So I'm watching True Blood, season 2, and I recently finished the episode that would appear to conclude the Texas arc and presumably the last episode with Godric. A question since I first started watching this show has been nagging at me and it is connected to my usual complaint against sci-fi/fantasy writers who try to get preachy about real world issues, particularly prejudice by making it a significant theme in their shows. In this case, they do it by making the vampires "vicitms" of prejudice. Granted that was probably necessary to get the HBO elitist TV approval for a TV series based on books that strike me as essentially "Twilight for grown-ups." Except the werewolves are lamer. Calling Sam a bitch is just so appropriate. Anyway where was I?

Prejudice is a bad thing in the real world, because BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT UNDEAD MONSTERS!!!! Nor are Hispanic people. Or homosexuals. To the best of my knowledge. All this show is doing is creating a world were the ass-holes are right! Caricatures of inbred southern hicks and Protestants of the we-make-up-our-religion-as-we-go-or-it-suits-our-pastor variety are not as funny or effective in belittling their positions when you give them a genuine enemy whom they are RIGHT to hate and fear. Yes, at the end, the vampires don't destroy their church or congregation, but they have to be talked out of it by one of the two good vampires on the show (who has subsequently been removed from the show - the most reasonable vampire is one who is suicidal and thus demonstrably mentally unstable). Meanwhile, the new top vampire in Texas is taught a valuable lesson about the foolishness of trusting humans (and BTW, much better cast than as Karrin Murphy of the Dresden files). The other "good" vampire, such as he is, was a degenerate, self-indulgent monster and serial killer for apparently sixty-odd years, without the no-soul excuse Angel and Spike have on BtVS, and even now, being good and with a conscience, he is still a murderer at the behest of the underground vampire society. Despite his ostentatious respect for the American flag (you know, now that he got his whole lead-a-bloody-rebellion-against-it issues out of his system) when introduced to the people of his town, he proves, when he murders a girl at their behest, that his higher allegiance is to the vampire mob. They can dress it up with terminology like Sheriff and King, but whatever they call themselves, they are a violent criminal organization that pays no more than lip service to the laws of the country they live in, in an effort to maintain good PR. Why not just call a spade a spade and rename them titles like Capo and Don? Why is it acceptable for vampires to act with violence whenever someone makes a joke about them or pretends to be a vampire (in the very first scene of the show)? How are the show's villains wrong (unless we are supposed to accept through cues such as their overt Christianity that they are automatically in the wrong) when denouncing these things, even setting aside their monstrous nature?

The more I watch, the more convinced I become that this is just an excuse to attack Christianity through straw man arguments (like the final TV interview with the evangelist couple, where all of a sudden they have lost their glib persuasive ability that made them such a threat, or even their ability to have a rational discussion). Even the credit sequence is a string of clip having nothing to do with the show or characters but rather are a juxtapostion of religious activity and lewd or grotesque imagery. This is no attempt at contrasts - rather it is plainly trying to make one see the jumping and bouncing congregation as akin to the KKK, or the outdoor baptism as repellant as the rapidly decomposing animal.

The continual drumbeat of prejudice against vampires being mean and irrational is consistantly undermined, not in any deliberate or arranged manner, but by rational interpretation of the events and actions of characters in the show. The vampires are universally bad, contemptuous of humanity, and are even shown to be bigoted themselves. Their default position is that killing a vampire to protect a human is automatically wrong, despite the fact that the vampire in question was attacking the human for exposing his betrayal of other vampires. By their own lights the vampire was a traitor and a criminal, but killing him rather than let him murder a human who is doing the vampire mafi-err, community, a service is an indictable offense under vampire "law." Why are humans wrong for wishing they had similar laws? Why is it a capital offense to drink vampire blood, but not human blood? They have even less excuse since there is an acceptable substitute for human blood, but not for vampire blood. Even in the few cases of vampires doing right by humans, mostly in the cases of Godric, it is not out of any principles or righteous inclinations in vampire society, it is because the strongest thug is sympathetic. When he saves a human who risked her life to protect him from danger he should have avoided himself, he does not admonish her attacker on any other ground than "this is my turf and I say who gets murdered here." Fine for him, and those people who happen to be in earshot. He's at the top of the pyramid. Meanwhile the DBags in-between him and Bill's level get to order the only other good vampire into increasingly contrived situations to create plot points because it's vampire law.

The only real illustration on the show of why stereotypes and prejudice are wrong is the fact that the retarded, in-bred, brainless, redneck, Aryan poster children Stackhouse siblings are NOT members or sympathizers of the Klan. You'd think that a couple of deep-south small town blonde imbeciles would be natural recruits.

The real shame is that there is so much potential in this show, with the production values and all the rest. THe setting and background of the vampires scould make for a good action show like Buffy (though HBO execs would probably choke on their own vomit rather than show something that simply entertains without preaching), or a real grapple with the (admittedly contrived) issues about legalizing or tolerating them, IF the writers had been willing to engage in actual dialogue or portraying complex aspects of the question of humanity, rather than strawman debates, caricatures of real world institutions and trite folksy sermons delivered in a syruppy southern accent at the conclusion of a conflict.

And if every character but Bill and some of the dead ones were not sheer morons (Sookie, Jason, Hoyt, Sam, Terry, the EB Farnum sheriff, and his you-know-we're-not-bigots-cause-we-have-a-black-female-cop deputy, the dead-on-balls-accurrate-single-mom-waitress) or total assholes (Lafayette, Tara, Eric and every other vampire with two lines of dialogue). Which basically leaves the cop everyone ignores and Bill. Although Tara's been something vaguely approaching reasonable this season (while under demonic influence), and gets a bit of a pass for how she was raised. And Lafayette is amusing, but that kind of amusing that comes from an irredeemable alienated individual who is accepted to be so far beyond normal human behavior and standards that the appalling passes unnoticed from its mouth. Kind of like Glee, when you think about it.

So why do I watch it? Because the good shows don't come out on DVD for another month yet. I wonder if that is the reason for the "success" of HBO shows - they air in a vaccuum?