“YOU NEED A VAMPIRE IN YOUR LIFE”:
VAMPIRIC HEROES, FEMALE EMPOWERMENT
AND THE MARGINALIZED OTHER
IN HBO’S TRUE BLOOD
by
JOYCE S. NIJHUIS
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature and Culture
at the University of Amsterdam
30 June 2014
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. D.A. Hassler-Forest
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1
CHAPTER
1. BACK TO THE BEGINNING: THE EVER-CHANGING VAMPIRE .............................. 7
1.1 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERARY VAMPIRES ......................................................... 8
1.2 VAMPIRIC CHANGES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ............................................. 14
1.3 TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY VAMPIRE CULTURE ....................................................... 18
2. PARANORMAL ROMANCE: VAMPIRIC HEROES AND OTHER SUPERNATURAL
FRIENDS ............................................................................................................................ 20
2.1 VAMPIRES AS GOTHIC ROMANCE HEROES ............................................................... 21
2.2 A COMBINATION OF GOOD AND EVIL ........................................................................ 22
2.3 NON-VAMPIRIC HEROES ................................................................................................. 28
3. STRONG AND (IN)DEPENDENT: WOMEN AND SEXUALITY ................................. 32
3.1 SOOKIE STACKHOUSE’S IRRESISTIBLE CHARM ...................................................... 33
3.2 STRONG FEMALE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS ......................................................... 36
3.3 STEAMY VAMPIRE SEX ................................................................................................... 39
4. COMING OUT OF THE COFFIN: HOMOSEXUALITY AND RACISM ...................... 44
4.1 VAMPIRES AND HOMOSEXUALITY ............................................................................. 45
4.2 GAYS, LESBIANS AND BISEXUALS ............................................................................. 47
4.3 OTHER VICTIMS OF MARGINALIZATION ................................................................... 51
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 55
WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 57 i INTRODUCTION
Vampires have been around for a long time. We have invited them into our homes and
they have penetrated our lives. After the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula in 1897,
the figure of the vampire became well known to the public. However, the history of the
vampire in English literature goes back a little further. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the word “vampire” made its first appearance in the English language in 1734,
although it was then spelled as “vampyre.” Over the course of the years, the vampire has
taken many different shapes and forms and the figure has changed significantly. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, literature showed vampires developing dangerously
close relationships with humans. Works such as John William Polidori’s The Vampyre,
published in 1819, James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire, published in 1845, and
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, published in 1872, focus on the friendship between
vampires and humans. According to Nina Auerbach, “vampires were not demon lovers or
snarling aliens in the early nineteenth century, but singular friends. In those days it was a
privilege to walk with a vampire” (13). This image of the vampire changed with the arrival of
Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula is not a friend, but a dangerous enemy instead. Stoker’s novel
was—and still is—immensely popular and has had a great influence on the vampire fiction
and film that came after it.
Nowadays, vampires are hot business. The twentieth and twenty-first century have
seen the release of hundreds of novels, movies, television shows, and even musicals that
feature vampires, often in combination with werewolves and other supernatural creatures. A
lot of these are adaptations of Stoker’s Dracula, but the twenty-first century has also seen the
rise of vampire romance novels. Vampires have gone from friend to foe to friend again, and
even lover. Romantic relationships between vampires and humans are a recurrent theme in
1 contemporary vampire fiction, as well as the desire to become a vampire. This was already
evident in Anne Rice’s novel series The Vampire Chronicles, of which the first novel was
released in 1976, but the twenty-first century has taken vampire romance to the next level.
The Twilight Saga, a book series written by Stephenie Meyer, has an enormous fan base that
mostly consists of teenage girls, which became even bigger when the novels were turned into
movies. It centers on seventeen-year-old Bella Swan, who falls in love with the sparkly
vampire Edward Cullen. Furthermore, The Vampire Diaries, a book series written by L.J.
Smith, also features a teenage girl who falls in love with not one, but two vampires, and they
also happen to be brothers. Smith’s novels were later turned into a television show by the
CW. These examples prove that vampires sell, and nowadays it seems like you cannot turn on
the television or walk into a bookstore without coming across a vampire tale.
Most vampire romance novels revolve around a young woman who falls in love with
a vampire or another supernatural creature, sometimes both. She has to face the problems that
come with that, but in the end their love usually conquers all. Instead of being the villain, the
vampiric boyfriends are the heroes of the story, and they save the heroine from many
dangerous situations. However, being in a relationship with a vampire is what usually causes
these dangerous situations. The vampire has to keep himself from attacking the heroine and
drinking her blood, although the heroine sometimes lets him. In contemporary vampire
fiction, women prefer supernatural creatures to humans because they are the one ones who
can give them what they desire. Vampiric boyfriends seem to have it all, because they have
lived longer and have much more experience. They are old-fashioned gentlemen, and are
“more manly than mere men could be or, perhaps, than we would want real men to be”
(Mukherjea, “My Vampire Boyfriend” 14). Vampires are fantasy men, but the need for them
is very real.
2 What these vampire romance novels have in common is that most of them are written
by women. These female-centered narratives often invite the audience to identify strongly
with the heroine. Female empowerment is a big topic in the novels, and the author shows the
reader what women are capable of. Women in vampire fiction have evolved from helpless
victims to strong, fearless companions. There are of course exceptions to this, but a
significant change in female characters can be noticed when comparing nineteenth-century
vampire literature with contemporary vampire literature. Over the years, women have gotten
much more agency and are not so dependent on men anymore. They can defend themselves
and they can make their own decisions. This is especially true for female vampires, who used
to be seen as a threat to male dominancy. In Dracula, for example, female vampires are
overtly sexual and seduce the men with their “voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 175). Dracula
himself does not engage in sexual activities and has control over the female vampires.
Nowadays, male and female vampires are usually treated as equals, and they are both
sexually active.
The Southern Vampire Mysteries—also known as The Sookie Stackhouse Novels—is
another popular book series about vampires. The series was written by Charlaine Harris and
consists of thirteen novels, of which the first one was published in 2001 and the final one in
2013. These novels have served as the inspiration for the television show True Blood, which
will be the main focus of this thesis. The show is produced by the premium cable network
and production company Home Box Office, which will from here on be referred to as HBO.
True Blood revolves around the telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, played by
Anna Paquin, who falls in love with a hundred-and-eighty-year-old vampire named Bill
Compton, played by Stephen Moyer. A striking difference with the rest of the vampire
romance stories is that almost all of the characters in True Blood are consenting adults, and
the show is meant for adults only. Instead of being banned from human society and hiding in
3 the shadows, the vampires in True Blood have “come out of the coffin.” They have made
their existence known to the public and demand equal rights. In order to keep the peace with
the rest of the population, vampires have to survive on a synthetic blood called “Tru Blood.”
Apart from vampires, the show also features other supernatural creatures, such as
werewolves, witches, fairies and shapeshifters. The show takes place in the fictional town of
Bon Temps in Louisiana, and uses this environment in different ways.
What makes True Blood so interesting is its multiplicity. The show uses familiar
elements from the vampire tradition, but it combines them with the sociopolitical context of
twenty-first-century America. Unlike other works of contemporary vampire fiction and film,
True Blood explicitly deals with current societal problems, such as discrimination and
violence against minorities, drug addiction, terrorism, the power of religion, the control of the
media, and the struggle for equal rights. This makes the show an exceptional example of the
relationship between historical moment, sociocultural context, and the genealogy of vampire
fiction and film. However, True Blood is not the first vampire story that displays the
sociopolitical environment of the era it was written in. The figure of the vampire has long
been seen as a stand-in for the fears, desires and problems of society. In her book Our
Vampires, Ourselves, Nina Auerbach investigates the figure of the vampire and demonstrates
that “every age embraces the vampire it needs” (145). She argues that the transformations
that the vampire went through can be connected to changes in society. Auerbach published
her book in 1995, but the popularity of vampires has since then immensely increased.
In this thesis, I will build on Auerbach’s argument and extend it to the twenty-first
century. I will argue that Auerbach’s theory can still be applied today and I will demonstrate
that the modern vampire still serves as a mirror for contemporary society. I will use the HBO
series True Blood as my primary text, because this show overtly exhibits the marginalization
of minorities, as well as the need for heroism and the empowerment of women. In order to
4 find out how the figure of the vampire has changed and which elements of the vampire
tradition have been recycled by True Blood, I will first look at the history of the vampire
figure in English literature and film. I will then analyze vampire-human relationships and the
representation of women and sexuality in True Blood. Furthermore, I will examine how
current societal issues such as homosexuality and racism are represented in True Blood and
what they demonstrate. I will focus on the first six seasons of True Blood that have aired
from 2008 to 2013. Each season consists of twelve one-hour episodes, with the exception of
the sixth season, which only consists of ten episodes. The seventh and final season of the
show will air in the summer of 2014 and will therefore be excluded from this thesis.
In the first chapter, I will trace the genealogy of the vampire in English literature and I
will analyze the changes the figure of the vampire has gone through from the nineteenth
century to the twenty-first century. I will do this in order to find out how True Blood has both
recycled familiar elements from the vampire tradition and contributed novel elements to it. In
the second chapter, I will focus on the figure of the sympathetic vampire and relationships
between vampires and humans in True Blood. I will examine how vampires in True Blood act
as heroes as well as villains and I will analyze what makes them such desirable boyfriends in
the twenty-first century. Furthermore, I will look at heroic qualities in other, non-vampiric
men on the show. In the third chapter, I will examine the representation of women and
sexuality in True Blood. Women are still marginalized in modern-day society and there is a
lack of strong female characters on television. True Blood presents the viewer with a diverse
spectrum of female characters, some of which I will discuss in this chapter.
In the fourth chapter, I will examine the use of vampirism as a metaphor for the
marginalized Other, and I will focus on the depiction of homosexuality and racism in True
Blood. Besides dealing with these issues metaphorically, True Blood features several openly
gay characters and deals with the problems they encounter. The series takes place in the
5 South of the United States, which has had a long history of slavery. Racism is still a big issue
there and this is portrayed in True Blood. In this chapter, I will discuss the explicit and
implicit use of homosexuality as well as racism, and I will discuss several gay and AfricanAmerican characters.
Overall, I will demonstrate what separates True Blood from the rest of modern-day
vampire culture and what makes the show so captivating. By analyzing the representation of
romance and heroism, women and sexuality, and social exclusion in True Blood, I will
demonstrate how the show deals with the difficult relationship between sociopolitical context
and genre tradition. Ultimately, I will argue that True Blood is a sociopolitical hybridization
of two hundred years of vampire fiction and film.
6 BACK TO THE BEGINNING: THE EVER-CHANGING VAMPIRE
When we think of the first literary vampire, our mind usually turns to Dracula. Bram
Stoker’s Dracula surely is the most famous vampire story of all time and has spawned many
adaptations. However, it was not the first English-language tale of vampirism. With the
publication of his novel in 1897, Stoker turned the already existing vampire tradition upside
down. As mentioned in the introduction, pre-Dracula vampires were not scary and vengeful
enemies like Dracula, but rather intimate friends. Through the years, the figure of the vampire
has undergone tremendous change. On this subject, Auerbach writes:
In England (at least until the coming of Dracula), vampires offered an
intimacy that threatened the sanctioned distance of class relationships and the
hallowed authority of husbands and fathers. Vampires before Dracula were
dangerously close friends. When they became charismatic stage performers,
theatrical technology suffused them with a spectral aura, and popular
mythology bestowed on them mystic lunar affinities, safely dissipating the
erotic implications of their intimacy. At the end of the century, Bram Stoker’s
Dracula—animal rather than phantom, mesmerist rather than intimate, tyrant
rather than friend—safely quarantined vampires from their human prey,
foreclosing friendship and opening the door to the power-hungry predators so
congenial to the twentieth century. (6-7)
As Auerbach notes, nineteenth-century vampires lost some of their distinctive traits with the
arrival of Dracula, and gained new ones. What Stoker’s Dracula did at the end of the
nineteenth century, True Blood does today.
