On Friday, radio talk show host and political commentator Laura Ingraham guest-hosted for Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor. One of Bill’s regular features is his Back of the Book segment. In this particular installment, Laura talked to Anne Rice about the recent popularity of vampires, and whether that was a good or a bad thing.
I read Interview With a Vampire and saw the movie, and that about defines my Anne Rice experience. I didn’t like either, and until Joss Whedon introduced Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I wasn’t a fan of vampires at all. I had no idea that Ms. Rice had returned to the church and was no longer writing about vampires. (Her testimony on that really intrigued me, though.)
Anyway, Laura brought up Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful book series (now being adapted into what will seemingly be an equally successful movie series) Twilight, and HBO’s True Blood.
Her view is that both glorify and glamorize a darkness and evil, and it confuses good vs. evil, and that parents should beware. I don’t think she’s read or seen Twilight, and really, that’s the only basis on which I’d argue with her.
Twilight, of course, does very definitively differentiate between good and evil, and while the Cullens are vampires, Meyer’s vampires aren’t the vampires in Anne Rice’s novels, or in movies like From Dusk Till Dawn, etc. Meyer makes the case that just because one has been dealt a particular hand doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope. There is still a choice to be made. There is still redemption to be found.
True Blood, however, is disgusting. Really. I don’t have HBO and so I wasn’t familiar with the show (or the novels that it’s based on), but I was in a hotel over the weekend and caught an episode. Excessive language, drug usage, violence, and sex abound. Gratuitous doesn’t begin to describe it. Maybe I’m the exception, but really? Kissing your lover after he’s bitten you so that blood streams out of both of your mouths is sexy?
Anyway, so yeah. I’d agree with Laura on True Blood. Perhaps even the upcoming Vampire Diaries series the CW will be debuting this fall, although I don’t know enough about it to make that call.
But I continue to whole-heartedly recommend Twilight and its sequels, and Joss Whedon’s forays into the vampire world with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
Posted by SteveB on June 24, 2009 at 12:04 pm
We watched the first season of “True Blood” — and it was completely over-the-top with just about everything (what was that in my other comment about desensitization?). The writing was good, but it almost went out if it’s way to scream, “Hey! We’re on HBO— LOOK nudity and sex and drugs!!” Sometimes, Alan Ball, less is more. But to say it confuses good and evil is a bit of a stretch and probably just trying to stir a pot. There are “good” vamps and “bad” vamps and good and bad people. In that way, it’s like any soap.
Vampires though have always had a strong sexual component, starting with Stoker’s “Dracula” — which was one of the reasons it was so incredibly popular (and scandalous) in the Victorian 19th century. The biting (and more importantly, the giving into it by the woman in peril) was a surrogate for intercourse. People didn’t do this. And the drinking of the blood was a clear inversion/perversion of the Catholic Mass — talk about scandal. We don’t really think about this with all the modern incarnations of vamps.
Posted by Jen on June 24, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Good point. And obviously, having seen only one episode, and her having most likely none, we are not the most informed or best commentators on the nature of the show. I gathered that Bill was resisting the evil bent of his nature, although in the one ep I saw (what is that weird dungeon thing with the people pushing that wheel, anyway?), it seemed he still killed indiscriminately…that one chick that lives in the fancy house with the sycophantic butler guy creeped me out…
I don’t know. I can stomach pretty much anything as long as it legitimately advances the plot and from my brief encounter with True Blood, I definitely agree that it’s like HBO was just being explicit because it could.
Good point on the historic thematic elements of vampires versus the “cool” modern attribution…as far as the drinking, I understand the sensuality of it. It’s touched on in Twilight. But again, that scene in True Blood didn’t make me go, “Oh, wow, I want someone to bite me.” It was more like, “Oh, wow, I think I want to throw up.”
Posted by Kelly on June 24, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Plus there’s the fact that True Blood is in no way intended for kids.
You’ve at least seen an episode and I’ve seen a handful, but it really annoys me when people who clearly do not know what they’re talking about slam something.
I mean, c’mon, Laura. You’re going to be on TV. Would it kill you to spare a few hours and watch a couple episodes?
It’s like people talking about Weeds glamorizing drug dealing. Any time I hear that, I know for sure that person hasn’t watched the show. :) Ocean’s 11 glamorizes stealing and makes me want to plan a casino heist. Weeds makes me want to stay as far away from the drug business as possible. (Also the fact that I live in Baltimore and there is no faster way to get shot in the head, probably.)
Posted by Kelly on June 24, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Also, I really, REALLY wanted to like True Blood. I like vampires and Anna Paquin and grownup stories (in terms of plot development and writing). I do not like vampire porn. I forget who called it that (Watch With Kristin, maybe?) but it’s a very apt description.