Scattered Thoughts on True Blood
by Latoya Peterson
*Warning: Spoilers ahead.*
After Tami’s post on the racial stereotypes in True Blood, I was inspired to start watching the show.
Okay, so I was actually inspired by Tara going “This ain’t rude. This is uppity!” and smacking the hell out of her manager in an awesome racial/retail revenge moment.
I zipped through episodes one through five over the last couple of days and had a few thoughts nagging at me about race, civil rights, stereotypes, and how these things are covered in the series. (I just watched episode six last night, but it seems to be more of a bridge episode, setting up the story for next week.)
1. The character of Tara
For the first three episodes, Tara grated on me as she played as a black stereotype. The perpetually angry, in your face, sexless sistah-sidekick to the white lead has been played to death and outside of that first glorious scene, I did not find much to like in Tara. However, they seem to be gradually giving her character a bit more depth as the series progresses. We learn that her infatuation with Jason Stackhouse is a result of a situation from their childhood. And we learn that many of her problems with love, self-esteem and worth come from her turbulent relationship with her mother.
I still had some reservations about how Tara is portrayed, and what that means for portrayals of black women on the small screen, until I caught wind of an interesting little fact. The original actress to play Tara was Brook Kerr in an unaired version of the pilot. The excerpt on YouTube is the exact same “uppity” scene that introduces Tara in the first episode of the show. However, something is a bit different about Kerr’s version of Tara:
Kerr’s Tara is a bit less stereotypical. Her manner, her demeanor, her appearance are a lot more Southern Belle - and a lot more complimentary to the main character Sookie. It seems that Kerr isn’t a good fit for the role of Tara though - the more abrasive lines seem to get caught in her mouth. Check out the bar scene, also from the first episode, with Kerr’s rendition:
After watching that, Rutina Wesley’s interpretation seems a lot more true to the rendition of the character.
And, considering the more we learn about Tara, the more Wesley’s portrayal seems to fit - the hard edged woman who is hiding a lot of hurt by attacking first.
I *still* have some serious issues with how race is positioned in the series. Tara tends to bring up race frequently, but this is often positioned in the series as her being abrasive rather than her talking about a real issue. But I will elaborate a bit more on this in another section. However, I am heartened that Tara is a lot less sexless and looking more like the hardassed best friend who would walk through hell for you. The mourning scene in the Stackhouse kitchen is a good example of Tara displaying the more loyal sides of her character, including turning on her perpetual crush in order to protect her friend Sookie.
2. The character of Lafayette
Lafayette is another character/stereotype that is gaining more personality as the series marches on. At first, Lafayette’s behavior seems rooted in gay stereotypes, particularly in terms of promiscuity. However, his character has not deepened as much as Tara’s - his main motivations are still his own well being, and he is settling comfortably into the role of town drug dealer. Still, I quite enjoy Tara and Lafayette’s uncensored banter whenever the two of them happen to be in the same room.
One of the best Lafayette moments is the “This burger has AIDS” scene:
3. The treatment of Tara’s question about slaves
One thing that keeps knocking at my anti-racist radar is the treatment of Tara’s questions about slaves. Now, Sookie immediately shushed Tara when she posed the question to Bill, but it seems like a legitimate one to me. Bill was alive, and as we later find out, Bill fought on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War. If I was in Tara’s shoes, I would also wonder about his opinions on the rights of blacks. As we all should know, being a member of an oppressed group (even a fictionally oppressed group) does not guarantee solidarity with other people who are members of oppressed groups.
Now, I thought that was interesting, particularly seeing how race has been treated throughout the rest of the series. Tara brought up race to save Jason Stackhouse from extended questioning at the police station, arguing that race (and interracial relationships) are still a major issue in the post-Vampire world. In some ways, this could paint Tara as a racial opportunist - someone who discusses race to start drama or when it benefits her, not to further the cause of racial equality. I suppose I’ll have to keep watching the series to see how this develops.
4. Parallels to the vampire rights amendment and other civil rights struggles
One of the things True Blood does is create a world in which Vampires have “come out of the casket” and are now fighting for equal rights under the law. The most logical parallel for the struggles vampires are going through is the LGBT fight for rights, remixed for the True Blood universe. The opening credits show a church sign with the decree “God Hates Fangs” and the fake TV snippets of the controversy show preachers and other religious people discussing whether or not God would agree to the existence of vampires.
However, there are parallels to other struggles referenced as well. The Vampire Rights Amendment is an obvious nod to the as yet unratified Equal Rights Amendment. And more than a few allusions to black struggles for equality. Check out this scene with Bill and Sookie being harassed by a police officer, and tell me that a few parts of this scene don’t feel awfully familiar:
Yes, he called a vampire boy. And when the vamp gets the upper hand, he demands to be called sir. Interesting, especially in light of the show’s treatment of race. I am not sure where the director/writing crew is heading with this. Part of me respects the fact that they are going out of their way to create nuanced characters that are not clearly good or evil. Sookie, who is often seen in the series as open minded, is freaked out by Bill playing Cambodian singing, later referring to it as weird and “Chinese.” Bill chastises other vampires for “flaunting their lifestyle in front of mortals,” with other vamps proudly standing up for their differences and confronting Bill for choosing to assimilate. Tara openly notes that she will never be comfortable with vampires, and reminds Sookie that everyone will not be as comfortable as she with people who are different.
True Blood provides a clever take on our current social climate, but I am still left wondering what the ultimate balance of the series will be. Alan Ball and his team could be using their fictional world to provide wry commentary on current issues of social justice - or they could just be aiming for maximum entertainment value.
Only time will tell on that front.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying the ride.
Now, if I could just get the theme song out of my head…
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
atlasien wrote:
Just a teeny correction… that’s not Cambodian, that’s Tuvan (Mongolian) throat-singing.
I like this show. At first I thought it was unwatchable. It’s melodramatic, mopey, stagy, pretentious, and very few characters, especially Tara, sound like they have anything close to a Louisiana accent.
But its saving grace is that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously. For every dreadful line like “Suckie is MAHN!” there’s a brilliant line like “I’ve got gout… of the DICK!” And the gratuitous sex is very entertaining.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 10:50 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
*snicker* After struggling to find a way to describe this show, I now refer to it as “Vamp On A Hot Tin Roof.”
I too am a little nervous about where they’re going, but am enjoying the references and the ride. I’m also recommending to my friends who haven’t started watching yet to make up Vampire Lore Bingo Cards before watching. I’m thinking I should also have them make Diversity Issue Bingo cards as well.
P.S. That police car scene? One of my favorite ones so far…
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 11:07 am ¶
Jess wrote:
I’ve been watching True Blood with some of the same reservations.