To demonstrate True Blood’s combination of familiar elements of the vampire
tradition with new ones, I will examine the history of the vampire in English literature from
the early nineteenth century to the present day. By discussing several works of vampire
fiction, I will demonstrate how the figure of the vampire has changed in those two hundred
years and I will indicate how some of these changes have manifested in True Blood.
7 Nineteenth-Century Literary Vampires
The English public was introduced to the figure of the vampire through John William
Polidori’s short story The Vampyre, which was first published in 1819. Its protagonist, Lord
Ruthven, was based on Polidori’s former employer Lord Byron. According to Auerbach,
“Byron in his most congenial mood modeled for the first literary vampire to captivate the
popular imagination” (13). Byron was known for his extravagant life and his many sexual
escapades with both men and women. Milly Williamson notes that he “had become a figure
of shocking repute” and that rumors of “infidelity, incest, homosexuality and debt dogged
Byron” (36). These issues are reflected in The Vampyre and, like True Blood, this short story
connects the figure of the vampire to problems that society was dealing with at the time it
was written.
The Vampyre revolves around Aubrey, a young Englishman, who befriends the
mysterious Lord Ruthven. They become traveling companions and on one of their travels,
they meet Ianthe, the daughter of their innkeeper. She becomes Aubrey’s love interest, but is
later murdered by a vampire. Afterwards, Aubrey and Ruthven are attacked by a group of
thieves and Ruthven dies. However, when Aubrey returns to London, he sees Ruthven again,
alive and kicking. Ruthven becomes attracted to Aubrey’s sister and they get married. Aubrey
finds out that his friend is not who he thought he was, but it is already too late. On their
wedding night, Aubrey’s sister is found dead, drained of her blood, and Ruthven has
disappeared.
The Vampyre presents the reader with an intimate friendship between a vampire and a
human. This intimacy between vampires and humans is also evident in True Blood, but the
show takes it to the next level by developing vampire-human friendships into romantic
relationships. The show even features “fangbangers”: humans who enjoy vampire sex and
8 allow vampires to drink their blood. However, in The Vampyre, Aubrey did not know that
Lord Ruthven was a vampire when he befriended him, while vampires in True Blood are out
in the open and their vampiric nature is not a secret.
After Polidori’s The Vampyre, it took a while before another vampire story was
published. From 1845 to 1847, a series of “penny dreadfuls” by James Malcolm Rymer came
out, titled Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood. These were weekly installments of a
story that was eventually printed in book form in 1847, consisting of two hundred and
twenty-two chapters over eight hundred pages. The penny dreadfuls were marketed to young,
working class men who wanted to read a sensational tale of adventure. Because the writer got
paid by the word, these stories were often long-winded, repetitive and inconsistent. This is
definitely true for Varney the Vampire.
The story starts off with an attack on a young maiden. Varney enters through Flora
Bannerworth’s window, hypnotizes her and plunges his fangs into her neck. This is now a
familiar image in vampire stories, but Rymer was the one who came up with it. Flora’s
family comes to her aid but Varney manages to escape. A few days later, the family receives
a letter from Sir Francis Varney, who wishes to buy their house. When they meet him, they
realize that he is the one who attacked Flora. They accuse him, but he denies that he is a
vampire. As the story continues, it is sometimes unclear whether Varney is a vampire at all.
Auerbach writes: “Varney is haunting because no one quite knows what he is: a vampire at
midcentury can be many things at once” (21). This multiplicity is also noticeable in True
Blood. For example, vampires in True Blood are not either good or evil, but they are usually a
combination of both.
Varney’s character is complex; on the one hand he is a ruthless killer, but on the other
hand he also shows remorse, and despises his vampiric nature. He is the first example of the
sympathetic vampire: a vampire who is afflicted by his own evil and is presented as a victim.
9 In True Blood, Bill is introduced as a sympathetic vampire because he, like Varney, struggles
with his nature and does not want to harm humans. Nowadays, the sympathetic vampire is a
commonly used trope but it was a novelty in the nineteenth century. Williamson argues that
the novel’s “depiction of the suffering vampire was the one that working-class Victorians
would have been most familiar with, not the monolithic force of evil that Dracula will come
to signify at the end of the century” (21, emphasis original). In Varney the Vampire, the
Bannerworth family slowly begins to empathize with Varney and even protects him from
harm. At the end of the story, Varney feels so remorseful that he throws himself into Mount
Vesuvius. The reader finds out that he was turned into a vampire after he killed his son in a
rage. He has died many times but was always resurrected. Because he cannot be revived after
throwing himself in an active volcano, the story is finally finished.
Varney is not interested in sex but instead goes after the Bannerworth family for their
money. He wishes to acquire status and wants to be accepted. Auerbach states that “Varney’s
friendship, like his audience, is broader than Byronic intimacy; it embraces not a sole chosen
spirit, but an entire society” (28). Unfortunately, that society does not welcome him with
open arms. When the villagers learn of his nature, he is haunted and his house is burned
down. Varney is a social outcast, much like Dracula, and is feared by the people around him.
This is also visible in True Blood. Although the vampires in the show have integrated into
human society, a lot of humans do not want to live alongside them. Like Varney, vampires in
True Blood are outcasts, and are feared by most humans. Only a few accepting humans, like
Sookie, are willing to look past their vampiric nature and take them to their hearts.
In 1871, the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu published his novella Carmilla. The
novella is now considered a canonical masterpiece in vampire literature and its eponymous
protagonist is Carmilla. She is a lesbian vampire who, unlike her predecessors, is interested in
more than just friendship. Auerbach explains:
10 Vampires make draining friends in the nineteenth century, but as we shall see,
only when vampires are women do their friends become literal prey: [female
vampires] leap from homoerotic friendship to homosexual love, but male
vampires refuse to love their food. For most of them, the need to feed on
women is an annoying distraction from their political or metaphysical
concerns. Vampiric hunger is incidental to men who have their most complex
identities as friends. (18)
Carmilla is not only the first female vampire that the English public was introduced to, but
also the first homosexual vampire. She “has all the agency of our male vampires with none of
their erotic ambivalence” (Auerbach 40). True Blood also features homosexual vampires,
which I will discuss in the fourth chapter.
Carmilla is in love with Laura, a young girl who narrates the story. Carmilla and
Laura first meet when Laura is six but Laura thinks it was a dream and does not remember
much of it. Twelve years later, the two meet again and Carmilla is invited to stay with
Laura’s family. They become close friends, but Carmilla remains mysterious. She sleeps
during much of the day and appears to be sleepwalking during the night. Laura has
nightmares of a monstrous cat entering her room at night and biting her chest. She grows
weaker and weaker, while Carmilla only grows stronger. Laura’s father takes her to Karlstein
and they meet General Spielsdorf on the way. He tells them of his niece, who died under
mysterious circumstances after becoming friends with a houseguest named Millarca. The
General says that he caught Mircalla in his niece’s bedroom one night, biting her neck. He
then attempted to kill her but she managed to escape. His niece showed the same symptoms
as Laura and they become suspicious. The General takes them to Millarca’s tomb in
Karlstein, where they are interrupted by Carmilla. The General recognizes her and attacks her
with an axe, but she escapes again. They realize that Millarca and Carmilla are the same
woman and that the names are both anagrams for Countess Mircalla Karnstein. Baron
Voldenburg joins them and takes them to Mircalla’s grave, where they find Carmilla. They
stake her, decapitate her and burn the body, saving Laura as a result.
11 There is a clear homosexual undertone in the novel and the reader is left to wonder
whether Carmilla’s love is requited. Carmilla confesses her love for Laura multiple times but
Laura does not respond. Homosexuality, as well as female sexuality, was a taboo in Victorian
society and Carmilla is “one of the few self-accepting homosexuals in Victorian or any
literature” (Auerbach 41). The male vampires that came before her did enjoy friendships with
men, but never crossed the line to homosexual relationships. Le Fanu’s Carmilla also brings
vampirism dangerously close to home. Carmilla is invited inside Laura’s castle and the two
share an intimacy that had not been seen before at the time. While sexuality was implicit in
nineteenth-century vampire literature, it is very explicit in True Blood. Nearly every vampire
on the show, male and female, heterosexual as well as homosexual, enjoys sexual encounters
with humans and other vampires. I will discuss this further in the third chapter.
After Carmilla, a few other vampire tales were published, again showing a close
relationship between vampires and humans. However, none of them had so much impact on
vampire literature as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which came out in 1897. The novel is written in
epistolary form and starts with Jonathan Harker’s journey to Transylvania, where he meets
Count Dracula. Dracula wants to purchase an estate in England and Jonathan helps him with
the legal papers. Dracula takes Jonathan prisoner in his castle, where Jonathan is attacked by
three female vampires. He finds out that Dracula is a vampire as well and fears for his life.
Fortunately, Jonathan is able to escape Dracula’s castle but he later becomes ill. His fiancée
Mina Murray travels to Transylvania to take care of him, and they get married. When he is
recovered, they return to England, and find out that Dracula has arrived there as well. He has
turned Mina’s friend Lucy Westenra into a vampire and later bites Mina too. With the help of
Professor Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood, they
manage to find Dracula and kill him by driving a stake through his heart and cutting his
throat.
12 The 1890s were a period of great social change in England. Like True Blood, Dracula
exhibits the sociopolitical environment of the time in which it was written. Williamson notes:
“the Victorian age which produced Dracula (and its author) is considered to be one of sexual
repression and the vampire represents the return of the (masculine) repressed” (5).
Furthermore, “the 1890s were a time when male aesthetes and the ‘New Woman’ offered
alternative definitions of what it meant to be male or female. Conflicting discourses
circulated about proper conduct (sexual and otherwise) and gender roles” (Williamson 6).
These conflicts are clearly represented in Dracula. While Carmilla was open about her
homosexuality, the female vampires in Dracula are clearly heterosexual and prey only on
men. Also, active female sexuality is feared and has to be destroyed. Dracula is not sexual
like the female vampires and is, as far as the reader knows, the only male vampire. Auerbach
writes: “turning women into vampires does nothing to mitigate his solitude: his mindless
creations have too little in common with him to be friends” (82). He is thus utterly alone and
a pariah in society. It is perhaps this exclusion from society that makes him want to take
revenge.
Dracula is not a close friend to humans like the vampires that came before him.
Instead, he is an evil enemy from the start and wants to rule over humans. While pre-Dracula
vampires desperately try to fit in and pass as humans, Dracula clearly stands out. According
to Auerbach, “Dracula’s disjunction from earlier, friendlier vampires makes him less a
specter of an undead past than a harbinger of a world to come, a world that is our own” (63).
Humans are only needed for their blood, not for friendship, and vampires are to be feared and
destroyed. Unlike Varney, Dracula is not sympathetic and the audience immediately
identifies him as the villain. Although True Blood features vampires who want to be accepted
by human society, it also portrays vampires who, like Dracula, see themselves as superior to
humans and want to dominate them. I will discuss this further in the second chapter.
13 Vampiric Changes in the Twentieth Century
Dracula has had a tremendous influence on the way vampires were seen in the
twentieth century. A popular vampire archetype that was used in the early twentieth century
is the psychic vampire. Psychic vampires are parasites, and not only drink the victim’s blood,
but also drain them of their energy or life force. They are found in works such as George
Sylvester Viereck’s novel The House of the Vampire, published in 1907, and Fritz Leiber’s
“The Girl with the Hungry Eyes,” published in 1949. The psychic vampire in Viereck’s novel
embodies high culture, while the psychic vampire in Leiber’s work embodies popular culture.
