly boring. The boring orgies are actually the main minus of the season 2 for me (where "Jason and his penis" was the main minus of the season 1). For me personally, it would have been much better if we had more screen time spent on vampires than on orgies. One orgy = fine. Two orgies = I totally get that there is a blurred line between sex and religious fanaticism; Dozens of orgies = I am re-winding this fast.
The family values are a fine theme by itself, but when taken to cheesy extremes like in "True Blood" this gives me a feel similar to when eating too much sugar and being nauseous.
I hope you don't mind, but if you feel like it, could you explain this a little more? (I mean, what did you think was cheesy?) I ask only because I wonder if we're talking about the same thing. To me, the theme of "family" is not strictly the idea of (for example) Sookie, Jason and their grandmother and how they love each other, but I mean the way that family units spring up all over the place - not just the natural biological families, but rather created families, chosen families. For example, Sookie is more Tara's family than her mother ever was, but Tara is still lost and floundering (and cast out by her own mother), so when Maryann comes along, Tara is so hungry for the comfort that she offers, that Tara jumps into that new family with its illusion of safety and normalcy. Another really good example is the way that Sam Merlotte finds himself in the midst of several people who love him and depend on him, but only after his own adoptive parents abandon him and he's forced to raise himself. Sam holds himself away from people, even while it's obvious that he craves human connections (we're told again and again that no one knows anything about him, and he resists opening up for a long time). Later Sam keeps trying to leave, but ultimately he can't. He realizes he does have a family in Bon Temps that sort of happened while he wasn't looking. And then there's Jason who after losing both his grandmother and Amy, finds a family with the Fellowship, and for the first time in his life, he feels smart and valued for his skills (even his grandmother didn't make him feel that way). The vampires have their (much more obvious) families, - the father/brother relationship between Eric & Godric, or Eric & Pam, or the very obvious father-daughter relationship between Bill and Jessica. I love the complicated webs of relationships that bind all of these characters together, whether by blood or choice, and the fact that virtually every character is hungry for a family, and that some of them are so damaged, and have had their families torn away from them (Tara, Jessica, Bill, Sam, for ex.) and they feel that loss so keenly that it informs much of their characters.
I hope you don't mind, but if you feel like it, could you explain this a little more? (I mean, what did you think was cheesy?)
It is hard to point it out, but I often get the feeling of "normal people don't act this way" and "this is way over the top too sugary" when I watch American shows or Hollywood (and especially Disney) films with the themes of family relationships. May be this is because of differences in USA culture because I almost never get this feeling with other countries shows / films, even with Japanese and Korean dramas where family relationships are often a theme. May be an example of an USA show that "gets it right for me" will help? It has to be "Medium" : Alison's family is beautifully functional; BUT we get to see daily bickering and annoyances and we rarely get to see open displays of affection and somehow in some subtle ways we are shown how strong her family is. I don't want to be harping about this too much - to be honest, the representation of the family and other relationships in "True Blood" is not a big problem to me, but it adds to overall feel of low-quality.
Re: vampires=gay - the analogy is one of the things that really bothers me, too, for exactly the reasons you describe.
You see, this is a BIG THING for me. I am so glad you agree with me here because I have never seen this mentioned anywhere before. And you see, where I can close one of my eyes and continue to watch the show "for pretty Eric's sake and a couple of laughs" I would never be able to see this show as "intellectually good", because one of it's big premises rings so bad taste for me. To be fair, I also have a little niggle with Lafayette's character. He is all lovely and adorable and I like him to bits but I think he is a bit too much of a usual gay stereotype.
I think that TB deals in extremes to make a point - in sex, in violence, in nudity, in religious fanaticism - not because it's trying to gain the lowest-common-denominator viewer, the one who wants to be thrilled and titillated, but because I think they want us to ask ourselves why we might think such things (sex, violence, nudity, fanaticism) are important or necessary.
This is an interesting point, but why do I have to watch through the hours of boring orgies to be explained this? My time is preeeeeecious and I don't even like seeing orgies in the first place - my mum told me that "sex and violence is not all that important" long time ago. :D
But talking seriously - my personal opinion is that the creators DO try to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator viewer (my main argument here is that for making the point you mentioned they don't need to be showing something 20 times, about 3-4 times is more than enough to make any point) and they do it successfully (which can be proved by statistics) whilst at the same time trying to mock this type of viewer. This in my book makes the creators' intentions even less "honourable".