But in the scene where Tara asks about whether Bill owned slaves — heck, I’m a passing-white guy with no connection to the South and I’d ask the same thing. I think Bill’s treatment of it reflected nuance, which is something we see too little of.
Not every Confederate owned slaves, and Bill has stated that he didn’t think war in general was a good thing (remember, he says war is a way to send boys to fight so rich people can stay rich).
I could see Bill’s answer — he was honest, after all — reflecting a lot of ambivalence. He could have spouted out the old justifications for slavery, or said something stereotypical, but he didn’t. He stated the facts as he knew them. And y’know what? Anyone who is 162 years old is probably going to be a bit more open minded at that point than he was in his 30s, and like the society around him won’t be the same guy he was. (After all, are you the same person you were at 35 as when you were 18 or 21? Odds are not).
So I saw Sookie’s hushing her as being unable to deal with the topic and Bill’s answer as a way of saying, “I can deal with this, it’s ok, a lot has changed for me in the last century.”
So in that sense I didn’t see Tara as a racial opportunist. And I like that her character is developing depth. The whole scene with her boss last night was interesting, to say the least.
All that said, I thought Tara’s bit about interracial relationships seemed shoehorned in, honestly. It’d have been more believable if she came up with some other explanation. I mean, everyone knows Jason is a horndog who can’t turn a woman down, so I thought it would have sounded a hell of a lot more plausible if she just said she was with him, end of sentence.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 11:09 am ¶
monica wrote:
I don’t have HBO but many blogs seem to be buzzing about the racial images in this series. It is based on a book, do people have issues about the representation of blacks in the book also?
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 12:08 pm ¶
Alicia wrote:
I love the seemingly running joke of Bill listening to strange music. The Cambodian one you mentioned by the way is a band called Dengue Fever.
Tara is definitely growing on me, I just hate that she’s the singular black female voice. It’s a lot of weight to put on one character.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 12:13 pm ¶
Dan wrote:
“When you walked in the air went out…”
I started watching True Blood as I’ve been a fan of HBO produced series in the past. Notably, Carnivale, Sopranos, 6 Feet Under, Mr. Show. My wife wasn’t much for HBO series before she met me.
However I talked her into catching a repeat of the first episode and now she’s hooked. We watch together every Sunday night. I’m white, my wife is black just for background.
The first thing that struck me when reading your article is how quick you were to assume Tara as being the stereotypical angry black woman. To me this brings to mind us participants on Racialicious trying to get the rest of the world to stop ‘judging a book by it’s cover’, and here we have one of our own doing that very thing.
No worried, it happens to the best of us.
But yes, Tara is a deep character. She’s had a rough upbringing and has learned to take care of herself by always being wary and on the offensive. She’s not a stereotype, she’s a product of her environment.
I think they could deal with the topic of race better, but I do think it’s sufficient in how their characters basically vilify anyone who speaks their mind in a racist or prejudiced fashion. In my opinion, it’s dealing with race by dealing with it in an absolute fashion by lambasting it instead of allowing for a dialogue as if there could even be a legitimate argument for behaving in a prejudiced fashion.
One thing particulary interesting my wife told me, after she watched the “Making of…” episode, is that that Brook Kerr was not selected because she was ‘too pretty’. To me, that says the producers wanted a more realistic feel. Not everyone in Podunk, LA is gorgeous.
And also in reality, not everyone deals with race in an enlightened fashion. Some people open their mouths and say things they shouldn’t. Some people deal with it eruditely. Some deal with it angrily. I think the show has displayed the full spectrum of how real people deal with issues of race and sex. It’s not trying to be a vehicle to make a statement on current issues of social justice or equality. It’s just trying to be entertaining.
What I take heart in is that the shows main characters, the heroes (Sookie, Tara, Bill), seem to have the biggest hearts, the most open minds, and for the most part are about equality and have zero tolerance for bigotry. That is supposed to be the view that the watchers identify with. All the minor characters and outsiders are the bigots and racists. To me, that’s enough of a message. In a sense, it’s telling the viewers that racism and bigotry are NOT normal.
Thoughts?
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶
Dan wrote:
On a side note, I laughed out loud at Lafayette’s rhetorical question, “What the fuck is it with white people and Jello?”.
At almost every family gathering I’ve attended in my life, there’s been at least 2 Jello ‘dishes’ with various other foods suspended inside like some grotesque food museum exhibit. Much like an ancient Egyptian artifact housed within a cube of impenetrable glass, bananas or orange slices gazed sorrowfully out at me from within the confines of their Jello prisons. ALL I WANT IS THE FRUIT, DAMNIT!
So yeah, Lafayette’s comment hit home.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 12:43 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
I agreed with Tara. Bill was being a dick when he didn’t apologize for his family owning slaves. I think that’s one of the few realistic points of the show… it consistently shows most Southern white people as totally and willfully ignoring the feelings of black people about slavery, even when they’re very friendly with the same black people and would never think of themselves as racist.
In this view, slavery is all about white people… minimizing the moral taint on white people, that is. How a modern-day African-American might have very complicated and sensitive feelings about their ancestry just doesn’t enter into the picture.
Most of the time I’m a rah-rah New South kind of poster here, but I have to admit, that’s one of the ugliest habits of thinking I’ve seen, and I’m actually glad this show is sort of representing it.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 1:07 pm ¶
Tasha wrote:
yep theme song stays in my head too
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 1:30 pm ¶
Penni Brown wrote:
Dan - In your defense of Tara’s characterization, you just reinforced the stereotype. The point is that there are waaay too many portrayals of black women on the screen, where the character has had a rough life and has a bad attitude (justifiably or not) because of her circumstances.
Not all or even most black women have that experience. Yet, even you find it ok and plausible because, its been done a zillion times.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 5:54 pm ¶
Penni Brown wrote:
and what’s with Brook Kerr being ‘too pretty’ to be cast???
I think the person they chose is very pretty. I won’t even go down the road of why she was ‘unpretty’ enough to be chosen. It’s too early in the week for me to be that pissed off!
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 5:59 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
@altasien–
I’m curious why you thought Bill was minimizing the moral taint on white people when he was the one willing to answer, and Sookie was the one who didn’t want to hear it. If anything, Bill was dealing with it better in a tough situation, you know?
Bill said his father owned slaves, he didn’t, and the sense I got (and maybe I am reading too much into this) was that he wasn’t gung-ho about slavery or the Confederacy at this late date. (See his actions during the talk he gave to a whole room full of Confederate apologists — do you realize the reaction you’d be likely to get if, say, Strom Thurmond did that, essentially repudiating the Confederacy?)
Anyhow, that’s how I came away with it, and was wondering why you felt he was papering over responsibility. How would you have set it up differently? What would you rather have seen? (I’m not asking this rhetorically).