However, in both works, Auerbach says, “psychic vampires are the essence of cherished
social images and beliefs” (104). Nowadays, the term “psychic vampire” does not only refer
to literary vampires, but has come to stand for a person who exhausts the people around him
or her. Psychic vampires wear many different disguises and “their defining characteristic is
familiarity” (Auerbach 102). They infiltrate society and can be anyone around us: men,
women or children. This type of vampire is not represented in True Blood.
Psychic vampires remain visible throughout the twentieth century, but they are not the
only kind of vampire that flourished in that century. With the invention of film came the
opportunity to adapt Stoker’s Dracula for the screen. One of the first movie adaptations was
Tod Browning’s Dracula, which came out in 1931. It stars Bela Lugosi as Dracula and his
Dracula is “the first who bears no monstrous marks: he is fangless, solid and elegantly
human” (Auerbach 113). However, he does stand out in society because of his accent.
Another popular movie adaptation is Terence Fisher’s Horror of Dracula, which was
released in 1958 and stars Christopher Lee as Dracula. In this movie—produced by Hammer
Studios—the sun becomes lethal for the first time in vampire history. Vampires have since
then been slaves to the sun and even the smallest beam of sunlight burns their skin. Auerbach
14 notes that the sun “throws vampires into the pain of physical existence. But at the same time
as the sun aligns vampires with mortals, it limits their access to mortal society” (122).
Although vampires already lived mostly during the night, they are now cursed to stay indoors
during the day. This is also evident in True Blood. Vampires in the show can only go outside
at night, and they will burn if they “meet the sun.”
Vampirism continued to spread widely among twentieth-century popular culture. In
the 1960s, the Hammer movies turned Dracula into a particular archetype: The Vampire. The
Vampire represented the fear of change evident in America in the 1960s and reassured the
public that the future held no surprises. Dracula became a fixed figure and by the end of the
1960s, “like all authorities, he existed to be shattered” (Auerbach 131). The vampires in
1970s renewed themselves and were very different from their antecedents. In the 1970s,
America was in crisis and there were no clear authorities. Vampires filled this void and
became authorities themselves. In True Blood, vampires have to abide by the laws of the
vampire community. Killing another vampire is forbidden, and will be punished. The
vampire community in True Blood is ruled by the Vampire Authority, which oversees the
vampire kings and queens of various districts, and enforces the vampire laws.
Apart from authoritarian vampire tales, the vampire romance also flourished in the
1970s. Feminists in this decade yearned for a sensitive man and this is reflected in the male
protagonist of vampire romance novels. Auerbach says that in the 1970s, “sanctioned male
authorities like husbands and priests take over vampires’ traditional role as rapists, while the
lone loving vampire is a well of tenderness” (136). This vampire was monogamous,
affectionate and cordial, but nonetheless heterosexual. In True Blood, Bill embodies this type
of vampire. Additionally, True Blood features several homosexual vampires, but homosexual
vampires were still nowhere to be seen in the 1970s. In fact, Auerbach states that the “taboos
15 that Stoker institutionalized in the 1890s held for almost a hundred years of vampire fiction”
(153).
When Anne Rice published her novel Interview with the Vampire in 1976, the
homoeroticism that was evident in pre-Dracula vampire literature was finally restored.
Auerbach argues that by breaking this taboo, Rice brings “a special electricity” to the novel,
which gives “its predators a glamour more socially engaged vampires lack” (154). The young
and beautiful vampires in Interview with the Vampire are part of an elite society that has no
clear rules or leader. This lawless and leaderless vampire society is also noticeable in Stephen
King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. However, while Rice’s vampires are nice, King’s vampires are horrible.
Additionally, King’s vampire society is not selective; anyone can become a vampire and join
it. True Blood displays both nice and beautiful vampires like the ones in Rice’s novel, and
horrible vampires like in King’s novel. However, unlike Rice’s and King’s vampire societies,
the vampire society in True Blood does have leaders and laws, although not all vampires
abide by these laws. Also, unlike in ‘Salem’s Lot, the vampire community in True Blood is
selective, because turning a human into a vampire and thus becoming a maker is seen as a
great responsibility.
The 1980s showed yet another kind of vampire. Ronald Reagan became President of
the United States and the country finally had a leader again. However, while both vampires
and humans longed for a leader in the 1970s, vampires did not live a happy life in the 1980s.
As Auerbach states: “the vampires of the 1980s were depressed creatures. Constricted in their
potential, their aspirations, and their effect on mortals, they were closer to death than to
undeath” (165). Like their human victims, vampires in the 1980s desperately clung to the past
because they thought they had no future. The past is also important in True Blood. The
audience is presented with several flashbacks to the vampires’ pasts, and learns what made
them become the way they are now. Besides the vampires’ individual origins, the genealogy
16 of the vampire race is also important. True Blood’s fifth season introduces the character of
Lilith, played by Jessica Clark, who is believed to be the first vampire. Many vampires
believe that God is a vampire and created Lilith in His image. This demonstrates that
vampires in True Blood, like humans, also feel the need for religion, and long for meaning in
their lives.
In the 1980s, vampires lost many of their powers and struggled with vampirism itself.
Vampirism was like a drug addiction they could not beat, and vampire stories were used as
cautionary warnings against drugs. The AIDS epidemic that struck the United States in this
decade also had consequences for vampires. They were already weakened, but now they
became even feebler. Auerbach explains: “once the etiology of AIDS became clear, blood
could no longer be the life; vampirism mutated from hideous appetite to nausea” (175). There
are a few vampires in True Blood who are depressed and struggle with vampirism, but overall
the vampires in the show are not as weak as the vampires in the 1980s. However, in the sixth
season, several vampires are captured by humans and infected with Hepatitis V. This manmade virus weakens vampires and ultimately results in the “true death.” The sixth season
finale features a news report in which it is announced that the Hepatitis V virus has spread
nationwide and scientists have not yet found a cure. This reminds of the AIDS epidemic that
held the country in its grasp in the 1980s. This epidemic was already reflected in the vampire
literature at the time, and is now reused in True Blood.
Vampires retreated back to the shadows in the 1980s and stayed there until it was safe
to come out again. Auerbach published her book in 1995 and did not know how great an
impact vampirism would have on the twenty-first century. She ends Our Vampires, Ourselves
with the statement “vampires need a long restorative sleep. They will awaken; they always
have; as Stoker’s Dracula boasted, time is on their side” (192).
17 Twenty-First Century Vampire Culture
It turns out that Auerbach was right; vampires have reawakened in the 1990s and are
now immensely popular. According to Bernard Beck, “the contemporary version of the
vampire figure is powerfully attractive, first of all to his fictional victims, and secondly to his
many, real, live readers, listeners, and viewers” (90). Novel series such as Stephenie Meyer’s
The Twilight Saga, L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern
Vampire Mysteries have all contributed to the enormous popularity of the vampire in the
twenty-first century and their fan bases are immense. At the novels’ core is a love affair
between a young heroine and a male vampire. Karen Backstein notes that today’s vampire
“has transformed into an alluring combination of danger and sensitivity, a handsome
romantic hero haunted by his lust for blood and his guilt for the humans he killed in the past,”
and argues that the modern vampire story is one “about self-control, about man struggling to
master his worst impulses—perhaps even his essential nature—through whatever means
necessary” (38).
The contemporary vampire is usually a sympathetic vampire and its ancestors are the
pre-Dracula vampires that existed in nineteenth-century vampire literature. Williamson
writes: “the ‘new’ vampire has ties of family and friendship, which locate it problematically
in the realm of the emotions. This is a humanised terrain, which is more ambiguous in its
depiction of good and evil” (31). Many twenty-first century vampires despise their vampire
nature and try to hold on to their humanity. In doing so, they try to survive without hurting
humans. In The Twilight Saga, Edward drinks animal blood, in The Vampire Diaries,
sympathetic vampires get their fix from blood banks, and in The Southern Vampire
Mysteries, a Japanese synthetic blood enables vampires to live among humans without
harming them. Williamson notes:
18 contemporary vampire tales share the themes of personalising and
individualising moral dilemmas; only now the vampire is both innocent
(because it has vampirism unwillingly thrust upon it), simultaneously
glamorous and an outsider, and a victim of circumstances outside of its
control. This vampire can thus be seen to personify dilemmas of the self: how
to have meaning in the world which demands it, how to act in circumstances
we did not choose, how to be a good human. (50)
This search for meaning in a world that demands it is definitely evident in True Blood.
The vampires in the show have exposed themselves to human society in “The Great
Revelation,” and now they want to be heard. They demand equal rights to humans and
desperately try to be accepted into mainstream society. Nan Flanagan, played by Jessica
Tuck, is the president of the American Vampire League and says in the pilot episode: “We’re
citizens. We pay taxes. We deserve basic civil rights, just like everyone else” (“Strange
Love”). This is the basic premise of the show: the vampires’ battle for rights and acceptance
in a society that tries really hard to keep them out. Sookie Stackhouse, the show’s strongminded heroine, does not bear prejudice against the vampire kind, unlike her friends and
family. When Bill Compton walks into the bar she works at, she is not scared like the rest of
the people there, but rather fascinated. Sookie shows kindness and tolerance towards
vampires, while the people around her only show hostility and hatred. This demonstrates the
show’s dominant message of hope for a better world; a world in which minorities are not
discriminated against and people are accepted for who they are.
In this chapter, I have demonstrated what elements of the vampire tradition have been
recycled in True Blood, and what elements have been added. I have shown that True Blood
incorporates vampire archetypes from different eras and lets them co-exist. In the next
chapter, I will discuss the representation of the vampiric hero and the vampiric villain in True
Blood. I will also consider the heroic and villainous qualities of some of the other—
supernatural as well as human—male characters in the show.
19 PARANORMAL ROMANCE:
VAMPIRIC HEROES AND OTHER SUPERNATURAL FRIENDS
As mentioned before, the twenty-first century has seen an astounding rise in romance
novels that present the reader with a vampire in the role of the romantic hero. Their audiences
consist for the most part of women, and the novels are usually written by female authors. The
vampire has transformed from monster to object of desire, and as Beck states, “the monster
movies that began as treats for men and boys were now the province of the female side of
popular amusement. They have become ‘chick flicks’, so they are of doubtful interest to male
audiences” (91). Millions of young women have fallen in love with vampires and favor them
over human men. The desire for vampires also demonstrates what women yearn for in the
twenty-first century. Feminism has brought women independence and agency, and they now
want a man who is able to satisfy their needs. On the other hand, the vampire has flaws that
need fixing, which is an excellent opportunity for the modern-day woman to demonstrate her
ability to improve a man.
While the vampire used to represent those “who do not occupy the normative identity
– white, middle-class, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, and successful” (Williamson 2), the
modern vampire hero embodies exactly that identity. Ananya Murkherjea notes that modern
vampire heroes are usually “sophisticated men who tend to live in mansions and tricked-out
urban lofts and drive fast, shiny vehicles. Such socioeconomic privilege augments their
supreme masculine dominance, along with their physical prowess, fighting skills, chivalrous
manners, and eternal, gorgeous youth” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 14). They have thus come
a long way from where they started. Although they were once social outcasts, vampires in the
twenty-first century have been embraced by society and thrive on popularity.
20 Vampires As Gothic Romance Heroes
Contemporary vampire romances often use Gothic romance conventions and tropes
and are traditionally female-centered. Gothic romances were popular in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth century and often involve mystery and the supernatural. The Gothic
heroine usually has to choose between two male suitors: a charming but boring man, and a
secretive man who is haunted by his past demons. At the end of the Gothic romance novel,
she always chooses the latter. The heroine of the vampire romance displays many of the
characteristics commonly attributed to the Gothic heroine, such as bravery, intelligence and
courage. Like the Gothic heroine, the heroine of the vampire romance falls in love with a
dark, mysterious man, and tries to find out whether he is worthy of her love. Mukherjea says
that “this unknowability is crucial for the Gothic romantic hero, whose true nature and
intentions remain unclear until his heroine alone forgives, tames and reveals him to be a
righteous man” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 112). The Gothic romance usually ends
happily ever after, but the human heroine and vampire hero do not always get their happy
ending.
