Producer Alan Ball is putting the red back in redneck.
His new HBO series TrueBlood combines Sordid Lives and The Vampire Lestat, exploring the hyperreal realm of Louisiana bloodsuckers. In the not-too-distant future the Japanese have invented a synthetic blood called TruBlood, and heartened by new possibilities for tolerance and respectability, vampires are “coming out of the coffin” to demand their rights as citizens.
Of course, any similarity to the gay rights struggle is intentional. And what separates this series from Buffy is a cheeky awareness of the sexual subversiveness of vampire lore, and what separates it from Showtime After Dark is that the thrills play against the backdrop of the culture wars’ biggest battleground, the Bible Belt.
Oscar-winner Anna Paquin plays goodhearted, virginal Sookie Stackhouse, a truckstop waitress with the gift of hearing other people’s thoughts. In Episode 1, she meets Bill (Stephen Moyer), a brooding vamp version of Dylan Mckay, whose thoughts she cannot hear. Right away she develops a sort of crush on the exotic stranger—and puts herself at considerable risk to protect him from exploitative humans.
We learn that vampires are as allergic to silver as werewolves, that some humans (fang-bangers) prey on the vampires, for vampire blood and vampire sex have rejuvenating, aphrodisiac effects on mortals. Just as we thought, though, vampires come out at night, are cold to the touch, and live through centuries without ageing.
We learn, too, that “human values” may not be better than the perverse, parasitical thirsts of bloodsuckers, after all. Sookie’s hunky brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is a smalltown Hud with a taste for rough kink and, perhaps, serial killing.
All this unfolds with a great deal of wit and style.
In supporting roles, we get William Sanderson, Lois Smith, Nelsan Ellis, and Chris Bauer, who provide a homey, 21st-century Mayberry ambience—a nice dodge from the usual Dark Shadows archness.
The first episode shows promise—this show may be Ball’s and HBO’s next big thing—and I may find it almost as addictive as Mad Men.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Why Do Gays Hate Black Music?
I just read something on radaronline.com by a writer outraged that only 11.5 percent of the October ’08 OUT magazine’s list of best gay music is black. It strikes me as silly—on a profound level—to read racism into a fluff list in a fluff “lite-style” magazine like OUT—and to use statistics as proof.
Still, the article makes some intriguing points—such as that there really is no gay community (agreed on the whole—and it’s probably a good thing) and that whites dominate gay culture (just gay culture?)
One of the most flagrant racists I ever met was a gay man, so I’m certainly not denying that the gay “community,” albeit nonexistent, is spotless on this point.
But, God knows, the numbers for homophobia must be sky-high in hiphop and black churches.
The article goes on to make the perhaps valid point that rich gays and poor gays mix only on Craigslist—though I would argue that, historically, the economic classes have mixed more readily at gay bars than anywhere else in American society, except the DMV. And I wouldn't characterize the works of Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and Beyonce (three artists mentioned as being snubbed by OUT) as poor people’s music.
But look who’s pointing fingers: after a quick scroll down RADAR’s “Features” page, I calculated that only 12.5 percent of the pictured faces were black—and one of those is actually Obama’s back in a long shot, and another is Robert Downey Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER.
I’m not sure that one percentage point and blackface give RADAR the moral authority to cast stones.
Still, the article makes some intriguing points—such as that there really is no gay community (agreed on the whole—and it’s probably a good thing) and that whites dominate gay culture (just gay culture?)
One of the most flagrant racists I ever met was a gay man, so I’m certainly not denying that the gay “community,” albeit nonexistent, is spotless on this point.
But, God knows, the numbers for homophobia must be sky-high in hiphop and black churches.
The article goes on to make the perhaps valid point that rich gays and poor gays mix only on Craigslist—though I would argue that, historically, the economic classes have mixed more readily at gay bars than anywhere else in American society, except the DMV. And I wouldn't characterize the works of Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and Beyonce (three artists mentioned as being snubbed by OUT) as poor people’s music.
But look who’s pointing fingers: after a quick scroll down RADAR’s “Features” page, I calculated that only 12.5 percent of the pictured faces were black—and one of those is actually Obama’s back in a long shot, and another is Robert Downey Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER.
I’m not sure that one percentage point and blackface give RADAR the moral authority to cast stones.
Friday, September 5, 2008
The Right of People Peaceably to Assemble
During this week’s Republican National Convention, 818 people were arrested for protesting near the St Paul Xcel Center.
Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and shoved protesters to the pavement. News reports identified the protesters as anti-war anarchists. Police PR argued that, based on information gathered undercover by cops infiltrating the groups, the protesters—or some factions among the protesters—intended more destructive actions to disrupt the convention. Such a conspiracy may have existed, but to my knowledge no one in the media has yet asked the police for the evidence.
Is it not possible that, as in past police actions, the government infiltrators triggered the riots for the sake of discrediting the protest?
Four women, ages 38 to 53, were arrested in a peaceful protest sponsored by CODEPINK Women for Peace. According to the group’s Website, the police provoked the arrests:
“In protest of the war and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's pro-war and pro-drilling positions, the CODEPINK women had been singing and dancing in crowns, sashes and pink clothing, when police surrounded them and began to push them up onto the sidewalk and against a metal fence set up in the plaza. The women complied but continued to be pushed to the side and were told [to] clear out. In symbolic sign of civil disobedience, saying free speech cannot be caged and all of America is a free speech zone, the four women tried to crawl under the fence. Police pulled them through to the other side and arrested them.”
The police counted 10,000 people at these protests (protest organizers counted three times as many). Either number is significant, since “official” conventioneers (delegates, alternates, party officials, lobbyists, volunteers, members of the media, and guests) numbered only 45,000.
By contrast, in the last week of August, about 190,000 attended the Democratic National Convention in Denver, plus some 21,000 local volunteers. Police arrested 141 protesters outside that convention, including a dozen or so pro-life protesters led by Randall Terry. Denver police reportedly used hard batons and pepper spray to control fewer than 2000 protesters.
Unlike 1968, the press largely ignored these protests. In most cases, the media did not report on the causes the protesters represented, in favor of statistics and reports of violence and destruction of property. The coverage, such as it was, relied almost entirely on police sources.
Arguably the views of these protesters—both on the left and the right of the political spectrum—deserved at least as much attention as opinions about Michelle Obama’s Jackie-inspired dress or the huggability of Sarah Palin’s young daughter (not the knocked-up one). Furthermore, the media should have expected that at least a portion of their audience might be interested in understanding better the First Amendment implications of the corralling, beating, and jailing of regular Americans who wanted their voices heard, in addition to the scripted self-congratulations inside the convention walls.
Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and shoved protesters to the pavement. News reports identified the protesters as anti-war anarchists. Police PR argued that, based on information gathered undercover by cops infiltrating the groups, the protesters—or some factions among the protesters—intended more destructive actions to disrupt the convention. Such a conspiracy may have existed, but to my knowledge no one in the media has yet asked the police for the evidence.
Is it not possible that, as in past police actions, the government infiltrators triggered the riots for the sake of discrediting the protest?
Four women, ages 38 to 53, were arrested in a peaceful protest sponsored by CODEPINK Women for Peace. According to the group’s Website, the police provoked the arrests:
“In protest of the war and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's pro-war and pro-drilling positions, the CODEPINK women had been singing and dancing in crowns, sashes and pink clothing, when police surrounded them and began to push them up onto the sidewalk and against a metal fence set up in the plaza. The women complied but continued to be pushed to the side and were told [to] clear out. In symbolic sign of civil disobedience, saying free speech cannot be caged and all of America is a free speech zone, the four women tried to crawl under the fence. Police pulled them through to the other side and arrested them.”
The police counted 10,000 people at these protests (protest organizers counted three times as many). Either number is significant, since “official” conventioneers (delegates, alternates, party officials, lobbyists, volunteers, members of the media, and guests) numbered only 45,000.
By contrast, in the last week of August, about 190,000 attended the Democratic National Convention in Denver, plus some 21,000 local volunteers. Police arrested 141 protesters outside that convention, including a dozen or so pro-life protesters led by Randall Terry. Denver police reportedly used hard batons and pepper spray to control fewer than 2000 protesters.
Unlike 1968, the press largely ignored these protests. In most cases, the media did not report on the causes the protesters represented, in favor of statistics and reports of violence and destruction of property. The coverage, such as it was, relied almost entirely on police sources.