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 6:25 pm ¶
ayele wrote:
i thought it was very telling of the show..when in one of the episodes the characters were talking about how the vampires are the ‘new’ oppressed people and compared it to queer struggles and civil rights movement and black power (as if a post racial world order actually exists, yea okay) yet the show, the very name TRUE BLood is Highly racialized. Not even delving into the character portrayals here which Latoya has done a good job of analyzing, blood has historically been racialized. I mean in the scene when Lafayette gives the vile of blood to the white guy (i forget his name) the first signs of the blood working is an erection…also vampires associated with darkness, lewd behavior and sexual misconduct..
Hmm……i can see many historical comparisons to the racialization and treatment of black people historically…
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 6:32 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
Because Bill is perfectly willing to reap all the positive things about having fought for the Confederacy. He gets the adulation of Sookie’s grandma, then a whole town full of people getting up and clapping at him after he tells his war stories. Every white person loves the fact that he has direct knowledge of their ancestors. He says nice things about their ancestors. They were honorable men, etc. etc.
But he can’t apologize to Tara for the fact that his father owned slaves, and he must have benefited from their free labor. Even though Tara is just as likely to be a descendant of those slaves as the white townspeople are likely to be descendants of the “Glorious Dead”. Their feelings get stroked, her feelings get ignored. He could have said something positive about those slaves, humanized them, mentioned if they might have had any children or connections to the town history, but he doesn’t bother. He could have said it was a bad thing that they were enslaved.
I mean, the analogous situation would be something like this, but collapsing the history and generations involved.
1) Your father killed someone in a war. You profited indirectly from that death.
2) You meet someone with the same last name as the person your father killed. Maybe they’re related, maybe not.
3) You fail to apologize or consider their emotional connection to the person your father killed. You’re more concerned with minimizing any responsibility that falls indirectly on your shoulders.
In conclusion, Bill didn’t apologize because he’s a somewhat racist dick.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 7:02 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@ayele -
Damn - I totally overlooked the symbolism of blood! In a series called True Blood! I’m slippin’! Glad you caught it. Lafayette gives Jason the vial and he starts heading downhill from there.
I am not familiar with the books, but Bill was turned in the series by a blood exchange with a vampire. I wonder if they’ll start talking about the one drop rule…
@Penni Brown - Thanks. And I did wonder that about Kerr as well - notice, in her scenes, she is much more comfortable playing coquette than playing it hard and true. I didn’t watch the making of, but from the scenes shown, I imagined that she just wasn’t working as Tara (1) because it was hard for her to do shades of mean and (2) because it would have been too much competition for the character of Sookie. Interestingly, if you check Wesley out on Wikipedia, there is an interview referenced (not sourced) where she talks about struggling to have others see her when some would consider her “too dark.”
(I must say though, I am happy to see the boards on IMDB having multiple posts about her being “drop dead gorgeous and talented.”)
@Jess -
I’m going to jump in here, but Bill answered the question honestly, matter-of-factly…and unapologetically. Yes, things were the way they were, but Bill remembers this as maybe a pleasant memory. People’s names he couldn’t recall, nice folks working in the yard and the house.
Tara, on the other hand, could have had family owned by Bill. And that’s a completely different kind of memory entirely. A while back, I posted a summary of Meeting David Wilson, about the journey of a black man (David Wilson) through his family history, to meet the descendants of the slaveowners who owned his family. When David Wilson (black) met the living Wilson descendant, also named David, he asked the same pointed questions about race that Tara did, at further length. At least David Wilson (white) had the graciousness to understand how awkward the situation was - and how today’s legacy makes it more uncomfortable.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 7:05 pm ¶
vanessa wrote:
@altasian (sp?)
Bill was being a dick when he didn’t apologize for his family owning slaves.
——————
Why should he apologize…he wasn’t the one who owned slaves…it was his father who owned the slaves.
I don’t get why the burden should fall on him to correct the mistakes that his father and forefathers made.
The fact that he didn’t own slaves…even though it was acceptable at the time for a white men to own slaves…and the fact that he really didn’t care much for the war…just reveals a lot about his character ( imho in a positive way).
Plus, from that seen….I gather that Tara really didn’t bring up slaves to know more about slavery thing but as a way to really make him uncomfortable and embarrass him b/c she didn’t like the fact that he was interested in Sookie.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Penni Brown wrote:
Dan - In your defense of Tara’s characterization, you just reinforced the stereotype. The point is that there are waaay too many portrayals of black women on the screen, where the character has had a rough life and has a bad attitude (justifiably or not) because of her circumstances.
Not all or even most black women have that experience. Yet, even you find it ok and plausible because, its been done a zillion times.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In defense of Dan he was not re-enforcing any stereotypes.
I mean…considering that it is not just black children who suffer some form of psychological, emotional, and physical abuse at the hand of an alcohol.
Tara clearly shows the signs of someone who has dealt with years of abuse at the hand of her mother and b/c of this she has clearly built up defense mechanisms to protect herself from more harm from others.
This is not just a black thing….so I don’t see how you would say that this is a stereotype.
Tara is one person….and for that one person that type of hard life is a reality and should not be used to represent other black women.
So, I don’t get why you would make a sudden leap that this doesn’t represent all black women when Dan wasn’t talking about all black women.
The hard life ….is not just a tool used by writers to identify black women…its mostly a tool used by writers to identify the main protagonist or side character of both sexes and all races. So…it isn’t a black thing.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 7:14 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Dan, the difference is that for the first few episodes, Tara and Lafayette were nothing but sassy gurrrlfriends, bitches, and sistaguurls. Yes, we’re seeing some complexity being brought to them (especially post-mourning Tara), but there’s still validity to people’s initial complaints.
2. While I feared that Brook Kerr was dropped because producers felt Rutina Wesley better (physically) embodied the sassy, loud black woman they wanted to depict, the fact is, from watching Kerr’s scenes, I got the Wesley was just a better actress. Sure, maybe (like Latoya suggests,) Wesley’s just more adept at “playing mean.” But then again, a recurring role on the daytime soap Passions, doesn’t exactly speak well of Kerr’s talents.
3. I found it hilarious (in that achingly sad kind of way) that the actress who played Tara’s mother (can’t find her in the show’s IMDB credits) also showed up on Law & Order: SVU playing a strung-out, no-good junkie disappointment of a mother.
Sigh… and they say things have gotten better for actresses of color.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 9:17 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Interesting how such a crappy show is actually raising lines of rhetoric often seen in real-life discussions of race.
Apology or not, it certainly wasn’t proper to simply reminisce about how great Mammy and Strong-Back Rastus were, with no regard for the fact that (as was mentioned upthread) Tara’s family may not have had such fond memories of that time.
And speaking of which…
This is something we see all the time in discussions of race. How dare she bring up slavery and spoil every(white)one’s good time. Gran and others recognize how great it is to have someone from that time speak on Old Louisiana from a first-hand perspective, but it’s only good if he paints a nice, sanguine picture of that “reality” that totally excludes that nasty business of slavery.