In True Blood, Sookie has to decide whether Bill is the right man for her. At first, she
is reluctant because she thinks they are too different. She says: “Why on earth would I
continue seeing you?”, to which Bill responds with: “Because you will never find a human
man you can be yourself with” (“Mine”). Bill’s statement touches on the question of what
makes vampires so attractive. The answer lies in the fact that vampires are much stronger and
have much more experience than their human counterparts. Mukherjea writes that vampires
are “simultaneously very much of the past and of the future, but present in the present” and
notes that a vampire can be “a vengeful and protective monster and also a sensitive, evolved
guy and caring boyfriend” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 3-4). She states:
21 Vampire boyfriends are usually expected to wear many, contradictory hats at
the same time, to offer multiple expressions of masculinity at all times. They
must be protective but also nurture the heroine’s independence. As the older,
more experienced partners, they must be wise advisors and somewhat paternal
but not to the extent that this seems untoward or that the heroine feels coerced.
They must be capable of spontaneous and successful acts of violence in order
to protect the heroine but also be extremely gentle by nature. They must be
best friends, eager to talk for hours, but also masterful lovers who, though
always interested and ready, are also in perfect control of their own sexuality
and self-restraint. They are, in short, fantasy men – both very hard and very
soft and fantastically flawless in a way that even very few fictional human
men could possibly be. (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 12)
In the twenty-first century, this is what the heroine desires in her partner, and a human
man cannot give it to her. The vampiric heroes in contemporary popular culture are oldfashioned, romantic gentlemen with good manners, but they also protect the heroine from
harm when she cannot defend herself. They thus make for the perfect boyfriend. J.M. Tyree
calls them “a new combination of undead chum and unnaturally attentive lover, a sort of
guardian angel with fangs” (32). However, their relationship works both ways. Vampires
have always been solitary creatures and they have longed for friendship since the early days
of English-language vampire literature. Nowadays, vampires long for “an end to their
interminable loneliness” (Tyree 37), and this is their main reason for starting a relationship
with a human.
A Combination of Good and Evil
Unfortunately, vampiric heroes do not only have good qualities and their bad sides
still surface from time to time. Bill already warns Sookie in the pilot that “vampires often
turn on those who trust them” (“Strange Love”), because they do not have human values.
Helen T. Bailie says that the vampire’s “real challenge is the internal battle with himself”
22 (144), and also notes that “the vampire’s predatory nature is never completely vanquished”
(146). The heroine usually prevents him from acting out but she is also forced to deal with
the evil side of vampirism. In True Blood, Sookie learns that Bill is not as good as she
thought he was. During the show’s six seasons, their relationship goes through many different
stages and develops from solid to questionable to broken. In the fifth season, Bill struggles
with his identity and wants to find meaning in the world. Torn between wanting to be good
for Sookie and succumbing to his evil vampiric nature, he turns to religion. In the sixth
season, Bill drinks the blood of the first vampire Lilith and becomes an indestructible villain.
This makes him a fallen vampire hero. In the season six finale, Bill tries to redeem himself
and saves the vampires by offering them his magical blood. He tries to make things right with
Sookie and tells her: “I've changed Sookie. I can be trusted again” but Sookie replies with:
“That’s the thing though, even at your best, I could never really trust you” (“Radioactive”).
This distrust is formed early on in the show, especially when Sookie discovers that
Bill spied on her for Sophie-Anne Leclerq—the Vampire Queen of Louisiana—played by
Evan Rachel Wood. In the second season, Sookie becomes aware of the evil that resides in
vampires when her friend Lafayette Reynolds, played by Nelsan Ellis, is locked up in a
basement and tortured by Eric Northman, played by Alexander Skarsgård. In the following
piece of dialogue between her and Bill, she discusses her changed feelings towards the
vampires:
SOOKIE. I used to get so mad when people judged vampires just for being
different. It’s like they were judging me too. I told myself their fear
was nothing but small mindedness. But maybe that’s what I wanted to
believe. ‘Cause the more open my mind gets, the more evil I see.
BILL. Sookie, most of us, vampire, human or otherwise, are capable of both
good and evil, often simultaneously. (“Scratches”)
23 Most vampires in True Blood are never completely good or completely evil. As Bill
says, there is both good and evil in vampires as well as humans, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Although Sookie initially sees Eric as a form of pure evil, she comes to care for him during
the course of the show and they even share intimate encounters. This demonstrates the
influence Sookie has on the men in her life: she improves them. This is also what Mukherjea
sees as the dominant message of vampire romances: “the notion that loving a very good
(young) woman can save even an extremely ‘bad’ man” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 8).
Sookie brings this message across by getting through to Bill and Eric, and succeeds in
making them more caring and more humane.
There are, however, evil vampires in True Blood who cannot be redeemed. Russell
Edgington, played by Denis O’Hare, is the Vampire King of Mississippi. In 900 AD, he
butchered Eric’s family and Eric gets back at him by murdering his lover, Talbot Angelis,
played by Theo Alexander. This makes Russell completely crazy and he wants to take
revenge. In the third season, he goes on a rampage and murders a newscaster on live
television. Leaving behind a trail of destruction, he is eventually destroyed in the fifth season.
According to Bailie, the difference between the evil vampire and the vampire hero is that “the
evil vampire makes a deliberate choice to embrace his darker nature, while the vampire hero
not only struggles against the temptation but will sacrifice himself rather than succumb to it”
(143). This makes the vampire hero a sympathetic vampire.
Evil in True Blood does not only reside in vampires. In fact, in the first season the
main villain is a human. René Lenier, played by Michael Raymond-Jones, has developed a
strong hatred for vampires since their coming-out, and murders people who associate with
them. Mukherjea notes that the show “locates the worst evil in the most mundane characters,”
and says that True Blood slowly reveals “that almost no one is who she or he seems to be”
(“Mad, Bad and Delectable to Know” 110). In the first season, René murders Sookie’s
24 grandmother and targets Sookie as well. He almost kills her in a graveyard but Sookie
manages to save herself by hitting him with a shovel, resulting in his death.
True Blood also shows how cruel humans can be. Vampire blood, commonly known
as “V” in the show, has hallucinogenic properties and enhances the human libido. Because of
this, vampires are attacked and drained of their blood. In the first season, Sookie’s brother
Jason Stackhouse, played by Ryan Kwanten, becomes addicted to V. His girlfriend Amy
Burley, played by Lizzy Caplan, is also a V addict. Together they decide to kidnap the
vampire Eddie Fournier, played by Stephen Root, and use him for his blood. Eddie is a sweet
vampire who lives peacefully among humans and wants to do them no harm. His kindness
confuses Jason, who previously saw vampires as evil creatures. Jason starts to sympathize
with Eddie and wants to free him. However, Amy stakes Eddie before Jason is able to let him
go. His death is truly a sad moment in the show and demonstrates the cruelty of humans.
True Blood uses the figure of the sympathetic vampire in different ways but,
according to Stacey Abbott, “vampires become sympathetic in True Blood, not because they
are struggling against their condition and resisting the thirst … but because they are victims
of prejudice” (34). It is true that the audience sympathizes with the vampires because they are
judged for who they are, but Bill does struggle with his condition. In 1865, Lorena Krasiki,
played by Mariana Klaveno, turned him into a vampire against his will. He had to leave his
wife and children behind, and was forced to participate in killing sprees with Lorena. He
started to resent her and threatened to kill himself if she did not release him. After his release,
he became a more humane and compassionate vampire. He chose to live a solitary life
instead of living in a nest with other vampires, because this kept him more in touch with his
humanity.
When Sookie comes to Bill’s house in the first season, she encounters other vampires
there who, unlike Bill, are malicious and want to suck her blood. Bill explains: “When
25 vampires live in nests, they become more cruel, more vicious. They become laws unto
themselves, whereas vampires such as I, who live alone, are much more likely to hang on to
some semblance of our former humanity” (“Mine”). After Roman Zimojic, played by
Christopher Meloni, orchestrated The Great Revelation and made the existence of vampires
known to the general public, Bill chose to mainstream and integrate into human society.
Within the vampire community, there are mixed attitudes towards mainstreaming. Some
vampires did not want to come out of the coffin at all and think of mainstreamers as traitors.
They see themselves as superior to the human race and want to subjugate humans instead of
co-exist with them. The vampires at Bill’s house are against mainstreaming, which becomes
clear in the following dialogue:
DIANE. Not everyone wants to dress up and play human, Bill.
LIAM. Yeah, not everybody wants to live off that Japanese shit they call
blood, either. As if we could.
BILL. We have to moderate our behavior now that we are out in the open.
MALCOLM. Not everybody thinks it was such a great idea and not everybody
intends to toe the party line. Honey, if we can’t kill people, what’s the
point of being a vampire? (“Mine”)
When Sookie is in danger of being attacked by the vampire Longshadow, Bill comes
to her rescue like a true vampire hero and stakes him. However, this is a serious crime in the
vampire community and Bill has to come before the Vampire Magister of North America,
played by Željko Ivanek. The Magister tells him that the usual sentence for killing a vampire
is “five years in a coffin, chained with silver, during which time your body will waste to
leather and sticks” (“I Don’t Wanna Know”). However, because Bill revealed that
Longshadow had stolen money from Eric and says that he killed Longshadow to protect
Eric’s wealth, the Magister decides that Bill has to make up for the loss of a vampire by
making a new vampire. Bill is then forced to turn the innocent seventeen-year-old Jessica
Hamby, played by Deborah Ann Woll, into a vampire or else they will both be killed. He
26 resents himself for turning her, but Eric’s progeny Pam Swynford De Beaufort, played by
Kristin Bauer van Straten, tells Bill that turning a vampire is “the ultimate gift” and that if
“you’re a maker, you’re a hero” (“To Love Is To Bury”). He adopts a fatherly role as
Jessica’s maker and the two become close. As a new, teenage vampire, Jessica gets herself
into trouble more than once but Bill always saves her. She makes him a more sympathetic
character and even when he embraces his bad side later in the series, she stands by him.
While Bill changes for the worse during the course of the show, Eric changes for the
better. Bill falls off his pedestal and loses his status as vampire hero, but Eric slowly takes up
that role. Eric is the vampire sheriff of Louisiana Area 5 and is more than a thousand years
old. The viewer is introduced to him in the first season, when Bill and Sookie visit his bar
Fangtasia. At first, Eric is evil, ruthless, powerful, sarcastic and intimidating. Sookie hates
him and does not believe there is any good in him. However, it is slowly revealed that Eric
has a great capacity for loyalty and is affectionate towards those he cares about. His progeny
Pam means a lot to him, as well as his maker Godric, played by Allan Hyde. When Godric
decides to “meet the sun” and kill himself in the second season, Eric is heartbroken and says
that he cannot live without him. He falls to his knees and begs Godric to change his mind but
Godric does not want to live as a vampire anymore. He commands Eric to leave and asks
Sookie to look after him.
Sookie makes good on her promise in the fourth season when Eric is cursed by a
witch and loses his memory. Without his past to haunt him, the amnesia brings out Eric’s true
nature: gentle and sweet. He eventually learns of the things he has done, which leads to the
following dialogue between him and Sookie:
ERIC. Did I really do all those terrible things your friend said I did?
SOOKIE. Yes.
ERIC. Then your pain is my fault. Why are you letting me stay with you?
