"True Blood" Review and Interview with Creator Alan Ball

A lot has also been said about True Blood's use of vampires as a stand-in for subordinated groups, including gay people. Even the aggressive (and very innovative) marketing campaigns have used touchstones of gay experience ranging from civil rights struggles (the "Vampire Rights" ads) to discriminatory practices on Internet dating sites (The "Rejected by human dating sites" campaign at their fake vampire dating site hilariously mimics gay-friendly Chemistry.com's "Rejected by eHarmony" ads).

True, the use of vampires and various other monsters as metaphor for "outsider" sexuality has been done (perhaps overdone) in horror fiction for ages. But in True Blood we're at a new plateau, one where the monster isn't needed as a stand-in. The world of True Blood is not a repressed heteronorm where the vampire or "other" metaphor is required to discuss gay sexuality, as it has been in the past: It is a world where gay sexuality is actually such a given that it is used to define the "other".

In fact, the newly-public vampires are referred to in terms of gay visibility numerous times (there are references to their "coming out of the coffin, and so forth), meaning that gay struggles aren't just acknowledged in this universe, they're a part of the vocabulary. It's a far cry from other stories where the monster had to "stand in" for gays because the topic wasn't dared spoken aloud.

Granted, as with most vampire lore, these vamps are apparently very sexual (and very good lovers) and many are pansexual, which Ball attributes to their unique relationship to living, breathing beings: "In the books, most of the vampires do seem to be pansexual. Their thirst for blood really sort of makes them willing partners for ay sort of sexual thing, and for them feeding and sexuality is combined. ... However, there are heterosexual vampires, there are vampires that have a very keen same-sex preference. So in a way they're the same as humans."

So while we can expect some of the bisexual vampire action that we've come to expect from other works like Interview With the Vampire, here it's not as though "vampire" is meant to be synonymous with "queer", and there are human gay characters in the mix as well.

Ball notes that he thinks that in today's world, the idea of gay sexuality and bisexuality just aren't as big a deal (and hence not a taboo): "I think, in my limited awareness of teenagers and people in their twenties, I just don't think it's that big a deal, and I think that's healthy. ... Kids are less inclined to be judgmental, and there certainly seems to be less of a stigma attached to experimentation."

And while I imagine that homophobia may rear its ugly head at some point in the series (let's face it, the rural South can be somewhat inhospitable to gay folks from time to time), right now it's not a central issue. Really, at this point the straight folk (alive and undead alike) are too busy making trouble for each other and themselves to have time to worry to much about the gays.

One of the most troubled characters is Jason Stackhouse (Sookie's brother), played by Aussie import Ryan Kwanten. And it would be remiss of me not to mention that Kwanten's assets are prominently on display from the get-go, thanks to Jason's sexual compulsions. The show overall is very sexual; in fact, the very first scene starts with a young woman driving a car while giving a handjob to her sleeping boyfriend. Talk about setting a mood of sexual danger.

It's certainly rare for a male character to be the primary sex object, particularly in a genre piece (note that Anna Paquin doesn't doff her killer bra at any point). Ball points to changes in societal mores as paving the way for a more open appreciation of male beauty, noting, "The way that marketing culture has seized upon beautiful men to market and sell stuff ... it's certainly way more than it used to be."