My favorite goes-bump-in-the-night monsters are vampires. I’ve read the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice over and over. I like the Twilight books, BUT only the first book, the rest, you can tell, are meant for high school girls. My favorite movie of all time is Interview with the Vampire and I have seen every episode of Buffy and Angel to make anyone cry. I have also seen the old Dracula movie with Bela Lugosi and the newer movie with Gary Oldman (see my review here). I also own the original Buff the Vampire Slayer written by Joss Whedon, which, need I remind you started the whole Buffy craze of the 1990’s. So, when I heard there was a new show had the vampire theme, I jumped on the bandwagon.
A brief summation of the show is that basically vampires live among us and right now there is a bill in Congress being debated upon on giving vampires full rights under the law. We also find many of the myths about sunlight and stakes are true. The show’s title comes from the synthetic blood developed by the Japanese (of course!) that gives them nutritional value, so that vampires can become “mainstreamed” in society.
The story isn’t half bad. I’ve almost finished the first season and am in the middle of someone committing murders all over town. Our characters are Sookie Sackhouse (Anna Paquin), Bill Compton, Jason Sackhouse, Tara, Lafayette, and Sam. You have others that drift in and out, but aren’t really that important. They all live in the town of Bon Temps (to pronounce ‘Bon’ form your mouth like you are going to say ‘bong,’ but leave off the ‘n’ and ‘g’ sounds and Temps is pronounced like Tom, but without a heavy ‘m’. It means ‘good times’ in French.) nestled in Renard parish and if you know your geography and your culture you can guess that this is Louisiana. The sweet Southern state in which yours truly resides. And this is where my problems with the show come in.
I love my Louisiana. We have one of the richest cultures in the union and yet Hollywood seems to think they know that culture better than we do. First off I hate how everyone in this show speaks with that stupid, like-we-ain’t-got-no-brains, stereotypical Southern accent. I, myself, have a hint of that twang when I talk, but not everyone here sounds like that. Furthermore, Louisiana is known, not for her deep Southern roots, but for her cajun culture. Cajuns speak with a sort of country French accent. It’s thick, rich, and hard to understand unless you’ve heard it all your life. And where Sookie and Bill and everyone else are suppose to be living, they all sound like they are from Georgia, which is actually where that Southern twang (think Shelby from Steel Magnolias) completely resides.
Louisiana has plenty of parishes in which to choose, so why did they feel the need to create a new one? I’m still perplexed as to where Renard parish would actually be. I’ve noticed that it’s close enough to drive to Monroe, Shreveport, and Baton Rouge in one night. This is possible, but highly unlikely that you would drive from Monroe to Baton Rouge and not spend the night. It’s about a 3 or 4 hour drive. Also on the topic of location, the little bar where Sookie works is in the middle of the swamp. Our swamps only exist in the very south of the state; New Orleans and down. There aren’t any swamps up in Monroe, Baton Rouge, or Shreveport.
During the opening credits, I love the different images (even if they aren’t from Louisiana) that seem to capture the essence of the state. However, an image of a child wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform is not something this state is very proud of. And it is certainly not something we Louisiananians like to be known for. Yes, the KKK is a apart of every state’s history here in the South, but the only people proud of that are those who are a part of it. There is no need to show this image, it just hurts us as a culture.
Another problem I have with the show is that all Southerners seem to be drunks. This is not true, but we do drink (beer, mostly) quite often. I think it is only in the South in which we serve sweet ice tea with every meal. It’s known as Southern table wine and no matter who you are, you always drink sweet ice tea with your dinner and beer with your friends after.
Aside from the culture, I don’t like how the vampires are portrayed. It’s sort of oxymoronic to think of them as “people” who should have equal rights under the law and to make a special brew of synthetic blood in order for them to retain nutrition without killing innocent people. However, vampires are the living dead; zombies in the most basic sense. They are not really people and they don’t need nutrition to sustain a life which is not there. I hate how the terms of death and life are interchangeable when dealing with the vampire characters. And also their fangs are the wrong teeth. Vampires are known to have incredibly sharp canines, which are the 2 teeth away from your front incisors not the ones right next to them.
The fact that the town is called Bon Temps just means someone did not know too much of the Cajun French culture to come up with something else. Laissez Bon Temps Rouler (Let the good times roll!) is what we use during Carnival Season and is probably the most well known phrase across the US. There are plenty of other words and names (which most of the cities here are named after people) they could have used for the town’s name. Hell, they could have picked Vermilion parish and a little town called Maurice in which to set the story. It’s exactly like Bon Temps.
