True Blood: Is It More Than Erotic Vampires?

I eventually watched the first season, curious of how the books had translated.  I only read three of the books before I got bored.  I only made it through one season.  I did not believe the characters felt three dimensional, especially Sookie and Bill, which was a major problem.  I actually felt closer, in the first book anyway, to Sookie written as then I had her thoughts and she felt like a spunky character that didn't let her unbelievable circumstances get in her way.  In the show she felt more like an annoying little cheerleader.  I never had much tolerance for Bill, but in the book he was at least only as annoying as Angel, not more so.   The deep, humid funk of the prose that brought the setting home to me felt strung out to the point of thin in the first season alone.  The multiple points of view were scattered, and only thinned the place more rather than a steady focus on Sookie and Bill, and the issues with her brother. The LGBT issue is interesting.  The parallel is certainly drawn, but I didn't find it annoying.  Sure, they pressed it a little.  But they also could have pressed the issue as being similar at one point for women or people of color.  I grew up in a conservative town, and that's exactly what I would have expected from some of the religious groups if confronted with rights for vamps. All and all, I felt like in the first season alone, they needed to slow down, stop trying to cover every story or every angle at once, and let it deepen and explore before unfolding.

I actually thought the LGBT analogy worked well.  Your points that vamps aren't like gay people are totally correct, but I think that is missing the point that the purpose of the series is to make you suspend belief and accept that vamps are just like real people dispite their differences - which is exactly the battle that gays face all the time. Conservative elements in today's society see gay people as 'evil' just as the anti-vamp elements in True Blood do.  To most reasonable people there is a diffrerence between feeding off others for their blood, but to these conservative elements gay people are view as just as bad. So in my humble opinion, the analogy did a good job of highlighting the prejudices that gay people face all the time.  The 'God Hates Fangs' sign in the intro credits is the perfect example.  Change the last word to another starting with 'F' and you have a prime example of what gays face all the time. In some ways, the series shows how it is easier for society to accept humans marrying vampires than it is for say men to marry men.  If you think about it, that is actually a really clever trick.

I caught the premiere as well, and it was that opening sequence that turned me off and made the show, "Just another modern vampire tale." Everything I have seen of this, it's a poorly veiled attempt to push the envelope the same as other premium channel shows do. The whole thing is overstated, way over the top, and just another fad show that will fade in favor of the next "push" of the envelope.

I can agree with that sometimes True Blood falls flat of fully realized material--whether it be political commentary or basic story elements. I've read the first Sookie Stackhouse books, and from my experience I think the show is better because the acting glosses over the flaws of writing. In the story itself there's an element of a maudlin storyline--something created to sentimentalize vampires and fantasy romance, and the magic suffers for it. There's also an element of juggling too many perspectives, but HBO is a master of multiple POVs, and with the skilled acting, that issue is often easy to ignore. In the first Sookie Stackhouse book, the crazed right-wing Bible thumpers are the antagonists. As polarized as the American political climate is today, it's easy to make a comparison with the evangelists of today. However, there was something 2-D about them in the book. I don't identify with Christians or church groups, but coming from Kentucky, devout Christian warriors are a way of life and there's no avoiding them. In the book, either because of Sookie's perspective or poor writing, the church goers lacked life-like qualities, like doubt, second opinions, or life outside of the church. The show manages to avoid this problem by only giving us glimpses--like when the camera-wielding Christians sought to expose the vampire and his victim at night. I think that part caused me to be distracted from the unrealistic element to the scenario--wouldn't a true vampire dispose of the camera and the invaders? What I liked most about that particular scene is the dilemma it created for Bill, another reminder that the way of life for vampires is constantly being threatened by intolerant outside sources. That certainly resonates with LGBT issues. We'll see if the show is able to pull off a distinct, definitive conclusion on its commentary. The subtle approach is not doing the issue justice, and that's where we begin to see the flaws in execution and logic.