Cashing in on the success and popularity of Twilight is HBO’s True Blood. The series was created by the executive producer and writer behind Six Feet Under and American Beauty, Alan Ball, and sheds a unique and contemporary twist to the vampire myth by dealing with huge yet every day issues, such as homophobia, racism, and sexism, and dealing with them in a fun and light hearted way.
Balls adaptation of the original novels, Dead Until Dark by author Charlain Harris,started from the stories premise that it sucks to have a vampire for a boyfriend. Anna Paquin (X-Men) is Sookie who falls in love with vampire Bill, played by British actorStephen Moyer. Bill is turned into a vampire at the age of thirty when he is on his way home from the Civil War to reunite with his wife. Bill carries with him this moral dilemma where he wants to live with humans, not against them. Sam Trammell is Sam and makes up the third lead in their romantic love triangle. He is in love with Sookie but he’s too good a guy to play dirty for her affections. Other cast member include, Nelsan Ellis as the fabulous and gay Lafayette, Ryan Kwanton as Sookie’s brother Jason, who views the world as his bedroom and has rather a sexual compulsion, and lastly, Rutina Wesley as Tara, a black girl named after a plantation.
The story is set in a small town in northern Louisiana where vampires “come out of the coffin” and are known to all the humans. Here we step in a world where the supernatural is a part of every day life and vampires are treated as sexy, scary, romantic, and other. Vampires lobby for civil rights and drink a synthetic product called “Tru Blood” that serves as sustenance to counteract urges to kill and are ordered from the local drinking bars. Parallels to gay life are omnipresent such as when Sookie watches the news where she sees Evangelicals bash vampires and prohibit mixed marriages.
True Blood: The Complete First Season is out on DVD.
