August 9, 2009

True Blood - Metaphor Galore

I applaud HBO's True Blood as it examines and reflects our personal and collective assumptions, prejudices and ignorance in vampiric metaphors. Can anything be more true?

Vampires in True Blood are a direct parallel to a specific kind of human: The Other One. What do I mean by "The Other One?" Well, everything you're not. Everyone you have prejudices towards and Everything you can't tolerate. Race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

The central premise of True Blood - even from the beginning in Season 1 is simple - Vampires Coming Out. Obviously, a specific parallel is between Vampires and Gays. They "came out of the coffin" and live amongst humans in cohabitation after being shadowed for years. Even the opening credits show a
Church with a sign outside reading, "God Hates Fangs." It's hard to tell what openly-gay creator Alan Bal is up to here, but with every episode, comes a new reason to reconsider the way you treat people.

During the first episodes of the season, we saw Vampires doing conscious harm to Humans, paralleling the FEARS of an Evangelical-type, extremely conservative and right-winged. Those same Evangelical-types are the ones with similar THOUGHTS and FEELINGS of members in the Fellowship of the Sun.

Godric (older than Jesus but 20-years-old in real life) seems to be the ultimate Truth...the way in which the world should go 'round. He represents the Ultimate Human...better than most we know in real life. There was definite symbolism of Faith within the scene in Church of Godric preaching to Eric as his maker. He's only in two more episodes, as per IMDB - and one could only hope that his presence will make for a lasting impression.

Mama's gonna miss you, baby.

1 comment:

  1. Great analysis... very insightful. I think True Blood has finally allowed me to forgive HBO for the hours of my life wasted on John From Cincinnati. Oh, and don't worry too much about Godric - the episode count on IMDB likely only applies to the current season. There is no info up there on season 3... he's way to pivotal a character in the Vampires vs. People debate, not to mention the fact that he's totally badass.

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Thanks for your ThoughtZ!