Not only does your comment reflect much of the revisionism American culture has tried to apply to the antebellum era, but you’ve also stripped Tara of any form of agency or self-interest — after all, she couldn’t possibly have asked that question for a greater insight into her family’s Louisiana experience. No, ma’am. Alls she care about is Ms. Anne heah.
This is what people mean when they complain about racial discussions always coming back to being about white people, and how they’re made to feel by the “accusations” brought to the table. I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but intentions aren’t really worth a damn in these issues.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:15 am ¶
Dan wrote:
Penny, I think the danger in always denouncing characters in books/movies that may seem to be the personification of a stereotype, is that you then risk ostracizing folks who HAVE had those experiences.
If Tara were portrayed as an angry black woman, with no character development to help the viewer understand WHY she has a chip on her shoulder, then I would agree with you that she is painted in a stereotypical fashion. Because doing so would allow the viewer to fill in the blanks.
But by developing her character, by showing her as having had a rough life, an abusive and alcoholic mother, plus dealing with the issue of race from rednecks (such as the big guy at the bar in I believe the second episode), it shows that she faces real issues and they affect her.
Put a white girl in the role of Tara, with the same character development, and you would understand why she’s got a chip on her shoulder.
However, remove the character development and just show Tara as an angry black woman and there is your stereotype. Put a white woman in that role without character development and it leaves the viewer wondering ‘Why is she so angry?’ because there is no ‘angry white woman’ stereotype.
And that’s why I think the character development is so important. It prevents one from viewing Tara as a stereotype because you get to see what has happened to her to make her so edgy.
So again, if you remove the Tara character from the movie, or make her white, to what end does that go? Are you saying then that no black woman should be portrayed as angry in any movies, books, music, etc. because it plays to a stereotype?
Or at some point do you have to realize that perhaps some black women, like any other people on this planet, are angry due to childhood experiences and situations in their personal lives?
By insinuating that the portrayal of a black woman being angry is offensive because it is stereotypical, you are in a sense caging and leashing black woman by saying they can’t be angry and it’s dangerous for them to be angry regardless of the reasons.
I think it’s important to be racially sensitive but just like any other area in life, the risk exists of being OVERsensitive and doing more damage than you might seek to prevent.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:18 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Dan - The point you are missing is that the characterization of Tara (which, as I pointed out in the piece above, started in episode 3) is the exception and not the rule for black women characters on TV.
And do not ever say someone is being oversensitive about race on this blog. It violates the comment mod policy and is grounds for banning.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:32 am ¶
Dan wrote:
merq - It’s a series. A series. Don’t you think it’s unfair to watch 1 episode and assume the show is being insensitive, racist, and portraying people in stereotypical fashion?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Allow some time for character development for Christs’ sake!
Just think if we had resigned ourselves to believing the children’s stories, early in To Kill A Mockingbird of Boo Radley being a monster.
Or if, at the beginning of the book and the first introduction of Atticus, we had assumed he was just another stereotypical racist white man.
The danger of not allowing time for character development is that characters are then hammered into stereotypical roles and are not given the ability to break that mold and show that stereotypes are indeed folly. Or show that perhaps there are deep reasons for their behavior; reasons that everyone regardless of race, sex, or religion, can identify or empathize with.
I don’t know a person alive that considers themselves colorblind (to use a phrase I personally hate, just to sum up the feelings of racial sensitivity, etc.) that read To Kill a Mockingbird, who didn’t put their chips in with the children in thinking Boo Radley was a monster because of the descriptions and stories that were given.
And likewise, all of them felt like jackasses after they realized they bought into a stereotype without letting the rest of the story continue to the point where Boo Radley broke the cast those readers had given him and rescued Scout.
That’s the danger of jumping to a conclusion without allowing for character development.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:38 am ¶
Dan wrote:
Oops I mean rescued Jem.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:39 am ¶
Dan wrote:
Latoya, how is saying:
“…the risk exists of being OVERsensitive…”
the same as calling someone oversensitive?
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:41 am ¶
Jess wrote:
Hm. It seems to me though, that Bill did understand how awkward it was — here he is talking to someone who could be a descendant of slaves, and he has to be honest. It seems you all are asking for the guy to fall on his sword about something he didn’t control and can’t do anything about. I don’t think Bill looked particularly comfortable there, either.
More importantly, though, note that in his war stories he doesn’t ever say that slavery was right, nor does he say that the cause was just — quite the contrary. That says to me the whole point is to show how Bill has changed, being 160-odd years old as he is, and by extension the world around him — in that sense he’s a sort of stand-in for historical changes.
Also, yes, Bill gets a lot of good stuff from hanging out with the apologists, but it’s also part of his effort at mainstreaming, and I don’t think the choice of Confederate apologists as his method — or his explicit rejection of the Confederacy — was an accident.
I sort of wish the writers gave that dialogue with Tara more time, as I’d have loved to know how Bill felt about it, and would like to see more of how Bill feels about interacting with people who are the descendants of slaves — and a little more from people who are those descendants interacting with him.
Though as I said my sense is that he has very mixed feelings about slavery and has put the Confederacy behind him. (Something tells me that with a century of perspective the causes the Confederacy was about probably seem a bit small-minded).
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:50 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Dan -
Oversensitive is not a word that should be used here, especially when discussing the things we do. And as long as you’ve been on this board, you should know that.
You’re chastising Merq for jumping to conclusions, but the reason this blog exists is to call out stereotypes and racism in pop culture. As we noted, Tara is getting more development. But as long time readers of this blog *should* know, most of the time, that development does not come and it is questionable as of this point in the series what the character of Tara will become. Your responses to Penni and Merq show a willful disregard to facts about portrayals of minorities on TV that we have been over many times before.
Even if Tara does turn out to be a wonderful, nuanced character, it does not erase all the history that came before it or what is going on in television present. Viewers - especially those of us of African-American descent - have a right to be skeptical of how Lafayette and Tara are characterized.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:59 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Merq: “This is what people mean when they complain about racial discussions always coming back to being about white people, and how they’re made to feel by the “accusations” brought to the table.”
Yep.
Even though I’m neither black nor white, this isn’t an academic issue for me. One half of my family tree consists mostly of white, formerly upper-class Southerners who must have owned slaves. I don’t spend a second feeling guilty about that… everyone’s family line has people in it that profited from evil things, if you go back far enough.
But if I was ever in an unlikely situation (like in the Wilsons piece) where I met someone that I knew was descended from those slaves, I would apologize. Not in an “it was my fault” kind of way, but simply saying “I’m sorry, that was messed-up that some of my ancestors exploited some of yours so badly.” What the heck is so difficult about saying that??? It seems like common courtesy to me.