My last complaint is that there are quite a few nude scenes that don’t even need to be in the show at all. I think HBO is trying to keep up Showtime in this respect. One of my favorite programs is The Tudors from Showtime. Yes there are nude scenes in The Tudors, but knowing Henry VIII to have courted many women it’s to be expected. I didn’t need to see every girl’s breasts in the town of Bon Temps. It brings the story line to a screeching halt just to push sex into the program.
Strip away the lame attempt to capture Louisiana culture, that stupid Southern twang that Yankees think all us Southerners have, and, if sex needs to be in the story, a nice suggestion without going over the top, would have created a pretty decent show. Sorry HBO, but I think True Blood is a hit and a miss. Soon I will grow tired of it like I did with the Sopranos and Dollhouse and will continue to watch other programs that entertain me, not just gross me out.
Shawn said,
June 25, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Did you know that “True Blood” is based on a best-selling series of novels by Charlaine Harris (the “Southern Vampires” novels or something like that)? And that yours truly has read the aforementioned series and can give you the scoop?
I haven’t seen the TV show because my mom, who has both read the books and seen the show, told me that the show would just piss me off because A) it’s nothing like the books and, B) like you mentioned, it’s waaaaaaaaay oversexed.
Here is my critique of your critique:
I didn’t realize that Renard was a made up parish (who cares about north Louisiana, psh
), but I can understand the author’s desire to create a fictitious parish and town. That way she can create road maps, landmarks, and physical characteristics that fit her storyline without pissing off actual residents of a place by declaring that their town is in a swamp or that the main thoroughfare is Hummingbird Lane and not Main Street or that the neighboring town is called Hotshot. I can tell you, according to the books, Bon Temps is located in northern Louisiana about an hour’s drive from Shreveport. I picture it about halfway between Shreveport and Monroe. I don’t know how much of the show’s action takes place outside of Bon Temps, but in the books the only place Sookie regularly visits outside of Bon Temps is Shreveport and, therefore, going to and from in one night is not only possible, but practical.
As for the name “Bon Temps,” that was indeed a product of the author’s imagination. But Charlaine Harris is not unfamiliar with the south. She was born in Tunica, MS and, according to her bio, grew up in the Mississippi Delta area. She now resides in southern Arkansas – very near where her fictional Sookie lives. The author may have been trying to be ironic when she named Sookie’s hometown “Good Times” because it is usually anything but.
Just as an FYI, bayous and swamps do exist outside of southeast Louisiana – southeast LA just happens to be famous for them. Anywhere there are rivers swamps can pop up but instead of being called bayous, they’re called marshes.
And, also, you’re just as bad as the outsiders who think all Southerners sound like Georgia Peaches if you think every Louisiana country bumpkin sounds like a Cajun! Tsk tsk Allison! You should know better.
While you may find those with a Cajun accent in north Louisiana, just as you can find them anywhere else scattered singly or in pockets around the state, Cajuns primarily reside in the belt along the Atchafalaya Swamp from Lake Charles to Baton Rouge and below. True-to-life characters would more than likely have your generic, run-of-the-mill southern country accent found all across Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.
As for your view of vampires, it’s entirely your opinion of what you think vampires should be like or what what you think they would be like if they existed. But just because they aren’t alive doesn’t mean they don’t need a fuel of sorts. I think of them like engines. No, they aren’t alive, but they do need fuel to animate them. With engines it’s gas, with vampires it’s blood. And the synthetic blood to a vampire is like cooking oil to a diesel engine. Neither was made to use that type of fuel but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t do the job. And their fangs? Since vampires don’t exist, the placement and appearance of the fangs is entirely up to the individual creating the vampire. I don’t see how you can say that vampires only have fangs at the canines. Vampire fangs are widely varied dependent on WHO is creating them. I have read books where the fangs were retractable, had feeding tubes in them, or were long and skinny like needles. If you remember, in Twilight the vampires didn’t even have fangs.
They must not clarify this in the TV show, but in the books the vampires “come out of the closet” by saying that they are afflicted with a “disease” that is only treatable with blood and now that they can subsist on synthetic blood they are safe to the general public can become mainstream. In the books, this is what the vampires say so they can be accepted by the public, it’s not the truth. The truth of the matter is, they’re supernatural, not sick.
As a whole I agree with your review. From what my mom’s told me, True Blood doesn’t depict life in Louisiana very accurately and that the show is way to graphic and too much like soft porn. I just didn’t agree with some of your individual points because they weren’t entirely accurate and it bugged me that you said vampires are only one way and can’t have any variations or have any artistic license taken with them.
You say you like to argue. Here I am appeasing you.
The Tudors « The Book Shoppe said,
June 26, 2009 at 12:19 pm
[...] this is a Showtime television program, there are many sex scenes. But unlike True Blood, The Tudors is too over the top. What would you expect from this time? King Henry was a very [...]