“If You Throw a Punch, You’re One of Us”: The True Blood Round Table for Episode 2

Hosted by Latoya Peterson, featuring Tami Winfrey Harris, Andrea Plaid, and special guest Joseph Lamour

Note: Thea’s on vacation this week, so we added in friend of the blog Joseph Lamour to provide a fourth member of the side eye crew. As always, spoilers ahead. – LDP

Okay, first off – where are the rest of the non white folks in the South? So far, we have Tara, Lafayette, one vamp, the fake healer, a few one scene extras, and now a bouncer.

Tami: True Blood suffers from a case of “Hollywood diversity,” where you throw in a few people of color to give the appearance of diversity, but not “too many,” which might turn off mainstream (read: white) audiences whom you assume to be uncomfortable with “the other” (read: non-white people). This is important even if you are portraying a real place (NYC) or a fictional town in a real place (Bon Temps, La.) where there are, in reality, lots of people of color.

Andrea: I’m guessing that Alan Ball and the other TB creatives figured that they could get away with such a thing because Bon Temps is a fictional place. If we ain’t heard of it, goes the thinking, who’s going to question the racial demographics of the town? (Now, why folks thought that thinking would play in a real-life place like New York City is beyond me, beyond some wish-fulfillment fantasy.) But, to me, Ball and Co. sorta play hide-and-seek with the town’s Black community, specifically: as someone pointed out to me, a larger community was glanced at during a college party in town a couple of seasons back. Also, a Twitter cohort and I, in discussing this very same issue, said another big hint was the church Tara’s mom attended, which my tweetpal said seems to be the church where the elders and the missing Bon Temps Black folks go. Also, the TB creatives forgot one vital clue as to why we even get to ask this question: Tara’s hair. Miss Gurl’s braids are tight every blessed week. She’s getting them done by somebody in that town, amirite?

Joe: At the very least, why isn’t there more diversity in the extras? True Blood does indeed suffer from a white-washed tableau of the modern south, and the most characters of color happen to be related. I bet the bouncer will somehow turn out to be related to Tara and Laffy (a distant cousin, perhaps). Wouldn’t you expect the humans to at least be a little, I don’t know, tan in so southern a place, even if they are white? I mean, Jason works all day in the sun, doesn’t he?

Andrea: Joe, now….that would be too much like right.

Can we talk about Tara for a moment? How does she always manage to sleep with the psychopaths (literally and figuratively)? I know I wasn’t the only one wondering how Tara managed to fight off Maryanne time and time again, yet still fall for this regular ass vampire glamouring….

Tami: My assessment of the Tara/Franklin situation is greatly colored by James Frain’s freaky sexiness. I’m going to enjoy it–weirdness aside. That said, I’d really like Tara to get some normal lovin’ on this show. I think it would be intriguing to re-explore the Sam/Tara relationship. They are both appear to be good people with difficult pasts. The characters/actors have solid chemistry. I doubt this will happen, though. As one of the show’s main male characters, Sam must carry a torch for darling “Sookeh!” like every other heterosexual male in town.

Andrea: Hmmmm…ya know, I ain’t gonna lie. That sex scene with Tara and Franklin? That gets four out of five vibrators from me with a side of “daaaaaaaayuuuuuuuum!” However, when Tara asked Franklin why he wouldn’t bite her and he said “Because you want me to,” my panties dried out real quick and my own inner Lafayette came out with, “Hooker, please!” What was he tryna say? If she didn’t want it, Franklin would’ve happily neck-holed Tara? At that point–and I’m gonna borrow a phrase from our Roundtable homie Thea–Frain’s Franklin became awfully rapey to me. His glamouring Tara in order to get into her and Sookie’s home (and back into her panties, I’m guessing) solidified that. But then, that has always been the ur-text of vampires since the creatures came into pop culture, hasn’t it?

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