27 SOOKIE. Because there’s more to you. I always knew there was decency in
you. Even when you were a smug sarcastic ass, I still knew it.
ERIC. Whether decency is in me is irrelevant. I’m clearly capable of extreme
cruelty.
SOOKIE. You were, but I wouldn’t be here with you right now, I swear it, if I
didn’t know in my heart you could change. I’ve seen you change and
I like it. I like you. (“Me and the Devil”)
Sookie has seen him transform and likes this new and improved Eric. She develops feelings
for him and they start a sexual relationship, which makes Bill very jealous. According to
Mukherjea, Eric shades “his masculine dominance with feminine sensitivity” and is
transformed “from a man who is simply dominant amongst his peers (minimum
requirements) to someone who also has the potential to be promoted to romantic hero –
although, importantly, still not fully knowable or trustworthy – for Sookie” (“Mad, Bad and
Delectable to Know” 112). When Eric’s memory is restored, Sookie is unsure about her
feelings for him and reveals that she still loves Bill. However, when she is forced to choose
between Eric and Bill in the season four finale, she rejects both of them, saying: “This is the
hardest decision I’ve ever had to make but I know it’s the right one for all of us so please
don’t try to stop me, either of you” (“And When I Die”). In the next two seasons, she seeks
comfort in the other supernatural men in her life.
Non-Vampiric Heroes
Vampires are not the only supernatural creatures that inhabit the world of True Blood.
The show also features werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies, ghosts, witches and a maenad, and
enables some of them to take on the hero role. Alcide Herveaux, played by Joe Manganiello,
is a werewolf and has fancied Sookie from the first time they met. He is a strong, buff and tall
man who would do anything for the people he loves. His sensitivity and contempt for
violence make him stand out in the werewolf community. It is clear that he and Sookie have
28 chemistry and they even share a kiss in season five. Alcide is a brave man and although he is
not as strong as the vampires, his werewolf nature enables him to protect Sookie and keep her
out of trouble for the most part. In final part of the sixth season finale, the show skips ahead
six months and it is revealed that Alcide and Sookie are finally a couple, much to the
disliking of Bill. The following dialogue takes place after Bill finds out that they are together:
BILL. You need a vampire in your life Sookie, more so than anyone else here.
You need protection.
ALCIDE. She’s got me.
BILL. You’re not good enough. You can growl all you want, bright eyes, but it
doesn’t change the truth. [to Sookie] I’m offering you my protection.
SOOKIE. And I appreciate that, but I’m gonna take my chances all the same.
(“Radioactive”)
Bill knows Alcide is no match for him but Sookie does not accept his offer. Instead, she
chooses to face the danger the future has in store for her with Alcide by her side.
Sam Merlotte, played by Sam Trammell, is a shapeshifter and is therefore able to turn
into an animal. He is the owner of Merlotte’s Bar and Grill where Sookie works, which
makes him her boss. Sam has had feelings for Sookie for a long time but she only thinks of
him as a friend. He dislikes vampires and is not happy with Bill and Sookie’s relationship. In
the first season, he wishes for “Buffy or Blade or anyone of those badass vampire killers” to
come to town and kill Bill (“Mine”). He tells Sookie that she does not have a future with a
vampire but she cleverly replies with: “They don’t die, I’ve got nothing but a future with
one” (“Sparks Fly Out”). Sam is as loyal as a dog, which is also happens to be his favorite
animal to turn into. He does not have supernatural strength like vampires or werewolves, but
his shapeshifting ability does come in handy from time to time. For example, in the second
season Sam is able to trick the maenad Maryann Forrester, played by Michelle Forbes, into
believing he is “the God who comes” by turning into a white bull. This results in her
destruction.
29 Mukherjea argues that while “Sam’s charms are sometimes tempting and comforting
for Sookie, … they are insufficient to hold her attention for long” (“Mad, Bad and Delectable
to Know” 118). However, in the sixth season Sookie tells him that part of her always thought
that they would end up together. He says: “You have always known how I felt about you but
you never cared. You kept me waiting in the wings because there was always a more
dangerous guy in the picture” (“Dead Meat”). He hits the nail on the head with that remark
and rejects her because his girlfriend is pregnant. At the end of the season six finale, Sam is
revealed to be the new mayor of Bon Temps and urges the people to find a vampire for
protection. He has changed a lot since the beginning of the show and now sees the good in
vampires. Murkherjea claims “Sam is almost a gothic hero in the landscape of True Blood,
but he functions primarily as a counterpoint to the Gothic vampires” (“Mad, Bad and
Delectable to Know” 119, emphasis original). Although he exhibits bravery, he is not a real
hero.
True Blood also features humans who act heroically. Sookie’s brother Jason
transforms from a vampire hater to a vampire lover. He might not be the smartest person
around, but his good looks and strong, athletic body get him all the girls. Jason is not afraid to
attack the people who hurt his loved ones and demonstrates his bravery multiple times. In
season five, he is part of a rescue mission to save Jessica and Pam, who have been captured
by the Authority. Dressed in black and armed with multiple firearms, he manages to kill all
vampires that stand in his way. In the sixth season, he successfully infiltrates the vampire
camp at which vampires are being studied and tortured in the name of science. Jason has
come a long way from the man he was in the first seasons of the show. He demonstrates
exceptional courage and fortitude and shows that you do not have to be supernatural to be a
hero.
30 In this chapter, I have demonstrated the attractiveness of vampires in the twenty-first
century and I have shown that there is both good and evil in almost all of True Blood’s
characters. I have also demonstrated that the heroes on the show are not always vampires and
that heroism is displayed in the courage of some of the other characters as well. In the next
chapter, I will discuss several female characters that are featured on the show. I will also
reflect on True Blood’s depiction of sexuality, which has been connected to vampires for a
long time.
31 STRONG AND (IN)DEPENDENT: WOMEN AND SEXUALITY
Vampires have had a longstanding but difficult relationship with women. In the early
days of vampire literature, women were portrayed either as helpless victims, unable to defend
themselves against the dangerous monsters that attacked them in the middle of the night, or as
aggressive and voraciously sexual vampires, robbing men of their masculinity. Brave men
were needed to destroy these vampires and women were only passive bystanders. This image
of women has held up for centuries. However, when women were regarded more rights in
society, they also got more agency in vampire tales. Vampire romance novels written by
female novelists are now extremely popular and present the reader with a strong female
protagonist. Backstein defines these novels as “female-centered narratives that strive for
audience identification with the heroine—with her strength, her extraordinary capabilities, her
status as an object of desire, or a combination of all these traits” (38). These qualities make
her irresistible to the male vampire that crosses her path. Their love story revolves around her
acceptance of his nature and her ability to make him a better man and vampire. Also, instead
of the vampire having dominance over the heroine—as is usually the case in other forms of
vampire fiction—in women’s vampire fiction “there is no hierarchy of power where either the
male or female are the dominant figures but instead a partnership based on equality is
formed” (Bailie 142). This is evident in True Blood as well, because Sookie demands to be
treated as an equal.
However, not all female characters in vampire romance narratives are portrayed as
strong as the heroine. Also, although the heroine is determined to fetch for herself, she is
often still dependent on vampires or other supernaturals for protection against evil forces that
put her in danger. This is part of the reason why Backstein states that although they center on
a woman and are “driven largely by female desire and the female voice,” not all vampire
32 narratives “are necessarily feminist” (38). Mukherjea claims that the human heroines of
vampire romances are torn between two ideals. They “want both the approval and security of
performing femininity well and also the augmented independence and options that feminism
has brought many people” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 3).
Women nowadays have to perform many different gender roles and, as Mukherjea
argues, “if the contemporary, heterosexual woman finds herself flummoxed in the face of all
the various roles, often at odds with each other, that she must play – professional, partner,
mother, never-aging vixen, moral leader, etc. – then it only makes sense that her fantasized
mate must also negotiate a highly convoluted personality” (“My Vampire Boyfriend” 11).
This is why Mukherjea claims that the “issue most at stake in these stories … is not the
uneasy instability of changing masculinity but of changing femininity” (“My Vampire
Boyfriend” 15, emphasis original). Because human men are not able to give her what she
wants, the heroine turns to vampires to satisfy her desires.
Sookie Stackhouse’s Irresistible Charm
In the case of True Blood, Sookie is the heroine that turns all the men’s heads. Every
man around her is enchanted by her looks, charms and smell. She has had a troubled past and
lost both of her parents when she was young. Sookie is irresistible and intoxicating to
vampires because—as is revealed in the third season—she is part fairy. This makes her
vulnerable because a lot of vampires want to suck her blood. Pam tells her: “With what you
are, faerie princess, you need to be somebody’s or you won’t be at all” (“You Smell Like
Dinner”). When Bill tells her what she is, she is not happy about it and says: “I’m a fairy?
How fucking lame!” (“I Smell A Rat”). Her fairy nature allows her to hear people’s thoughts,
but this is usually a burden to her. Apart from that, Sookie is able to zap people with her fairy
33 light. Like the vampires, her abilities make her an outcast in the small town community of
Bon Temps. According to Boyer,
Sookie is situated within the monstrous framework in the series; she threatens
to cross the border between normal and abnormal by her sheer existence. The
town folk are fearful of her and known to think (if not verbally admit) that she
is a freak; Sookie has resigned herself at the beginning of the series to a life of
loneliness because of her ‘ability’. (32)
Sookie is not afraid to speak her mind and, as Bill says in the first season, “Sookie
doesn’t take kindly to people making decisions for her” (“Cold Ground”). This leads to a lot
of confrontation between her and the rest of the characters. She is sometimes torn between her
human side and her fairy side, which is something Eric notices in the following dialogue from
the fourth season:
ERIC. There are two Sookie Stackhouses. One who still clings to the idea that
she’s merely human and the other who’s coming to grips with the fact
that you are better than that.
SOOKIE. And what do you think’s gonna happen when I do come to grips
with it? Do you think my legs are just gonna magically open for you?
ERIC. Well, that was saucy. Must have been fairy Sookie talking. I like when
she comes out.
SOOKIE. And I’m already sorry I said it.
ERIC. Don’t be. The more you let her speak for you, the more likely you are
to go on living. And you want to live, don’t you?
(“You Smell Like Dinner”)
During the course of the show, Sookie embraces her fairy nature, but she sometimes longs for
an ordinary life as a human.
When Bill walks into Merlotte’s for the first time, Sookie is intrigued and says that she
has “been waiting for this to happen ever since they came out of the coffin two years ago”
(“Strange Love”). She is surprised to find out that she cannot hear his thoughts because he is
dead inside and has no brainwaves. It is like a breath of fresh air to her, and this is part of the
34 reason why she is so attracted to Bill. Because she associates with vampires, speaks her mind
and can hear other’s thoughts, she does not fulfill the gender expectations that society has set
out for her. Her friends and family are less accepting towards vampires and judge her for
consorting with Bill. They think she will get herself into trouble and make no attempt to hide
their displeasures. Tara Thornton, played by Rutina Wesley, has been Sookie’s best friend
since childhood and thinks it is just “trouble looking for a place to happen” (“Strange Love”).
Despite her loved ones’ objections, Sookie pursues a relationship with Bill. However, because
of their differences, they fight a lot. For example, after Sookie takes Jessica to see her family
in the second season, Bill is angry with her and she steps out of the car. Although their
relationship is explosive, they truly love each other and most of the times they make up. But
in the end, as it turns out in the sixth season, they are too different. Despite the fact that
loving Bill is in her blood because he was her “first everything” (“Who Are You, Really?”),
she does not want to be with him anymore. She even stakes him to save Eric in the sixth
season, but he does not meet the true death because drinking Lilith’s blood made him
invincible.
During the course of the show, Bill and the other supernatural men on the show have
to rescue Sookie multiple times. However, in the pilot episode it is Sookie who saves Bill.