Edit: My apologies for editing, but I also remembered my personal bee in the bonnet - in the book there isn't so many orgies as in the TV show, but the main one extensively involves Eric in spandex. I feel cheated out of this one - we had the dozens of orgies, but WEHRE IS ERIC AND SPANDEX?????? :D
Re: "family" - okay, I completely see what you mean now, and yes, I think we are definitely talking about two different things. It sounds like you're talking about the realistic portrayal of family and family situations while I am talking about family in a literary sense, as a theme in the writing. I understand your problem with how TB does it (but considering that True Blood is a totally campy show, I'd be surprised if they went for realism in this area when everything else is exaggerated) - and I LOVE that you mentioned "Medium," because that is probably my favorite aspect of the drama (which is wonderful) - the way it shows a very realistic, very normal family coping with all the things that a family must deal with (and the supernatural, too). It's probably the best realistic depiction of a normal family I've seen in recent years.
-- I think the vampires=gay analogy is very troubling when the drama continually depicts vampire as mostly predators with a few ethical people thrown in. GLBT people are not violent predators as a group, so UGH. I do know other people who share this feeling, so I know we're not the only ones.
Re: Lafayette, there may be aspects of him that are stereotypical, but there are aspects that are not, and I guess I don't see him in those terms - I just love his layers, his toughness and vulnerability, his loyalty, the way he works through his own moral compass, etc. I don't love him because of what he is, but who he is, if that makes sense.
-- Re: the orgies, etc - I don't disagree with you that the writers probably belabored their point and went on with certain aspects for too long - which is why I think the drama is definitely flawed - even while I can see the point they were trying to make.
we had the dozens of orgies, but WEHRE IS ERIC AND SPANDEX?????? :D
Ahahahahaha! Okay, I can completely see how book readers would feel totally burned by that absence. :) I haven't read any of the books, so I had no idea what I was missing. :D :D :D
Re: vampires=gay - the analogy is one of the things that really bothers me, too, for exactly the reasons you describe.
The amount of orgies I have seen in the season 2 (and I re-winded some) was absolutely too many for me, to the point of making them incredibly boring. The boring orgies are actually the main minus of the season 2 for me (where "Jason and his penis" was the main minus of the season 1).
I don't disagree with you at all as to the boringness of either Jason & his penis or the extensive orgies. But to me, I think this is the point that Alan Ball & co. are trying to make - under the guise of a sex-drenched American Gothic vampire drama, I think they are trying to say exactly this: viewers might think they want a sleazy, titillating thrill-ride, but the reality is that too much of anything crosses that line into dullness, or becomes unpleasant. Rolling around in uninhibited sexual ecstasy might be awesome for a while, but too much "liberation" means that eventually you cross over into eating dirt (I think that the dirt-eating was done very deliberately in the drama to illustrate this).
I agree with what brustreet wrote in her comment below: "[True Blood is] one of those rare works where how it's packaged is diametrically opposite of what it's trying to say."
I think that TB deals in extremes to make a point - in sex, in violence, in nudity, in religious fanaticism - not because it's trying to gain the lowest-common-denominator viewer, the one who wants to be thrilled and titillated, but because I think they want us to ask ourselves why we might think such things (sex, violence, nudity, fanaticism) are important or necessary. They give us these extremes - and then they show us desperate characters trying to fill vast holes in their hearts, trying to figure out who they are and what they can do in the world to make a difference. They give us characters who want to be loved, and who might look for it in the wrong places, or in the wrong ways, but that's so fundamentally human, isn't it? The contrast between these very frail, very flawed characters trying to find their way in the world, trying to build families, trying to seek forgiveness (from others, from themselves), to gain redemption, well - I measure all of this against the endless orgies and I think the drama is asking us to draw a conclusion - what's more worthwhile? Mindless sex and violence? Or intimacy and courage and love?
