"True Blood Hates Gay People?" - Really!?

I came across this piece on i09, suggesting that True Blood hates gay people because the vampires are nothing more than thinly-veiled metaphors for homosexuals and the homosexual lifestyle.

Now, one of the problems with anything like this is that homosexuals and sympathizers hate to admit there really is such a thing as the homosexual lifestyle. They should be; that alone does more damage to the acceptance of homosexuals in the mainstream than anything any bigoted hillbilly or right-wing zealot could ever say. Single heterosexuals certainly go to clubs and bars - many of which are quite unsavory and most of which are (at the bottom of it all) dedicated to sex - but the homosexual lifestyle really does promote carefree, irresponsible sex with multiple partners. And while many disagree with that on moral grounds, a lot of us disagree with it simply because it is dangerous! "Live and let live" and all that, but at the end of the day, this "lifestyle" is very real and damages the idea that homosexuals are no different from heterosexuals.

So, if we accept there really is something called the "gay lifestyle" and that most people - even many within the gay community - disagree with it, we can accept how some people might see True Blood as an allegory for homosexuality. Add to this the fact that Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire really is an allegory for homosexuality, and is (by far) what constitutes most of modern day's vampire "lore," and the idea gains a few legs. Except that it's stupid and baseless.

As commenters on the article note, it is rife with factual errors. Further, it reads as though the writer might have seen only a handful of episodes, or even just disconnected scenes! The author stays singularly focused on this baseless idea (odd for a "rant") yet offers no support for it.

True Blood is, at the end of the day, a retelling of the modern vampire mythology. It is, as one commenter correctly puts it, a "what-if" scenario - not an allegorical construct. Uncanny X-Men was pointedly an allegory for outcasts of all stripe; True Blood is far more concerned with larger political matters.

In fact, that is the strength of its allegory: True Blood hates the permissive, politically-correct atmosphere of current America, not "gay people" or "ghetto people" or anyone else. The author correctly notes that the vampires deserve the fear and hatred they face, but completely misses the idea behind that. What it is saying, on this level, is that we shouldn't have to "accept" literally any and everyone (thing) just because they happen to be different!

Set against the backdrop of the ultra-Conservative Hell of the American South, this is made patently clear! Those who blindly accept vampires find themselves preyed-upon and there is no question as to the fact that they are being killed because of this - the question is who (or what) is doing the killing.

At any rate, True Blood is a fantastic show which actually succeeds on every level: it really is scary, it really is dramatic, it really is funny without being comedic, and one hour flies by far quicker than you would like. I highly suggest anyone who takes issue with it bother to actually watch it for a while before... bothering to take issue with it.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008