When Bill is captured by Mack and Denise Rattray and drained of his blood, she attacks them
with a chain, which magically wraps around Mack’s neck, and scares them off. After she has
removed the silver chains that kept Bill down, she says: “I reckon you’re not too happy about
being rescued by a woman” (“Strange Love”). This highlights the sexism and gender
stereotypes that still exist in our modern-day society. Bill saves Sookie in return when the
Rattrays take revenge on her and almost beat her to death. He kills them and heals Sookie by
feeding her his blood. This creates a strong connection between him and Sookie. In spite of
needing protection, Sookie does not want it. She wants to be able to fend for herself and says:
35 “wanting to be protected makes me feel like the helpless little girl I used to be all over again”
(“Plaisir D’Amour”). Sookie shows more of her bravery when she, together with Tara and
their colleague Holly Cleary, played by Lauren Bowles, rescues both Bill and Eric from the
evil witch Marnie who has taken control of Lafayette’s body in the fourth season finale.
Sookie is thus able to return the favor and shows that she is not always dependent on the men
in her life to get her out of trouble.
Strong Female Supporting Characters
Like Sookie, Tara is also an outspoken character on True Blood. She cynical, blunt,
has a foul mouth and cannot keep a job because of it. When a customer at Sav-A-Bunch says
to her: “You are a very rude woman,” she responds with “Oh, this ain’t rude, this is uppity!”
(“Strange Love”). She quits her job and asks Sam for a job at Merlotte’s. He is reluctant at
first, saying “It would only be a matter of time ‘fore you went off on somebody. I don’t
wanna drive my customers away” (“Strange Love”). However, he decides to give her a
chance and makes her a bartender. Tara is Lafayette’s cousin and has not had a happy
childhood. Her mother is an alcoholic and has both physically and mentally abused her. As a
result, Tara was forced to take care of her mother instead of the other way around. This is part
of the reason why she is so bitter. She has a hard time trusting people but is very protective of
her loved ones. In the second season, Tara is put under the spell of the maenad Maryann and
is not in control of herself anymore. She falls in love with Benedict “Eggs” Talley, played by
Mehcad Brooks, but when he is accidentally killed by Jason, she is heartbroken and becomes
depressed. She tries to kill herself, but luckily Lafayette saves her on time, telling her: “Life
ain’t not having problems, Tara! It’s about being able to deal with the ones you got”
(“Beautifully Broken).
36 Life throws more problems in her way but Tara manages to solve most of them by
herself. For example, in the third season the vampire Franklin Mott, played by James Frain,
becomes obsessed with her and kidnaps her. He wants her to become his vampire bride but
she bashes his skull in with a mace and escapes. In the fourth season, Sookie is in danger of
getting shot by a werewolf and Tara jumps in front of the gun to save her. She is shot in the
back of her head and dies. When Pam unexpectedly shows up at the house, Sookie asks her to
turn Tara into a vampire, to which she reluctantly agrees. At first, Tara hates being a vampire
but she gradually comes to accept her nature. As a vampire, Tara is stronger than ever and is
more in touch with herself and her sexuality. She even develops romantic feelings for Pam
and they share a kiss in the fifth season finale. However, Pam is too hung up on Eric to give
the relationship a real shot.
Jessica is another female vampire that is featured on the show. As a human, she grew
up in a Christian family and was homeschooled. She lived a sheltered life and suffered from
physical abuse by her father. When Bill turns her into a vampire at seventeen, she thinks she
can finally do what she wants because there are “no more rules” (“To Love Is to Bury”). As a
result, Bill has a hard time controlling her. He goes to Fangtasia and asks Eric for help but
Eric only wants to give it to him in exchange for Sookie. Of course, Bill does not accept his
offer and so he is forced to deal with Jessica by himself. The following dialogue demonstrates
Jessica’s disobedience:
BILL. She won’t listen to me! It will take more time than I have to teach her
obedience.
JESSICA. I don’t obey anybody! Those days are over.
ERIC. Can't handle one little girl, Bill? New ones can be like this. Man up, my
friend. She’s not even one night old.
BILL. That is not the issue!
ERIC. [to Jessica] You want to stay with you maker, don’t you?
JESSICA. No, he’s a dick! Dick, dick, dick. [to Eric] You’re cute. Can I sit in
your lap?
ERIC. No.
37 JESSICA. Why? Nobody lets me have any fun. Fuckers!
ERIC. Sit down and shut up! Close the door. [to Bill] See, you have to be
tough with them or they’ll walk all over you. (“To Love Is to Bury”)
In the beginning, Jessica dislikes Bill because he does not let her do what she wants.
She blames him for suppressing her vampire instincts. She says: “I want to kill people. I’m so
hungry and all you do is talk, and I’m starving. You’re so mean! You're supposed to take care
of me. That’s what you said. And oh, you suck! [laughs] That’s funny because you do suck”
(“To Love Is to Bury”). However, as she matures as a vampire, she learns to appreciate him
and accepts him as a father figure. She falls in love with Hoyt Fortenberry, played by Jim
Parrack, and the two start a relationship. When Jessica starts to embrace her vampire nature
and the instincts that come with it, she is unable to maintain a monogamous relationship and
they break up. As the show progresses, Jessica transforms from an innocent teenage girl into a
strong woman.
Eric’s progeny Pam is a sassy vampire who, according to Eric, is “extremely lazy, but
loyal” (“Scratches”). She is often portrayed as cold and heartless, but the audience finds out
that she cares deeply for Eric. She is sarcastic and witty and not afraid to insult people. Pam
does not support mainstreaming and believes vampires are superior to humans. Flashbacks to
her human life show that she ran a brothel in 1905. When one of her customers attacked her,
Eric saved her and revealed to her that he was a vampire. She begged him to turn her into a
vampire, but he refused because of the huge responsibility being a maker brings. Because she
was so desperate, she slit her wrists and thereby forced Eric to turn her. Afterwards, they
traveled the world together and formed an extremely close bond.
Pam is very protective of Eric and dislikes Sookie. In the fourth season finale, she
says: “I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name!
Fuck Sookie!” (“And When I Die”). Earlier in the same season, Sookie asks her to get Eric to
leave her alone but she refuses. She responds with: “Did I miss something? Are we girls now?
38 Did we join a book club and read some queer chick lit memoirs and are bound together by
estrogen or sisterhood or some other feminist drivel?” (“You Smell Like Dinner”). Here, she
makes fun of feminism and the idea that women have to stick together. When she becomes a
maker herself, she changes for the better. Fortunately, she has not lost her wit, telling Tara:
“Just because we drank a bitch together does not make us Oprah and Gayle. Get the fuck back
to work” (“Everybody Wants to Rule the World”). She develops romantic feelings for Tara,
but does not give into them.
Steamy Vampire Sex
The connection between vampirism and sexuality has existed for many years.
Although nineteenth-century vampire literature does not necessarily portray the vampire as a
sexual creature, the penetration of the skin is often seen as a sexual act. Richard Dyer
explains:
The vampire characteristically sinks his/her teeth into the neck of his/her
victim and sucks the blood out. You don’t have to read this as a sexual image,
but an awful lot suggests that you should. Even when the writing does not seem
to emphasise the sexual, the act itself is so like a sexual act that it seems almost
perverse not to see it as one. (54)
Stephen Moyer, who plays vampire Bill, has stated that he sees the act of biting as “a devirginization—breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And
there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So
that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive” (qtd. in Grigoriadis). According to
Mary Y. Hallab, “the unconsciously sexual vampire appeals to our unconscious sexual urges
or anxieties” (2). While Dracula frightened people instead of arousing them, contemporary
vampires appeal to our deepest sexual desires. Nowadays, vampire tales are full of crazy sex.
39 Vampire sex is preferred to human sex because it is more intense, lasts longer and is full of
passion. In contemporary vampire romance novels, Bailie writes,
the sexual act is described as sensual, unrestrained, adventurous, not bound by
society’s mores, and the couple’s mutual desire frees the heroine from any
inhibitions she may have. Under the vampire’s tutelage (the heroine is often a
virgin or has limited experience), the heroine discovers her own sexuality and
sexual preferences, from the more conventional—though with vampires, sex is
never entirely conventional—to the outright erotic. (145)
HBO is known to fill its shows with explicit sex scenes, and True Blood is definitely
no exception. There are many heated sexual scenes and several characters enjoy the pleasures
of vampire sex. Brigid Cherry states that the show “clearly celebrates difference, particularly
through its representations of sexuality. In fact, True Blood has a reputation for its levels of
explicit sex and nudity” (9). In an interview with Rolling Stone, the show’s creator Alan Ball
said: “to me, vampires are sex, I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence” (qtd. in
Grigoriadis). However, vampires are not the only ones who are sexually active in True Blood.
Practically every character on the show, supernatural as well as human, is featured in a sex
scene, some of which are quite disturbing. Vampire sex is often depicted as violent and rough
in True Blood. When Sookie tries to find Bill, she goes to see Eric but interrupts him in the
middle of a sexual encounter with another vampire. However, Eric does not stop what he is
doing and Sookie asks him:
SOOKIE. Where were you tonight around eleven o’clock?
ERIC. Here, with Yvetta.
SOOKIE. Doing this? For the last six hours?
ERIC. You seem surprised. Is Bill’s stamina not up to snuff? (“Bad Blood”)
This demonstrates the exceptional endurance that vampires are portrayed to have when it
comes to sex.
40 Sookie and Bill engage in a sexual relationship early on in the show. Before she met
Bill, Sookie was a virgin. This becomes clear when she has an erotic dream about Bill, in
which she tells him:
I’ve never been with a man intimately, for all the reasons I told you about. But
I feel things when I’m with you that make me think, and I know this could be a
huge mistake, one I will regret forever, but it feels like you’re the one that I’m
supposed to, you know, do it with. And I’m really nervous about that and
frankly I’m scared to death of you. So can we just get it out of the way already
so I can relax and get a good night’s sleep? (“Mine”)
After René has killed Sookie’s grandmother Adele Stackhouse, played by Lois Smith, Sookie
is inconsolable and brokenhearted. She is numbed by the tragedy and demands to be alone.
Struck with grief, she seeks comfort in Bill. In a long, virginal white dress, Sookie runs to
Bill’s house where they make passionate love for the first time. During their sexual encounter,
Sookie also allows Bill to penetrate her with his teeth and drink her blood, which results in an
even stronger connection between them.
Boyer claims that “Sookie is immediately seen as perverse, both in her attraction for
Bill and vampires and in her expression of sexuality to Bill” (34). At first, Sookie is unsure
about her performance in bed and asks Bill about it in the following dialogue:
SOOKIE. Please tell me if I’m doing something wrong.
BILL. There’s nothing more natural than the act of making love. Who am I to
try to change what comes naturally to you.
SOOKIE. But if you could change something...
BILL. I wouldn’t change a thing. (“The Fourth Man in the Fire”)
Bill allows her to express her sexuality, and Sookie finally unleashes the sexual feelings that
she has kept inside for so long. After their relationship is over, she continues on her sexual
awakening and enjoys sexual intercourse with other men, including Eric.
41 Sookie is not the only virgin in True Blood. Because of her overprotected upbringing,
Jessica did not have the chance to lose her virginity before she became a vampire. As it turns
out, Hoyt is also a virgin. They discuss this in the following dialogue:
JESSICA. I’d have totally been a slut if I coulda gotten away with it. Me and
my friend, Lori, we had this bet since eighth grade over who’d lose it
first and she was like pregnant before I even got my first kiss and my
dad was such a dick head. So what’s your excuse?