I'm sorry for the long comment - I'm not trying to convince you or anything like that, but replying to your comment helped me to articulate some of what I think about the drama. :) Like I said before, I don't think the drama is perfect by any means, but I admire what I see in the subtext (I admire what I see in the writers' intentions, even if the execution is sometimes flawed), and that's what excites me and pulls me back. :)
You see, these two things are among things that I personally find very "bad taste" and trashy in "True blood" (but this is of course, my own understanding). The family values are a fine theme by itself, but when taken to cheesy extremes like in "True Blood" this gives me a feel similar to when eating too much sugar and being nauseous.
"Religious fanaticism" theme in the season 2 also could have been good and there were few genuinely funny moments with the crazy couple, but:
b) I find the thing that is hammered too much from the episode 1, namely "vampires are the new gay" to be way too bad taste for me. I mean - gay people don't actually drink anyone's blood, right? And they didn't spend thousands of years of killing people?
c) The amount of orgies I have seen in the season 2 (and I re-winded some) was absolutely too many for me, to the point of making them incredibly boring. The boring orgies are actually the main minus of the season 2 for me (where "Jason and his penis" was the main minus of the season 1). For me personally, it would have been much better if we had more screen time spent on vampires than on orgies. One orgy = fine. Two orgies = I totally get that there is a blurred line between sex and religious fanaticism; Dozens of orgies = I am re-winding this fast.
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I hope you don't mind, but if you feel like it, could you explain this a little more? (I mean, what did you think was cheesy?) I ask only because I wonder if we're talking about the same thing. To me, the theme of "family" is not strictly the idea of (for example) Sookie, Jason and their grandmother and how they love each other, but I mean the way that family units spring up all over the place - not just the natural biological families, but rather created families, chosen families. For example, Sookie is more Tara's family than her mother ever was, but Tara is still lost and floundering (and cast out by her own mother), so when Maryann comes along, Tara is so hungry for the comfort that she offers, that Tara jumps into that new family with its illusion of safety and normalcy. Another really good example is the way that Sam Merlotte finds himself in the midst of several people who love him and depend on him, but only after his own adoptive parents abandon him and he's forced to raise himself. Sam holds himself away from people, even while it's obvious that he craves human connections (we're told again and again that no one knows anything about him, and he resists opening up for a long time). Later Sam keeps trying to leave, but ultimately he can't. He realizes he does have a family in Bon Temps that sort of happened while he wasn't looking. And then there's Jason who after losing both his grandmother and Amy, finds a family with the Fellowship, and for the first time in his life, he feels smart and valued for his skills (even his grandmother didn't make him feel that way). The vampires have their (much more obvious) families, - the father/brother relationship between Eric & Godric, or Eric & Pam, or the very obvious father-daughter relationship between Bill and Jessica. I love the complicated webs of relationships that bind all of these characters together, whether by blood or choice, and the fact that virtually every character is hungry for a family, and that some of them are so damaged, and have had their families torn away from them (Tara, Jessica, Bill, Sam, for ex.) and they feel that loss so keenly that it informs much of their characters.
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It is hard to point it out, but I often get the feeling of "normal people don't act this way" and "this is way over the top too sugary" when I watch American shows or Hollywood (and especially Disney) films with the themes of family relationships. May be this is because of differences in USA culture because I almost never get this feeling with other countries shows / films, even with Japanese and Korean dramas where family relationships are often a theme. May be an example of an USA show that "gets it right for me" will help? It has to be "Medium" : Alison's family is beautifully functional; BUT we get to see daily bickering and annoyances and we rarely get to see open displays of affection and somehow in some subtle ways we are shown how strong her family is.
I don't want to be harping about this too much - to be honest, the representation of the family and other relationships in "True Blood" is not a big problem to me, but it adds to overall feel of low-quality.
Re: vampires=gay - the analogy is one of the things that really bothers me, too, for exactly the reasons you describe.
You see, this is a BIG THING for me. I am so glad you agree with me here because I have never seen this mentioned anywhere before. And you see, where I can close one of my eyes and continue to watch the show "for pretty Eric's sake and a couple of laughs" I would never be able to see this show as "intellectually good", because one of it's big premises rings so bad taste for me. To be fair, I also have a little niggle with Lafayette's character. He is all lovely and adorable and I like him to bits but I think he is a bit too much of a usual gay stereotype.