It’s not a nice feeling having ancestors whose names were erased whenever possible, whose contribution to history has been ignored and depreciated and made shameful…. while their exploiters are simultaneously glorified and memorialized. Anyone who thinks of themselves as having any sense of empathy should be able to acknowledge that.
My connection to slavery is pretty distant. But Vampire Bill had his food grown by a slave, he was probably even BREAST-FED by a slave. The nice thing to do would have been to give Tara a bit of a positive, humanizing information about her potential ancestors and, yes, apologize. But he doesn’t, because he’s a dick.
And I still like the show, even though last episode’s soft-focus sex scene had me laughing so hard I almost fell off the couch.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 8:47 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>Why should he apologize…he wasn’t the one who owned slaves…it was his father who owned the slaves. *snip* I don’t get why the burden should fall on him to correct the mistakes that his father and forefathers made.
It was addressed but bears repeating: there are indirect benefits that essentially went unacknowleged by the show (and obviously, some viewers).
It’s just as easy to say, “I didn’t hire housekeepers and didn’t give them a living wage, my parents did,” but if you benefitted by having a virtually free nanny and a clean house, and if your parents could then afford to set you up in life with a college education or a start in business or what-have-you, then you have some culpability.
It’s called privilege. You don’t have to do anything to earn it, and you don’t have to make a conscious decision to take it, it just IS.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 9:13 am ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
I don’t know if I’m the only one who feels this way but I found the scene with Jason saving Tara from her abusive mother ‘a bit much’, to say the least. Over and over again the white Stackhouse family has to save Tara
from her dysfunctional black mother and it doesn’t feel like coincidence. Also, what’s with her flame for Jason. I think she could do much better and is too smart to have such bad taste in men.
I don’t know if anyone else here has read Judith Halberstam’s book ‘Skin Shows’ but it has some interesting analysis of vampires as symbols of deviant racialization and sexuality. Their physical features align with traditional stereotypes of Jews, and vampires serve to contain many anxieties about racial Others ‘poisoning’ blood and sexual deviants turning ordinary citizens into deviants like themselves. The act of biting one’s neck is of course highly sexualized and it’s not hard to link to the image of a racially Other sexual predator [the book also talks about Candyman], or the sexually predatory homosexual [I’m talking to you, Anne Rice]. Like queers and POCs, vampires are a threat because they contagiously threaten ‘appropriate’ boundaries.
As for comparisons of these vampires to queers and racialized oppressed people, I find it a bit problematic. This series establishes quite a few vampires as being violent and murderous in ways that serve to justify the argument that they are dangerous to the general public. A good portion of these vampires, everyone but Bill really, are bloodsucking monsters who might kill you. Queers and people of color are not monsters and we don’t kill people.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 9:54 am ¶
Vanessa wrote:
Privilege has nothing to do with the son suffering for the sins of his father.
So, if your mom or some relative was under the influence of alcohol or other illegal drugs and committed a violent act….the child should carry the burden of guilt.
So are you saying that the child of a rapist should apologize for the fact that his father was a rapist….don’t think so.
If someone’s brother is a child molester…should that person have to apologize even though themselves committed the act.
If someone’s parents were thieves and they used the money to raise their children from the moment that they were an infant to teen years….the child is guilty by association.
This whole guilty by association is just ridiculous and just needs to stop. It is not far to punish those who did not commit the act themselves is just horrible.
Culpability…b/c you just happen to be born from someone that you had nor choice in the matter therefore you are automatically guilty of the crime. Ridiculousness.
Everyone on this earth are responsible for their own actions and should not and must not carry the burden of the actions of others just b/c they happen to have the same bloodline or happen to be have some form of relationship with that person.
So he had a free nanny and a clean house…..he didn’t have the choice in the matter as a child and apparently as an adult he made a conscious decision to not continue the actions that his parents continue to practice. Yet he is still guilty…ridiculous.
———————————
To the person who responded to my post about Tara only doing this to annoy Bill. If you watched the show…you would know that during the first 5 episodes she would have done anything to separate the two . She pretty much says things to sookie to drive her away from him and says things to him to annoy the him ( if she speaks to him at all) b/c she just doesn’t like him since he is a vampire.
I am a regular watcher of the show and sookie only brings up race whenever she is trying to annoy someone
( i.e. Bill Compton b/c she reallydoesn’t want him to date her best friend Sookie b/c she can’t stand the idea of the two being together and she will do anything to embarrass him in front of Sookie and Gran just to drive a wedge between the two)
or try to get someone out of a situation
(i.e Jason Stackhouse getting arrested and accusing the cops of being racist b/c they don’t believe her when she said ( a lie) that they were having sex last night)
She didn’t bring up the topic b/c she wondered much about slavery and wanted to have a big round table about gender and race. If you watched the show and didn’t rely on blogs to get your info you would get the idea what her true intent was and not what you would like it to have been.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 10:35 am ¶
Yvette wrote:
My reading is that Bill did understand the situation of talking about slavery in that context. But he is trying to assimilate. In fact, it is becoming clear that he is seen as some sort of “Uncle Tom” by some others in the vampire community and, perhaps, that he has some unresolved issues about becoming a vampire. (I wonder, is there a vampire equivalent to the slur “Uncle Tom”? LOL)
If you take that reading of Bill’s character, then it is clear that he wants to assimilate not just to humans, but to the same human society (White humans) that he was part of when he himself was human. In that case, the person he would want to make more comfortable and appear more acceptable to would *not* be Tara.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 11:12 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Vanessa/Merq -
See, that is exactly what I was getting at in the post. That’s why I wrote about Tara having the perception of being a racial opportunist - when race is brought up in the series, it is for combative purposes or mocking purposes. Vanessa read her comments and portrayal in that way, and I can’t say she’s incorrect.
Tara and Lafayette crack jokes about whites, Tara uses race to try to deflect attention from Jason, and she often brings up race when she wants to engage in an argument.
That’s one of the things that gives me pause about what messages they are trying to promote within the series.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 11:33 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Vanessa: you’re not addressing the idea, which I illustrated with a very personal example, that you don’t have to feel guilty to say you’re sorry, and it doesn’t have to be all about your feelings.
My last example. If someone in front of you fell over and hit their head, and started howling in pain, what’s the first thing you’d say to them?
A) Are you OK? I’m sorry that happened.
B) That wasn’t my fault! Don’t try and make me feel guilty!
Unfortunately, the dynamic of white guilt/resentment tends to cloud some of the basic moral principles people should have learned in kindergarten.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 12:31 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>Privilege has nothing to do with the son suffering for the sins of his father.
But privilege has everything to do with how someone starts out in life and how they end up.