HOYT. I was gonna wait, you know, till I met the right one. Well the right one
never showed up. By then I had waited so long, I figured I couldn’t
give it away to just anybody. So now I’m twenty-eight, most girls
probably think I’m like some kinda bisexual gay or somethin’. Not
that I got any kind of problem with them. But I’m not.
JESSICA. I’m not most girls. I’m not even a girl, technically. But if you’re
okay with it, I’d be your first. (“Release Me”)
After they have had sex, Jessica finds out that her hymen has regenerated because she is a
vampire. This upsets her, but Hoyt tries to comfort her by saying that every time will be like
their first time. However, Jessica responds with “It’ll hurt like hell! I’m a fucking deformity
of nature. I’m gonna be a virgin forever!” (“Release Me”). As the show progresses and
Jessica matures, she accepts her fate and gets more in touch with her sexuality. Apart from
Hoyt, she also has sex with Jason. However, none of it is as good as the sex she has with
another vampire, James, played by Luke Grimes. This indicates that vampire sex is the holy
grail of coitus in the twenty-first century.
The women that I have discussed in this chapter are strong, empowered, and have
more agency than some of the other female characters in the show. They speak their mind and
are allowed to explore their sexuality. Unlike other contemporary heroines—in True Blood
and in other forms of popular culture—they are not held back by gender expectations and
transgress the gender borders that society has set out for them. Even in the twenty-first
century, women struggle with being heard in society, and this is reflected in True Blood.
There is still a lack of strong female characters in popular culture, but True Blood shows that
42 it is possible to have a strong female lead and strong female supporting characters. However,
sometimes the women in the show are still dependent on men to rescue them in times of need.
In the next chapter, I will turn to True Blood’s portrayal of several twenty-first-century
sociopolitical issues. I will give special attention to the show’s representation of
homosexuality and racism.
43 COMING OUT OF THE COFFIN: HOMOSEXUALITY AND RACISM
Vampires have long been seen as a metaphor for current societal issues. Beck says
that they are “a guide to understanding what, at a given moment, most scares us as the
proprietors of a social enterprise” (92). They are said to represent our deepest desires and
fears and are depictions of the alien in our midst. Williamson notes:
The vampire is a voraciously sexual woman, and a hyper-sexual African, a
hypnotic Jewish invader, an effeminate or homosexual man. The vampires of
the west exist to frighten us into acquiescence, to reassert patriarchy, racial
superiority, family values and chaste heterosexuality. We have long been
urged to exorcise the vampire from our imaginations, or, at least, not to get
carried away with it. (1)
The figure of the vampire has come to stand for the outsider in society and often represents
the marginalized Other. Boyer argues that “the popularity and self-identification of the
vampire has endured to help us explore our fear of difference and otherness,” and says that
“the vampire represents those of us who defy definition or exist within multiple categories,
such as those who identify as mixed race or bisexual” (25). Hallab claims that “vampires like
Dracula allowed nineteenth-century writers and readers to explore (supposedly) forbidden
topics while pretending to be frightened, but modern audiences certainly have no such need”
(3). However, the cultural symbolism that is still evident in vampire stories these days tells us
otherwise.
True Blood stands out in contemporary vampire culture because it portrays the
present-day sociopolitical environment both implicitly and explicitly. The show is a proxy for
several societal issues, of which the marginalization of minorities such as homosexuals and
African-Americans is the most prominent. In this chapter, I will take a closer look at the
representation of the marginalized Other in True Blood.
44 Vampires and Homosexuality
Vampirism has been associated with homosexuality and queerness because, like a
homosexual or queer person, the vampire does not conform to the norm and often has to hide
his or her true nature. In most vampire stories, the vampire’s nature is secret and only slowly
discovered. Vampirism is also linked to homosexuality in the fact that you often cannot see if
someone is a vampire or homosexual, but it is widely believed that there are signs that can
tell you if someone is. According to Dyer, “the ideas of privacy and secrecy … suggest the
idea of a double life – s/he looks normal, but underneath s/he’s a vampire/queer” (60).
Homosexuality has been repressed in society for a long time and because vampires are
symbols of the repressed, it is not hard to draw connections between the two. However,
although homosexuality has metaphorically appeared in vampire stories since the very
beginning, openly gay vampires have not often been featured.
True Blood draws obvious parallels between vampires and homosexuality. Tyree
claims the show “positions itself as a loose but obvious allegory about the mainstream
acceptance of so-called ‘alternative lifestyles’—it’s about tolerance and integration of many
kinds, using the vitriolic American debate over gay marriage as a touchstone, while linking it
with the Southern reaction against civil rights” (32). Darren Elliott-Smith also sees the show
as a metaphor for homosexuality and notes that “like many contemporary gay men within
Western society, … the vampires of True Blood are simultaneously tolerated and yet
intolerable” (139). True Blood presents itself as a society that is rid of homophobia and
racism, yet it still represents these issues through the vampires.
The references to homosexuality are clear from the beginning. True Blood’s title
sequence contains various images of violence, sex and religion and explores themes of
forgiveness and redemption. It also features a “God hates fangs” sign, which is a distinct
45 reference to the “God hates fags” banners often employed by the Westboro Baptist Church
against homosexuality. Also, vampires in True Blood have “come out of the coffin,” which is
a play on the “come out of the closet” expression that is used to refer to people who announce
that they are gay. In the first season finale, it is announced that Vermont became the first state
to legalize vampire-human marriages, which echoes the legalization of gay marriages.
Furthermore, HBO has released a series of commercials that have aired on the channel in
addition to the show. One of these is a commercial against the Vampire Rights Amendment
and features people who speak out against vampires. Vampires are called “unnatural” and
one woman fears that children see their lifestyle and might want to imitate it.
However, despite the visible references to homosexuality on the show, True Blood’s
creator Alan Ball has said that he has “a hard time seeing the vampires as a metaphor for gays
and lesbians, just because the vampires on our show are, for the most part, vicious murderers
and predators” (qtd. in Grigoriadis). It is true that the show retains the stereotypical evil
vampire, but it also features sympathetic vampires that struggle with their nature and are
discriminated against. It is therefore hard to believe that Ball did not intend to draw
connections to homosexuality.
True Blood does not only metaphorically represent homosexuality, but it also overtly
addresses these issues by presenting the viewer with several gay characters—vampires as
well as humans. Therefore, according to Frederick Dhaenens, “True Blood both celebrates
and empowers queer subject positions and denounces certain queer practices in favor of
homonormativity” (111), which “offers the opportunity to approach sexuality and sexual
identity politics from a plenitude of perspectives not yet imagined in screened fantasy” (112).
The show not only contains references to homosexuality, but also to racism. The Vampire
Rights Amendment that will give vampires equal rights to humans echoes the AfricanAmerican struggle for civil rights in the South after the end of slavery. Nicole Rabin argues
46 that “True Blood’s presentation of a multicultural society works to undercut the prevalence of
racial injustice that still exists in mainstream American society” (66). Besides featuring gay
characters, the show also offers its audience strong African-American characters and
sometimes it even combines the two into one character.
Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals
Lafayette is homosexual as well as African-American and therefore represents the
otherness in both sexuality and race. Dhaenens writes: “As a stereotypical gay masculinity
contrasts with a stereotypical black masculinity, Lafayette’s embodiment of both unsettles
and deconstructs the binary and essentialist perspective on racial, gender, and sexual identity”
(107). He is flamboyant and transgresses the boundaries of gender in the way he acts and
dresses. As a male prostitute, porn site host, drug dealer, short-order cook, and medium,
Lafayette exists in multiple categories. Boyer argues that although he is not a vampire, he
“occupies the border between a human and a ‘monster’ who deals in the world of vampires as
a job, and a sexual and racial ‘monster’ that has historically and currently been a social
outcast, often ‘captured’ and ‘annihilated’” (35).
Lafayette has embraced his sexuality and actively fights against gay prejudice. In the
first season, a group of customers at Merlotte’s refuses to eat his food because they say it will
give them AIDS. The following dialogue occurs:
LAFAYETTE. ‘Scuse me, who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?
ROYCE. I ordered the hamburger deluxe.
LAFAYETTE. In this restaurant a hamburger deluxe come with frimp fries,
lettuce, tomato, mayo, and AIDS! Do anybody got a problem with that?
ROYCE. Yeah! I’m an American, and I got a say in who makes my food!
LAFAYETTE. Well baby it’s too late for that. Faggots been breeding your
cows, raising your chickens, even brewing your beer long before I
47 walked my sexy ass up in this motherfucker. Everything on your
goddamn table got AIDS.
ROYCE. You still ain’t making me eat no AIDS burger.
LAFAYETTE. Well all you gotta do is say ‘hold the aids.’ [licks the
hamburger bun] Here, eat it. [throws the bun in Royce’s face and
punches him] Bitch you come in my house, you gonna eat my food the
way I fucking make it! Do you understand me? [picks up the plate and
dumps it in Royce’s lap] Tip your waitress. (“Sparks Fly Out”)
He acts heroically in this scene and shows that he does not let anyone judge him for who he
is. However, Lafayette is not always the hero and is also presented as a victim. In the second
season, he is kidnapped and tortured by Eric for selling V. In the basement of Fangtasia, Eric
cuffs him to a giant wheel with other vampire offenders and lets him suffer for his crimes.
His own mother Ruby Jean Reynolds, played by Alfre Woodard, does not accept his
homosexuality. She is mentally ill and when Lafayette visits her in the hospital in the third
season, her caretaker is surprised to see him. He says to her: “You told me your son passed
away,” to which Ruby Jean responds with “He did. God killed him because he’s a fag but he
keeps coming back” (“Beautifully Broken”). This demonstrates the problematic relationship
between religion and homosexuality and the challenges Lafayette faces because of it.
Eddie is the first gay vampire that is presented in the show. He became a vampire to
attract men, but he is not able to glamour them and thus lives a solitary life, spending his time
by watching television in his house. He gives Lafayette his blood in exchange for sex and
believes Lafayette genuinely cares for him. He is exploited for his blood by Jason and Amy
and this further portrays him as a gay victim. Eddie is one of the most sympathetic characters
on the show and when he is killed, Tyree says, “True Blood manages to broach an unusual
kind of horror, that inflicted on and not by vampires” (34). This horror is continually shown
during the course of the show.
Not all gay vampires on True Blood are friendly like Eddie. Russell is the main villain
in the third and fifth season of the show. He is more than 3,000 years old and although he
48 looks charming at first, he is revealed to be manipulative and deceitful. He is not a supporter
of the mainstream movement and believes that vampires are the superior race. After Eric
shares a sexual encounter with Russell’s lifelong partner Talbot, he stakes him from behind,
resulting in the “true death.” Russell is overwhelmed by grief and goes insane. He rips the
spine out of a news anchor on live television and delivers a speech in which he claims that
vampires are narcissists and only care about drinking human blood. He believes that
vampires are superior to humans and says: “Why would we seek equal rights? You are not
our equals. We will eat you, after we eat your children” (“Everything Is Broken”). Russell’s
actions lead to anti-vampire sentiments and hate crimes across the United States and put back
the vampire cause many years. According to Elliott-Smith, “The trajectory of Russell
Edgington from materialistic aesthete to crazed homme-fatale perpetuates the cliché of a
psychotic, murderous gay love” (149). With Eddie and Russell, the show retains “the
stereotypical treatment of associating homosexuality with victims, villains, and nonhuman
others” (Dhaenens 113). Luckily, the show also manages to present characters that are less
stereotypical.