I think that TB deals in extremes to make a point - in sex, in violence, in nudity, in religious fanaticism - not because it's trying to gain the lowest-common-denominator viewer, the one who wants to be thrilled and titillated, but because I think they want us to ask ourselves why we might think such things (sex, violence, nudity, fanaticism) are important or necessary.
This is an interesting point, but why do I have to watch through the hours of boring orgies to be explained this? My time is preeeeeecious and I don't even like seeing orgies in the first place - my mum told me that "sex and violence is not all that important" long time ago. :D
But talking seriously - my personal opinion is that the creators DO try to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator viewer (my main argument here is that for making the point you mentioned they don't need to be showing something 20 times, about 3-4 times is more than enough to make any point) and they do it successfully (which can be proved by statistics) whilst at the same time trying to mock this type of viewer. This in my book makes the creators' intentions even less "honourable".
Edit: My apologies for editing, but I also remembered my personal bee in the bonnet - in the book there isn't so many orgies as in the TV show, but the main one extensively involves Eric in spandex. I feel cheated out of this one - we had the dozens of orgies, but WEHRE IS ERIC AND SPANDEX?????? :D
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--
I think the vampires=gay analogy is very troubling when the drama continually depicts vampire as mostly predators with a few ethical people thrown in. GLBT people are not violent predators as a group, so UGH. I do know other people who share this feeling, so I know we're not the only ones.
Re: Lafayette, there may be aspects of him that are stereotypical, but there are aspects that are not, and I guess I don't see him in those terms - I just love his layers, his toughness and vulnerability, his loyalty, the way he works through his own moral compass, etc. I don't love him because of what he is, but who he is, if that makes sense.
--
Re: the orgies, etc - I don't disagree with you that the writers probably belabored their point and went on with certain aspects for too long - which is why I think the drama is definitely flawed - even while I can see the point they were trying to make.
we had the dozens of orgies, but WEHRE IS ERIC AND SPANDEX?????? :D
Ahahahahaha! Okay, I can completely see how book readers would feel totally burned by that absence. :) I haven't read any of the books, so I had no idea what I was missing. :D :D :D
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The amount of orgies I have seen in the season 2 (and I re-winded some) was absolutely too many for me, to the point of making them incredibly boring. The boring orgies are actually the main minus of the season 2 for me (where "Jason and his penis" was the main minus of the season 1).
I don't disagree with you at all as to the boringness of either Jason & his penis or the extensive orgies. But to me, I think this is the point that Alan Ball & co. are trying to make - under the guise of a sex-drenched American Gothic vampire drama, I think they are trying to say exactly this: viewers might think they want a sleazy, titillating thrill-ride, but the reality is that too much of anything crosses that line into dullness, or becomes unpleasant. Rolling around in uninhibited sexual ecstasy might be awesome for a while, but too much "liberation" means that eventually you cross over into eating dirt (I think that the dirt-eating was done very deliberately in the drama to illustrate this).
I agree with what brustreet wrote in her comment below: "[True Blood is] one of those rare works where how it's packaged is diametrically opposite of what it's trying to say."
I think that TB deals in extremes to make a point - in sex, in violence, in nudity, in religious fanaticism - not because it's trying to gain the lowest-common-denominator viewer, the one who wants to be thrilled and titillated, but because I think they want us to ask ourselves why we might think such things (sex, violence, nudity, fanaticism) are important or necessary. They give us these extremes - and then they show us desperate characters trying to fill vast holes in their hearts, trying to figure out who they are and what they can do in the world to make a difference. They give us characters who want to be loved, and who might look for it in the wrong places, or in the wrong ways, but that's so fundamentally human, isn't it? The contrast between these very frail, very flawed characters trying to find their way in the world, trying to build families, trying to seek forgiveness (from others, from themselves), to gain redemption, well - I measure all of this against the endless orgies and I think the drama is asking us to draw a conclusion - what's more worthwhile? Mindless sex and violence? Or intimacy and courage and love?
I'm sorry for the long comment - I'm not trying to convince you or anything like that, but replying to your comment helped me to articulate some of what I think about the drama. :) Like I said before, I don't think the drama is perfect by any means, but I admire what I see in the subtext (I admire what I see in the writers' intentions, even if the execution is sometimes flawed), and that's what excites me and pulls me back. :)
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