1. Did you see that house? That didn’t start from scratch. Was probably inherited or bought outright.
2. Listen to the language style he uses - fairly well educated, esp. in an age of no/little public education.
3. >apparently as an adult he made a conscious decision to not continue the actions that his parents continue to practice.
Or, he didn’t have to or get the opportunity to. He doesn’t say, “I didn’t because I didn’t want to.” He just says, ” I didn’t.”
By that standard, George Washington didn’t own slaves in Philadelphia during his tenure (no, because the ones who lived in Philadelphia during his presidency were dower slaves belonging to his WIFE.)
4. >Yet he is still guilty…ridiculous.
There are layers of “guilt.” You can be relatively innocent and still be complicit in an action. It’s called a sin of omission.
I have a feeling you find the whole idea of privilege “ridiculous” too.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 2:37 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:
@ Vanessa: I’m not sure how being the son of a child molester or a rapist get’s the same material and class priviledge as a slave owner’s son. I can’t think of too many historical examples of a class of people who built a vast amount of wealth and prestige from molesting children or raping. Your simile of thief is a bit more applicable and yes, I think if the offspring of this master thief is raised on the proceeds from his stealing then I think he or she should show some compassion and understanding to the kids of all the people he stole from. Just because Tara may using race to cock-block, doesn’t mean that he gets to be a dick and have no compassion for the descendents of the people who made his priviledge possible.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 3:40 pm ¶
Vanessa wrote:
Wait…so his parents paid for his college education….he is guilty for the sins of his father.
Really..interesting…and nothing but ridiculous.
Since when did education b/c a sign of moral guilt.
Wait… do you even watch the show or are you getting your info from this blog.
Now you are saying his guilty b/c he didn’t say…” I didn’t want to own slaves…when he said he did not own slaves” Ridiculousness.
He didn’t own slaves…even though he had the opportunity ( can’t believe I am saying this about a fictional character)….simple as that…at that time no one would have looked down on him for owning slaves and the fact that he choose not to own them…kudos to him.
Sins of ommission.
Here is the definition.
A person may be guilty of a sin of omission by failing to do something which he is unable to do, by reason of a cause for which he is entirely responsible, as when a person knows that drinking to drunkenness will incapacitate him, and yet drinks. (Wikipedia.org)
Catholic theology:
“Omission” is here taken to be the failure to do something one can and ought to do.
How does this apply to him.
What did he omit to do?
Did he own slaves even though he knew it was wrong….nope!!! So it doesn’t apply to him.
No one is denying that he is privileged…but I am not going to support the guilty by association theory b/c than everyone on this earth is guilty as sin. Simple as that…I will not support the idea that one is guilty of something…not b/c of one’s own action but b/c of the actions of others.
I am a believer in personal responsibility and there is nothing you can say that will make me think he is guilty b/c of his father.
Nope. NOt going to happen. You can believe in guilty by association and not placing the blame solely on the head of the head of the person who committed the heinous crime. and I will just continue to believe in personal responsibility
Privilege and guilty by association or two completely different things and should not be confused as one.
I don’t understand how people are making Tara out some civil rights person when she is usually anything but….and like Latoya said at times discuses racial issues as a means to an end not as an end in itself.
P.S. We only seen a small snippets of his life….so we should hopefully get to know more about his human life. The few that I know know I found it to be very interesting.
P.S.S. To others on the board …please watch the show before you make any informed decisions about the character. I was really annoyed with the first thread…when people who never watched the show…decided they weren’t going to watch it b/c of the small minutes shown on this board.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 3:46 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
I watch the show. I like the show. And I think Bill is a total dick, sorely lacking in both social AND personal responsibility. When the nicest thing you can say about someone is “at least they didn’t own slaves,” that’s kind of pathetic.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 4:17 pm ¶
C-Marsh wrote:
@ Vanessa,
“I am a believer in personal responsibility and there is nothing you can say that will make me think he is guilty b/c of his father.”
I think that you have to take a step back and reevaluate your argument to understand the point that others on the board have tried to make regarding privilege. I see and appreciate that you separate privilge from guilt by association, but I still think that privilege is a bit more insidious than you are letting on. I often struggle with finding the balance between the degree that societal factors that influence a person’s behavior and when personal responsibility should kick in. With privilege, we can’t expect everyone to automatically be aware of their privilege because most of us are not reared to recognize it. Moreover, American society is just recently coming to grips with the concept of privilege. We are well versed in the theories of discrimination, but it is a task to get people to understand the flip side of that coin. With that being said, I think that once a person has been made of his or her privilege, it is then incumbent upon that person to at least acknowledge that their privilege may have potentially disenfranchised another person or group. I also think that they should make efforts to minimize their unfair advantage. This is where it gets tricky. I am a straight male. That does not mean that I have to apologize to every gay or female person that I encounter, but I should be able to recognize situations where I have benefited over that person simply because of my identification. If I were in a discussion with someone who has been a victim of discrimination by a member of any group, perhaps even one with which I do not identify, I would still apologize out of humanity, not because I feel that I am personally responsible.
(I’m actually about to run, so I’m typing this really fast and haven’t had too much time to think this out. I hope it makes sense.) If not, I can address specific concerns later.
In Bill’s case, he directly benefited from his father’s slaves. I would have liked him to at least expressed a scintilla of empathy. At the same time, I would have like for Tara to at least hide her disdain for him. I think that Bill was probably on edge anyway because he was in an uncomfortable situation and Tara was quite frank with her inquiry. I don’t think that he was more so taken aback by Tara (and Jason) than her actual question. He knew that he was under an extreme amount of scrutiny and was treading very carefully.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 4:36 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Oh here we go.
Vanessa, I’ve seen every episode barring the one from this past Sunday. Some of them twice. Just because people disagree with you, they must not be watching? WEV.
>What did he omit to do?
Did he own slaves even though he knew it was wrong….nope!!! So it doesn’t apply to him.
The sin of omission is not “owning slaves” are you seem to say (!?). (BTW - that would be sin of commission - thank you, SSJs). The sin of omission would be in not saying something stronger against the practice, when given clear opportunity by Tara’s question, whatever its motivation. As the Catholic prayer goes, “I confess all my sins, for what I have done, for what I have failed to do.” Complicity includes NOT doing the right thing when you have opportunity. Silence is complicity.
Noone said Tara was a civil rights crusader. I have no idea where you picked that one up from, but it wasn’t here.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 5:08 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
Vanessa,
You make a lot of presumptions about the ability of people of this board to make discernments because their interpretation of a character differs from yours. Just as you suggest people should watch the show before making “informed decisions” about the characters, by the same token perhaps you should read more deeply into this blog and even more in depth studies on privilege, media depictions of people of color, the perpetuation of stereotypes, and the very fact that the past and personal history applied to the character of Tara, a character absent from the books on which the series is based, may be problematic and worth deconstructing. Thus, it is a little “ridiculous”, a term you seem to be fond of, to dismiss the criticisms of a character who, whatever depth and nuance may be eventually revealed, was initially presented as a racialized and stereotyped character.
