Despite our God-fearin’, democracy-lovin,’ equality-for-all claims, Americans have an affinity for bigotry, violence, drugs and sex addiction. We can’t handle that criticism, so True Blood” employs vampires and drawling backwoods Southerners to show us instead.
“True Blood a biting and bizarre social commentary – complete with sex, drugs, and the undead – is HBO’s fresh foray into classically shoddy vampire-driven drama. Loosely modeled after Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire” novels “True Blood” plunks down in sweltering Bon Temps Louisiana. The series is set in the present (characters reference the yet-unsettled war in Iraq). An entire society of vampires has emerged from the nation’s shadows. Apparently vampires have lived among us for centuries and now that they’ve come forward they expect to be treated as ordinary citizens. Politicians religious radicals and citizens dispute the nature and civil privileges of the vampire community.
Aside from legal accommodations America is hard-pressed to curb the gruesome appetite of its bloodsucking demographic. Leave it to the Japanese to manufacture True Blood a bottled substitute available in type A B and O varieties. Microwave to 98.6 degrees -it’s the closest you’ll get to the real thing. Enter telepathic Bon Temps waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin “X-Men Almost Famous”) and lonely vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer “The Starter Wife”). Sookie resents her extrasensory talent which consistently pulls her into the deepest darkest and commonly perverted psyches of everyone around her. Bill an ex-Confederate soldier who became a vampire during the Civil War is an introverted soul reluctant to run with the band of wicked local vampires he once considered friends. Bill drops into Merlotte’s the bar where Sookie works and orders a True Blood. Doe-eyed Sookie is thrilled to serve “Merlotte’s first vampire a privilege she indulges with girlish glee. Delighted Sookie discovers that she cannot penetrate Bill’s mind. Bill is captivated by Sookie’s inquisitive nature, tolerance and compassion. Their attraction is instantaneous. Aside from her genial, non-conventional grandmother Gran (played by Lois Smith), no one approves of Sookie’s friendship with Bill. Sookie’s sex-addicted, imbecile brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), her brash best friend, Tara (Rutina Wesley) and protective boss Sam (Sam Trammell) oppose the friendship – and impending romance – resolutely. They lecture Sookie on the assured pitfalls of a human-vampire relationship, despite the fact that none of them have had any sort of relations to vampires. Along with Bill’s Bon Temps entrance, a string of murders have descended upon the town, and a heated who-done-it mystery ensues.
It’s hard to access the believability of a series which bloodsuckers roam the night-but writer, director and producer Alan Ball (Six Feet Under”) nails our likely reaction to a topsy-turvy ghoulish America. This is a society where vampires-like the innumerable minorities that precede them-must cope with a fearful hostile and sporadically aggressive public. Draw all the parallels you’d like to current real-life American disputes regarding civil liberties.
Setting is central to the wacky plot: it’s a swampy southern town tinged by voodoo mystique under staffed by a measly buffoonish two-man team to investigate the recent string of murders. There’s a sense of foreboding-we can only guess what’s bubbling beneath Bon Temp’s boggy surface.
While “True Blood” sinks its teeth into social commentary on civil liberties and bigotry it takes more playful jabs at our proclivity toward wonder drugs and sex trends. Vampire blood when guzzled by humans has the same euphoric hallucinogenic power as Ecstasy. Sex with a vampire is supposedly earth shattering life-changing sex-and vampires have garnered a steady groupie following of “fang bangers.”
Ball drolly acclimates “True Blood” vampires to the 21st century: Bill the brooding ex-Confederate hasn’t renovated his dilapidated antebellum two-story but he drives a BMW and uses a cell phone. There’s “Fangtasia a kitschy Shreveport watering hole to which the undead and their cultish following congregate afterhours. Think Rocky Horror meets bordello meets Hollywood Boulevard nightclub. Black patent leather and writhing sex fiends abound. If ‘vampire bar’ were a ride at Disneyworld this would be it says a bewildered Sookie.
Militant, vampire-hating rednecks, a voodoo sorceress named Miss Jeanette and Eric (Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd)-a Nordic beefcake of a vampire-lend their outlandish personalities to the series. For viewers seeking standard HBO fun, Sookie’s skanky brother Jason fulfills the network’s covert sex quota. He’s naked in nearly half of his scenes.
Like any vampire-driven Hollywood drama (see Interview with the Vampire Buffy Angel”) “True Blood” redefines fiendish folklore-and the series has found its fan base in the young blogger crowd ready to dissect the sunlight/stake-through-the-heart/garlic nitty-gritty. Do with that what you will – but unlike most new series geared toward the Gen-Y demographic “True Blood” doesn’t bank on Billboard hits or an impossibly good-looking cast to seal its appeal. Save Paquin – who at age 11 became the second youngest Oscar winner of all time for her performance in “The Piano” (1993) – the cast is relatively (and refreshingly) unknown.
“True Blood” has all the makings of a sexy tongue-in-cheek take on vampire mythology.
