False Blood: Why I Quit on Sookie Stackhouse

  True Blood has been my guilty pleasure these past few years.  If you read my blargh posts, you'll know that I focus on the acting performances and an engaging story when I look for a good film or TV show.  But I need both...or else it just doesn't move me.  Sometimes I'll be drawn to a show because of the plot/subject matter, but eventually turn away if the performances are subpar.  I often find this to be the case with network television or stuff on the SyFy Channel, specifically Warehouse 13 and Eureka.

The problem with True Blood is different.  The cast is outstanding.  In particular, Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse), Alexander Skarsgard (Eric Northman), and Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse) consistently deliver.  No, True Blood doesn't have an acting problem.  It has a politics problem.

Let's be honest, the politics of the people who develop and produce television shows is pretty much uniform.  Most of the time it doesn't matter, and when it does rear its leftist head, it is often easy to ignore.  However, I find that I can no longer ignore it in True Blood.  It's not so much the actual politics, but the ham-handed way a particular, highly overdone theme has been used so clumsily in True Blood.

Tell me if you've heard this trope before:  fundamentalist right-wing Christians are intolerant of anyone who is different and use Gestapo tactics to stop those immoral people that oppose them.  They constantly judge everyone and are particularly prudish about anything having to do with sex.  Plus, they are racists.  This describes the vast majority of the population of Bon Temps, Louisiana on True Blood.  The show's writers have been beating us over the head with this for years now...

1. Normal humans hate vampires because they are different.
2. A human televangelist starts a group called "Fellowship of the Sun" that attempts to turn people against vampires.
3. The intolerant Fellowship of the Sun turns violent and starts killing vampires.
4. The state of Louisiana imprisons vampires in camps and experiments on them...because they are different.

At its core, the show is an allegory about gay rights, which is fine, but it has become so cartoonish that I can no longer stand it (no matter how hot Lillith the vampire goddess is).  Yes, we understand that vampires are a minority that shouldn't be mistreated.  But great fantasy and science-fiction is great because it depicts human beings as they really are, not as caricatures.  If your Iraqi war veteran inevitably participated in war crimes and has PTSD, and every religious character (except for some black ones) hates, hates, hates...then MAYBE you need to reevaluate how you portray the people that you can't identify with.  A little tolerance might be in order.