Dan asserted that had Tara’s character been white, we would have recognized the universality of her anger and pain. But there is such baggage to the character of the abused black child growing up in a dysfunctional home, and that dysfunction is racialized in a way that it would not be for a white character. To think that the past the show’s creators have given Tara and the way she navigates through her world, using race as a weapon, is not open to question or analysis is naive at best. That was Latoya’s point, which she reiterated but you still seem to have missed. Why is Tara portrayed as a racial opportunist? What story is that serving? What questions are raised, or answered, with such an interpretation? It is about more than “character development”. It is about intention and motivation, and cultural analysis and criticism looks at those issues as well.
In addition, your confluence of privilege with “guilt by association” is confused and doesn’t demonstrate a full understanding of what implicit and unearned privilege means. There are numerous resources you could consult to gain a fuller and more nuanced view, but as Lyonside and atlasien noted, I doubt you are interested. It seems more important to lambast alternate ideas as “ridiculous” and blithely dismiss the opinions of others.
To me, personal responsibility would entail acknowledging where my educational, economic, social and cultural legacy derived, and if it was steeped in the blood, destroyed families, unpaid labour, sexual exploitation and continued disenfranchisement of a group of people, I would at least recognize that, acknowledge it, do what I could to ameliorate it today, and certainly apologize on behalf of my ancestors if confronted with one of the descendants of that group of people. Relatives of Nazi soldiers have done it. Contrary to your assertions, parents and children of rapists and murders have done it in victim advocacy programs across the country. Children of Klan members and virulent segregationists have done it. And descendants of slave owners have done it. It is not about guilt by association, or carrying on the taint of the “sins of the father”. It is about a recognition of wrongs, an honoring of shared humanity, and common compassion.
You continue to beat the drum of “personal responsibility”, which is often a euphemism for denying inequities and the ignoring the subtleties of how privilege operates in a culture. Just as you are adamant about that, others here will continue to examine the complexities of race, power and privilege in our society, and the myriad ways it manifests in pop culture, without apology or in any way feeling “ridiculous”.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 5:33 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
One correction: I meant to say that the character of Tara is “largely” absent from the book series, and certainly plays a far more significant role on the show than she does in the novels. In the books, there is no mention of her mother, her past, or her home life at all. She is very much the “sassy black friend”. This makes her portrayal on the show even more questionable.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 5:49 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Hello Vanessa,
You do know what a straw man is, don’t you?
Funny thing is, rather than anointing Tara “some civil rights person,” a number of us have already pointed out how she’s a bit of a problematic character. Hilariously enough, Dan blanches when the discussion turns to the nature and history of such problematic representations, and you seem desperate to quell such discussions by attacking the character as a real person, as if her actions weren’t created by someone’s pen — “She’s just a bitch, y’all. Stop talking about race.”
It’s true she brings up race at very odd moments, totally unprovoked. I remember this being one of the many problems I had with this representation. One of the new, more powerful tools in the Angry Black Woman’s arsenal is her flaming “race card” (always dealt from the bottom of the deck, natch).
America all too often seeks to wave away any discussions of race by claiming minorities are either “looking” for racism where there is none, or flat-out accusing the poor, victimized white folk of being racist. For this reason, Tara gave me pause pretty early, and I added that to the long list of reasons she reeked of the ABW stereotype.
Having said that, I must laugh at your assertion that, faced with someone who could very well have “owned” one of her ancestors, the only reason she spoke up was to keep him from dating her BFF. Once again, you’ve completely denied the character of any self-interest.
Oh, and this was just priceless. I salute you, oh O.G. Fangirl, but like Lyonside, I too have seen every episode (including those insufferable Bloodcopy teasers), and enjoy the show despite its flaws.
Instead of huffing and self-righteously puffing about personal responsibility (and yes, many of us here have strong beliefs in its importance), actually listen to viewpoints different for your own, for shit’s sake.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 6:54 pm ¶
merq wrote:
Error. that should’ve read “or flat-out dishonestly accusing….
In other news, Vanessa, did you perhaps consider the fact that maybe her “black girl named after a plantation” race comment was a reaction to being summoned by a white man snapping his fingers?
I don’t how you’d translate that (and based on your past comments, I’m guessing I’d be quite tickled by your translation), but where I’m from, that suggests an abject lack of respect. Now, am I saying she’s right for blowing up the way she did? No. But considering the fact that she lives in a town where her family (and the denizens of a pathetically stereotypical party — but that’s another story) seems to make up the town’s entire black population, I can see the possibility of that being a legitimate reaction in her mind.
See what I just did? I took a character’s problematic history into account, but also noted the circumstances in which a statement was uttered and made a decision. I didn’t just go “well, she’s always crying ‘race’ to annoy people, so I’m going to ignore her.”
Here’s some reading material to help in your future interactions on this blog:
http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/607897.html
http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/glosario.html#magikattax
Best,
Mq
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:04 pm ¶
Vanessa wrote:
atlasien wrote:
I watch the show. I like the show. And I think Bill is a total dick, sorely lacking in both social AND personal responsibility. When the nicest thing you can say about someone is “at least they didn’t own slaves,” that’s kind of pathetic.
————————
I actually like Bill…seems like a very nice person
Well Bill is a 200 year old vampire…who recently decided to leave among humans and not bite them for food anymore.
HOw do you expect him to be socially competent…when it was just recent that Vampires have suddenly decided to leave among humans.
Elaborate.
Vampires aren’t socially adept people.
How is who not personally responsible for his actions….hasn’t done anything wrong so far and pretty much keeps to himself.
please enlightenment me.
What has he done wrong …so far this season.
I think this fictional character from the 19th century who chose not to own slaves when it was a social norm ( in fact expected for someone of his social status)…is pretty much a very respectable thing.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:23 pm ¶
Vanessa wrote:
This is where it gets tricky. I am a straight male. That does not mean that I have to apologize to every gay or female person that I encounter, but I should be able to recognize situations where I have benefited over that person simply because of my identification.
————————————-
This would be true if you were an adult…but if you were a child and had no decision in your upbringing up to a certain age.
Well, IMHO….the child is not cupable for anything….considering children do not make decisions for themselves…nor adolescents or adults for that time period.
Now if he was an adult when his father started to give him money that was made from the backs of slaves…..and he knew it was wrong but did nothing to reprimand his father or returned the money…
Then yes…he is guilty by association…by the act of omission.
But to say …b/c his parents used the money on him when he was a child makes him guilty is just ridiculous….since children are not in the position to make any decision for themselves.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 7:28 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
“But to say …b/c his parents used the money on him when he was a child makes him guilty is just ridiculous….since children are not in the position to make any decision for themselves.”