Steve Newlin, played by Michael McMillan, is extremely anti-vampire as a human,
but completely turns around when he is turned into a vampire. His family was murdered by
vampires, which caused his hatred for the vampire race. He was the leader of the Fellowship
of the Sun, a political anti-vampire church, and openly demonized vampires. Steve wanted to
destroy all vampires and started a camp that prepared its participants for a war between
vampires and humans. Jason was one of the camp participants and the two were close friends
before Jason slept with his wife. It is later revealed that Steve was a closeted homosexual as a
human, but he embraces his homosexuality when he becomes a vampire. As a vampire, he
kidnaps Jason and tells him:
49 I did not care so much that you slept with Sarah, what hurt me was that she
got to sleep with you. But even before that, the whole time you were at camp,
all of these feelings were building up inside of me. I couldn’t admit to it, not
even to myself. And I think that that’s why I started acting the way that I did,
all murderous and whatnot. But now that I have been blessed with the gift of
immortality, I finally have the strength to say it. I’m a gay vampire American.
And I love you, Jason Stackhouse. (“Turn! Turn! Turn!”)
Vampirism has allowed Steve to accept his true nature and he has finally found a community
in which he feels at home. Because Jason does not return his love, he moves on. He finds
love in Russell and is grief-stricken after his death.
True Blood portrays a lesbian vampire in the figure of Queen Sophie-Anne, who says
that she has not “enjoyed sex with men since the Eisenhower administration” (“Frenzy”).
Hadley Hale, played by Lindsey Haun, is her female human lover and she is also Sookie’s
cousin. The audience first meets Sophie-Anne when she is drinking blood from Hadley’s
inner thigh. This reminds of oral sex and is portrayed as enjoyable for both Sophie-Anne and
Hadley. When Bill catches her in the act and turns down the offer to join her, Sophie-Anne
says: “What gives you the right to say no to the femoral blood of a good human woman? You
know what your problem is, William? You’re a snob. I hate snobs. I also hate tiny, tiny
souls... or penises” (“Frenzy”). According to Williamson, the figure of the lesbian vampire
has a history of articulating the marginal self. She says that it “has produced male-centered
titillation movies and genuine pathos, it has provided an alternative image of romantic female
eroticism and it has been used to censure friendships between women” (34, emphasis
original). Sophie-Anne is not as malicious as other vampire monarchs like Russell, and does
not bear resentment against humans. As a lesbian holding a high position in the vampire
community, she threatens the patriarchal society.
Pam is a bisexual vampire and therefore exists within multiple categories. In the first
season she performs a sexual act on a female dancer at Fangtasia, which leads the audience to
think that she is a lesbian. Pam makes lesbian remarks to other female characters, like
50 Sookie. In the third season, Sookie arrives at Fangtasia in a lavender dress. Pam says: “Now,
I don’t remember telling you that lavender was my favorite color,” to which Sookie responds
with: “I’m in no mood for lesbian weirdness tonight, Pam” (“Bad Blood”). However,
flashbacks show that she and Eric have been in a relationship together and they are still very
close. Her connection with Eric also prevents her from pursuing a relationship with Tara. In
the sixth season premiere, Pam is jealous of Eric’s “sister” Nora Gainesborough, played by
Lucy Griffiths, because she is closer to Eric than she is. Tara says: “You know, love doesn’t
have to be a competition between you and everybody else” (“Who Are You, Really?”). This
also applies to the relationship between Pam and Tara.
Other Victims of Marginalization
As an African-American, bisexual vampire, Tara gets the award for representing the
most minorities on the show. She is painfully aware of this and fights the racial stereotypes
that still exist in contemporary society, especially in the South of the United States. Victoria
Amador notes that “Tara often uses the race card in the series and this functions as both a
reminder of Southern racism as well as a character trait revealing her vulnerabilities and her
knowing humour” (128). In the scene in which the audience is introduced to Tara, she uses
racial stereotypes to scare her boss. The following dialogue takes place:
TARA. [slaps manager] That’s for pattin’ my ass too much! I’mmo get my
baby daddy who just got outta prison to come and kick your teeth in!
SAV-A-BUNCH MANAGER. Jesus, Tara. Please don’t do anything...
TARA. Oh my God! I’m not serious, you pathetic racist! I don’t have a baby! I
know y’all have to be stupid, but do you have to be that stupid? Shit,
fuck this job. (“Strange Love”)
51 However, Tara does also use racial stereotypes to her advantage. When she tries to get Jason
out of jail in the first season, she gives him a false alibi by saying that they spent the night
together. The police do not believe her at first, but she tells them that they kept it a secret
because they were afraid of being judged by the inhabitants of Bon Temps. Tara says:
“People think just ‘cause we got vampires out in the open now race isn’t the issue no more.
But you ever see the way folks look at mixed couples in this town? Race may not be a hotbutton issue it once was, but it’s still a button you can push on people” (“Escape from Dragon
House”).
When Tara is turned into a vampire, she is very angry about it and resents her nature.
Williamson notes: “The black vampire is sympathetically presented as an unwilling victim of
circumstances and a complex mix of rage, retaliation and redemption infuses the sympathetic
construction of character” (33). Tara is definitely an unwilling victim and tries to kill herself
by frying herself in a tanning salon. However, later in the show she comes to grips with her
renewed status as a vampire and is stronger than ever. She remains a bartender, but now at
Fangtasia. In the fifth season, a girl she knows from high school visits the vampire bar. The
following conversation takes place:
TRACY. Oh, my God. You’re a vampire. That’s crazy. Now you’re a member
of two minorities.
TARA. Well, I see you haven’t changed at all. Still sticking your fat foot in
your mouth.
TRACY. Beg your pardon?
TARA. Hmm? Nothing.
TRACY. Shoot, I am just so relieved to see you holding down a steady job. I
know your momma used to drink, so...
TARA. It’s nice seeing you. Here’s your drink.
TRACY. Nice seeing you, too. I didn’t order this. I said vodka tonic.
TARA. You said strawberry daiquiri.
TRACY. Well, it’s fine. Never mind. If you’re too lazy to fix your own
mistake...
TARA. What did you just say?
TRACY. Jeez, you’re the same as you were in high school. All uppity.
52 TARA. Uppity? Listen you white trash fuck twat. We’re not in high school
anymore, so if you let anymore of that racist bullshit fall out of your
mouth, I’m going to rip open your heart and fry it up with some grits
and collard greens. (“Somebody That I Used to Know”)
In this short conversation, Tara is confronted with several racial stereotypes. The word
“uppity” also has a racist connotation, because Southerners used the term to describe AfricanAmericans who did not know their place. Tara’s vampiric nature allows her to really fight
back, not just with words but also with actions. In the basement of Fangtasia, Pam glamours
Tracy into believing that she is Tara’s slave and Tara takes revenge on Tracy by drinking her
blood.
Bill is neither gay nor African-American, but he is being discriminated because of
what he is. Therefore, he is another example of the marginalized Other in True Blood, and
demonstrates the metaphorical racism that is present in the show. Boyer notes: “As a vampire
and other in a Southern bar, he is the recipient of a ‘racist’ ideology, one that is prejudiced
against the vampire race” (29). When he walks into Merlotte’s for the first time, the
customers give him the cold stare and he is clearly not welcome. Also, because of his
vampiric nature, he cannot enter a house without being invited. This parallels the racial
discrimination of African-Americans who were banned from public places.
True Blood also explores other current societal issues. The threat of terrorism and the
power of religion, for example, are two contemporary topics that are represented in the show.
In the aftermath of Russell’s television attack, Nan calls Russell “an extremist and a terrorist”
(“I Smell A Rat”). Although it is an individual act by a mad man and does not represent the
vampire race as a whole, Russell creates fear among the population and causes hate crimes
against vampires. This is also noticeable in our society, where certain terrorist attacks by
Islamic extremists have led to the generalization of the Islam as a dangerous religion. The
Fellowship of the Sun demonstrates the power of religion and its negative effects. It shows
53 the terrible crimes that people are willing to commit in the name of God, which is still a
major issue in contemporary society. Fortunately, the supporters of the church ultimately fail
in their hatred against vampires. Boyer writes: “Their leader is uncloaked as a fraud, and
ironically, the vampires show more humanity in not killing these members of the church than
the members did in their plans to kill the vampires. There is hope for nonconformity in these
acts” (36-37). The vampires do not answer violence with violence and show that they are the
better ones.
In this chapter, I have demonstrated that True Blood depicts the marginalized Other in
different ways. Discrimination against minority groups such as homosexuals and AfricanAmericans is still a problem in contemporary society. Other current societal problems include
terrorism, violence and religious extremism. True Blood represents these issues
metaphorically, but also explicitly deals with them by featuring marginalized characters, as
well as relatable storylines. It thus clearly displays the sociopolitical context of the twentyfirst century. Also, although gay and African-American characters in True Blood are at times
still victimized, they are much stronger and also better represented than in other
contemporary vampire books, films, or television series. This makes True Blood stand out in
the crowd, and proves that it is an exceptional show.
54 CONCLUSION
In the first chapter of this thesis, I have traced the genealogy of vampires in English
literature from the early nineteenth century to the present day and have demonstrated the
changes that have manifested in the figure of the vampire since then. Furthermore, I have
indicated which elements of the vampire tradition are recycled in True Blood, and which
elements are new. Vampires were once intimate friends to humans but with the publication of
Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897, they were transformed into frightening harbingers of evil.
This image has persisted for many years, portraying the vampire as a dangerous outsider.
True Blood exhibits both vampire archetypes: good and evil, and everything in between.
The twenty-first century has seen the rise of the figure of the vampire hero. Many
twenty-first-century vampire novels focus on the romantic relationship between a male
vampire and a female human and exhibit the vampire’s heroic qualities. He often saves the
heroine from dangerous situations and protects her from harm. In the second chapter of this
thesis, I have demonstrated how True Blood deals with the vampire hero and I have shown
that almost every character exhibits good as well as evil qualities. Bill starts off as a hero but
gradually embraces his darker side, while Eric is introduced as an evil vampire but shows that
there is good in him. Furthermore, I have demonstrated that the show also portrays
courageous non-vampiric heroes.
In the third chapter, I have analyzed the representation of women and sexuality in
True Blood. Vampire tales have mostly portrayed women as either helpless victims or
voraciously sexual vampires. Although vampirism was previously only linked to active
female sexuality, nowadays practically every vampire, regardless of gender, race or sexual
orientation, enjoys sexual intercourse with humans or other vampires. I have shown that True
Blood presents a diverse range of female characters and empowers them with agency and
55 independence. Sookie, the show’s strong-minded heroine, is not afraid to speak up and
defend herself. However, her strength only goes so far and she is often dependent on the
supernatural men in her life to come and rescue her. Apart from portraying strong female
characters, I have demonstrated that True Blood also represents the connection between
vampires and sexuality that has been evident in vampire literature since the nineteenth
century. Vampirism sparks sexual awakenings and allows people to explore their sexuality.
This is clearly visible in the show.
In the fourth and final chapter, I have examined the representation of homosexuality
and racism in the show. Vampires are said to represent marginalized minorities and the
linkage to homosexuality and racism is apparent. Vampires in True Blood are out in the open
and are discriminated against because of their nature. This makes the show an interesting
allegory for current societal issues. I have shown the metaphorical as well as literal
representation of homosexuality and racism in True Blood, while analyzing several main
characters that are featured in the show. I have also briefly looked at the representation of
other societal problems in True Blood.
Overall, I have shown that True Blood is an exceptional piece of contemporary
vampire culture, which offers insight into current societal fears and desires. True Blood is a
genre mash-up, and combines fantasy, romance, horror and drama into one show. It uses
familiar elements from the vampire tradition, but it also contributes novel elements to it,
which results in a sociopolitical hybridization of two centuries of vampire fiction and film.
Different vampire archetypes—both good and evil—exist side by side True Blood’s world,
and evil does not only reside in vampires, but also in other supernatural creatures and in
humans. True Blood demonstrates that there is still a demand for vampires in the twenty-first
century, and shows that we crave vampires to fear, to identify with, and to explore our
deepest desires. In the end, we all need a vampire in our life.
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