With a fervor that can only be described as religious, Marietta native writer and show creator Alan Ball maligns traditional values and anyone trying, however imperfectly, to uphold them in his vamporn epic “True Blood.”
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Ball’s “True Blood” is true trash with better set pieces and mood lighting. Based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, which are rather enjoyable in their melding the supernatural with authentic Southern flavor, Ball injects his own ideological venom. The show is a veritable smorgasbord of depravity. Nary a single likeable character, it exudes what comes off as its creator’s disdain for anything good or decent. The language, violence and sexual situations are graphic to the point of grotesque. If something like this were able to be made in decades past, the actors would wear masks.
The vampirism in “True Blood” is an obvious allegory for homosexuality. There’s a clear narrative thread suggesting vampires are just trying to live their lives but are tragically oppressed by bigoted idiots. (The derogatory term such bigots use for vampires is “fangers” as in “God hates fangers.” This is riffing off the mantra of the despicable Westboro Baptist Church, which the True Blood collaborators sadly seem to think embodies all Christians. This metaphor is about as subtle as a wooden stake through the heart.)
Those opposed to vampires are portrayed as vengeful, power-hungry opportunists or corrupt, psychotic church-crazies. The latter is seen in the Fellowship of the Sun, a sect whose specific purpose is to eradicate the world of vampires. They’re basically a murderous cult whose leader later comes out as gay; his wife cheats on him even though both tout traditional marriage.
Those even merely uncomfortable by vampires are portrayed as small town hicks and stupid to the point of mental incompetence. Heaven forbid Ball muster the true artistic integrity to create a worthy antagonist, one who actually embodies Christian ideals. He apparently sees these ideals as worthy only of cynicism and derision.
Ball plays both sides of the fence with the character Roman, a vampire purist leading the Sanguinistas, a sect of vampires who want supremacy over humans and who believe humans are just food. Ball has basically said how horrified he was watching the 2012 Republican primary; and that Christian conservative GOP politicians Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum were the inspiration for Roman. So now vampires are the villains and the victims, but for very specific agendas. When representing homosexuality, vampires are the victims. Standing in for conservative right-wing Christians, they’re the villains.
It encapsulates conservative bestselling author Ann Coulter’s thesis of her 2009 book “Guilty, Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America.” Liberals have created this narrative that they’re the victims when in fact they’re the oppressors.
A huge irony of “True Blood,” one that the show never remotely portrays as such, is that none of the vampires pass for a decent, much less sympathetic, character. They’re all pretty much murderous, degenerate thugs. Yet shame on anyone for not embracing vampires is a not-so-inherent message of the show.
That’s liberalism personified: Don’t just tolerate your own destruction, embrace it. The destruction is considered a virtue; those opposed to it bigoted and their own brand of evil. It’s biblical of those who embrace the darkness rather than the light: They call good evil and evil good. (Isaiah 5:20)
Ball’s skewed vision dates back. He won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1999 for “American Beauty,” which won four other Oscars including Best Picture. “Beauty” is a bastion of liberalism in a year full of them. It portrayed the traditional family (and the suburbs, in which they lived) as dysfunctional to the point of pathology. The married couple couldn’t stand each other. Their teenage daughter couldn’t stand them. Her dad’s lusting after her best friend, also underage, is portrayed with smoldering sexuality. Their retired marine neighbor was a psychotic closeted homosexual. His drug dealing son was fascinating and completely secure. The only healthy, normal relationship was the gay couple living next door. Clearly this project was the toast of Hollywood.
Ball hammered more on the suburbs with a controversial project called “Towelhead,” original title, “Nothing is Private,” in 2007. It dealt with prejudice of Arabs and Muslims. In a press conference alluding to the charged nature of the title, Ball pointed out how Coulter had used the word “raghead.” Now this is certainly no defense of bashing; Arab, Muslim or otherwise. This issue begs the question though as to what kind of life Ball thinks he would have as an openly gay man in a predominantly Muslim culture. Forget marriage, the only kind of choices gay men in Iran get is how to die. In Islamic countries homosexuals are hung from construction cranes in the name of Allah. That’s not done in the name of Jesus.
Between the Empire of the Sun and the Sanguinistas, Ball shows a distinct hostility for organized religion; more specifically these scornful entities are solely meant as allegories for conservative Christians. However “True Blood” is respectful and reverent of Wiccans and their worship of nature. This bias calls to mind Bible verse Romans 1:25: “They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator.”
Ball and his ilk are fine though trotting out the tired old meme that Christians are weak-minded hypocrites to be feared, ridiculed or both.
Under the mantle of “edgy,” Ball appears content to settle for the same old stereotypes for those he sees as antagonists. Perhaps this is why he relies on the supernatural metaphors richly supplied by Harris, and why he has to keep raising the bar on the shock value factor. Without them he’s just left with his message that’s trite, lame and hard-hearted.
Ball has since left “True Blood.” However the show’s recent ad campaign alludes to plot developments involving a clash between vampires and those who see them as a serious threat. Leading this charge is an obviously right-wing caricature politician, the state’s governor. He’s another over-the-top would be eradicator of vampires, also portrayed as villainous because he urges citizens to be armed. This is a clear swipe against gun control, a favorite liberal cause. Suchhysteria breeds hate groups against vampires. Once again, it’s never played for irony that vampires routinely decimate humans and are able to do so easily with only their natural weaponry; putting humans at a sizable disadvantage and thus in need of extra protection.
The show’s fans are encouraged to show their solidarity with makeshift fangs and the slogan, “I stand with the vamps.”
If vampires were real, even their fans wouldn’t be standing very long.