Vanessa, multiple commenters have tried to express that this is not what is meant by privilege, and that it has little to do with guilt at all,let alone guilt by association, yet you seem determined to cling to your straw man fallacy. I hope you remain on this blog and actually open your mind to the points of view of the commenters here. Part of active listening and engaged reading involves actually absorbing and comprehending the arguments of others, not just being so intent on expressing your own that you misrepresent and distort what those arguments actually are. I really hope you follow the links merq very helpfully provided for you. They are sorely needed.
Here is another essential: http://mmcisaac.faculty.asu.edu/emc598ge/Unpacking.html
Posted 15 Oct 2008 at 9:33 am ¶
C-Marsh wrote:
Vanessa
“But to say …b/c his parents used the money on him when he was a child makes him guilty is just ridiculous….since children are not in the position to make any decision for themselves”
I think that you are not giving children the credit that they deserve. Children are quite perceptive and understand a lot of the things that we think they don’t. I’m sure children could grasp the concept of privilege (sadly probably better than most adults). Your logic also seems to hover around the dangerous idea that parents are to blame when children “go bad,” which is a viewpoint that I would strongly refute (but that’s another topic). Anyway, I think that your interpretations of my comment regarding the acknowledgement and denunciation of privilege are a bit misconstrued. I am not saying that children should turn their backs on their parents at the age of 13 because they disagree with their ideologies. I also understand that most children are not in a position to defy or even challenge their parent’s beliefs until their late teenage years. However, if a child is aware that he or she has undeservingly benefited at the demise or inconvenience of another person or group and refuses to acknowledge that fact as a direct example of privilege, then that person has abdicated a degree of personal/societal responsibility. That’s why Bill could have at least acknowledged the fact that he benefited from his father’s slaves and at least apologized to Tara for the suffering her possible ancestors may have endured. We’re not saying that Bill should say “I am sorry that my father owned your great grandmother. I, William Compton, take sole personal responsibility on behalf of my family and race for all that has ever been done to disenfranchise Black people.” Something as simple as “Yes, my family did own slaves and I apologize for any suffering that may have caused you or your ancestors.” At least it would show that he understood her position, but he seemed to try and distance himself from that injustice rather than accepting that members of his group participated in such an atrocity. I think that his response is typical of many in America.
On the other hand, I wonder if it were revealed that one of Sookie’s or Tara’s relatives killed a Vampire would Bill expect an apology? I believe Sookie apologized to Bill after she saved him from the Ratrays (I can’t remember…it’s kinda blurry). It wasn’t her fault that Bill was attacked, but she did apologize for his suffering. Why can’t Bill do the same to Tara?
Overall, I understand your position, but I think that your use of the term guilty is what may be swaying your perspective. I don’t think that it is fair to blame any one person for the way in which he or she was reared and I would assert that no one on this board is advocating that viewpoint. The point that I think most are trying to drive home is that there should be an acknowledgement of privilege. We (in America) have become so caught up in the concept of the American dream and the thought that the world is a just place that it sometimes inhibits our ability to see privilege. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’ve worked hard to get everything that I have and no one ever gave me anything!” Now, if that person was from a historically marginalized group, I would give the statement more credibility than if it were a straight white male, but in either instance I am almost certain that there has been some type of underserved privilege. I’m not saying that straight white men don’t have it hard, but there are many undeserved privileges that come with being straight, white, and being male that are not afforded to other people. It would be nice if we all could entertain the idea that maybe we aren’t where we are because we’re all just such hard workers, but because there are other forces working in our favor.
Posted 15 Oct 2008 at 11:35 am ¶
Natalie wrote:
I really like True Blood a lot, but am keeping a nervous eye on the race relations. This reminds me a bit of some of the critiques on Buffy and race that I’ve read in the past.
Tara and Lafayette to me keep having layers added to them, but they’re layers that also trouble me. Like, the fact that Lafayette is the town drug dealer and Tara is the child of an abusive alcoholic who needs constant saving by our white mans burdened heroine. This isn’t to say that I don’t love Tara or Lafayette, because I do (and I think both actors are amazing in their parts), but the problem I see is…. Where are all the other black people?
It seems like a small town outside of New Orleans rates to have more than three black people in it.
It’s like how in Buffy I didn’t mind the character of Harmony, who is not exactly a female role model as she is a blonde, slutty, stupid cheerleader, because there were a multitude of various characterizations of women around.
So too, I would be able to fully love Tara and Lafayette if they were two among many (or at least several) black people.
Posted 15 Oct 2008 at 1:10 pm ¶
shah8 wrote:
I had a bigger problem with the fact that all of the black characters on the show are closely related. That really kinda makes it unrealistic, given Louisiana’s demographics. I don’t think the book had any black characters that lived in Bon Temps (Tara in the book is white, I believe).
As for Slavery!Bill!, I thought it was pretty natural. If *I* met a 160 year old vamp from the South, there is a pretty high probability that *I* would ask about slavery. I mean, one of the oldest things my over-arching family has is a photograph of my great-great grandmother as a very pale baby in her mother’s very black lap. I mean, it’s *really*, *really*, natural for many of us to wonder what some time-transplanted mint-julep-loving vampy person would think of slavery now as compared to then.
I also think Bill’s reaction was pretty much what most white people would say given his facts. Very few white people ever want to confront some of the nastier issues of their culture, let alone their history. Being strictly factual is pretty typical.
Posted 15 Oct 2008 at 11:19 pm ¶
TeakLipstickFiend wrote:
I must admit I’m hooked on the show and, being a wimpy white woman who never stands up to anyone, I always tend to like the sassy stereotypical black woman. Tara is gorgeous and I liked her from the start, although I like Sookie too. I did find Lafayette more problematic, as he seems to embody so many stereotypes, but I can’t help liking him.
Posted 09 Nov 2008 at 6:15 am ¶
Jamie wrote:
I just came to this site via a link from another site.I want to comment on a topic from way upthread,the question of the two Taras and their very different looks. It is very rare for a white actress to be replaced by another white actress that looks so physically different,yet with actresses of color it is often a different story . Yes,Rutina Wesley is a phenominal actress and she has made Tara her own. However,knowing a little about the way casting directors think,I would tend to agree that the first actress was replaced because,let’s face it,she’s prettier than woman playing Sookie,the female lead. This also would have presented a number of problems in the storyline,for instance Jason’s rejection of her advances. Who’s going to turn that woman down? Especially a horndog like Jason!
Posted 16 Nov 2008 at 9:29 pm ¶
erin wrote:
I’ve on;y read 1 of the books and Tara does not exist in the book as far as I know.
Posted 20 Nov 2008 at 6:42 pm ¶