Arguably the views of these protesters—both on the left and the right of the political spectrum—deserved at least as much attention as opinions about Michelle Obama’s Jackie-inspired dress or the huggability of Sarah Palin’s young daughter (not the knocked-up one). Furthermore, the media should have expected that at least a portion of their audience might be interested in understanding better the First Amendment implications of the corralling, beating, and jailing of regular Americans who wanted their voices heard, in addition to the scripted self-congratulations inside the convention walls.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Pit Bull with Lipstick
On the most recent Real Time with Bill Maher, NPR correspondent Michel Martin warned everybody not to underestimate Sarah Palin. She said that most male politicians don’t know how to carry themselves when forced to debate a woman—on one hand they don’t want to look condescending, and on the other hand they don’t want to be perceived as unchivalrous.
Also, Palin, Martin noted, is a tough cookie.
The choice of Palin has seemed so ridiculous that it’s hard for me to see it as anything but calculated and sneaky. It stinks of Karl Rove, in fact.
I suspect Palin exists to impress precisely the people that Obama has been less successful in impressing—redneck America. Picking up the analogy fresh on all the tongues of political commentators lately, if 2008 is a mirror of 1968, then Palin is George Wallace.
And in six short days she has moved the national debate from the war in Iraq to the struggle of a smalltown family to deal with a teen pregnancy. The hypocrisy of Palin’s pro-life, pro-abstinence posturing is clear to me and people similar to me. But to rank-and-file working whites, she has emerged, like Bush, as somebody they’d like to have a beer with.
Her candidacy has moved the debate away from which Presidential candidate can most improve the US economy to how VP candidates should be properly vetted.
My first impulse is to write her off as trashy and ignernt—and she is—but she’s finding a soft spot in the hearts of Americans who likewise turned to mush over George W. Bush’s bad syntax and ham-fisted manners. Poor speech habits and inconsistent smalltown values these folks can relate to—and they get pissed off at the “elites” who make fun of such things.
Palin is tough, and like Bush she appeals to the bitterness and magical thinking of the poorly educated masses, whose feelings are better tuned than their reasoning. She’s lying through her teeth, but people hear in her shrill barking something they like. In an odd way she, again like Bush, stirs protective feelings in regular folk.
Picking on her mannerisms and family is only going to alienate undecided voters and rile up the right wing's nutso base.
Exposing the true elitism of the incredibly wealthy Republican bluebloods and the disastrous implications of the policies she and McCain promote is perhaps our best bet.
McCain mocked Obama’s celebrity and popularity—but in Palin he (with Rove’s help, no doubt) invented a popular celebrity he can use.
He mocked Obama’s lack of experience and call for change, but he’s hit on a tactic here for recasting the Democrats as stick-in-the-mud incumbents.
Most lower middle-class Americans don’t give a rat’s ass about what the proper procedures for “vetting” a VP are. We’re making a mistake if we make too big of a fuss over trivia.
Also, Palin, Martin noted, is a tough cookie.
The choice of Palin has seemed so ridiculous that it’s hard for me to see it as anything but calculated and sneaky. It stinks of Karl Rove, in fact.
I suspect Palin exists to impress precisely the people that Obama has been less successful in impressing—redneck America. Picking up the analogy fresh on all the tongues of political commentators lately, if 2008 is a mirror of 1968, then Palin is George Wallace.
And in six short days she has moved the national debate from the war in Iraq to the struggle of a smalltown family to deal with a teen pregnancy. The hypocrisy of Palin’s pro-life, pro-abstinence posturing is clear to me and people similar to me. But to rank-and-file working whites, she has emerged, like Bush, as somebody they’d like to have a beer with.
Her candidacy has moved the debate away from which Presidential candidate can most improve the US economy to how VP candidates should be properly vetted.
My first impulse is to write her off as trashy and ignernt—and she is—but she’s finding a soft spot in the hearts of Americans who likewise turned to mush over George W. Bush’s bad syntax and ham-fisted manners. Poor speech habits and inconsistent smalltown values these folks can relate to—and they get pissed off at the “elites” who make fun of such things.
Palin is tough, and like Bush she appeals to the bitterness and magical thinking of the poorly educated masses, whose feelings are better tuned than their reasoning. She’s lying through her teeth, but people hear in her shrill barking something they like. In an odd way she, again like Bush, stirs protective feelings in regular folk.
Picking on her mannerisms and family is only going to alienate undecided voters and rile up the right wing's nutso base.
Exposing the true elitism of the incredibly wealthy Republican bluebloods and the disastrous implications of the policies she and McCain promote is perhaps our best bet.
McCain mocked Obama’s celebrity and popularity—but in Palin he (with Rove’s help, no doubt) invented a popular celebrity he can use.
He mocked Obama’s lack of experience and call for change, but he’s hit on a tactic here for recasting the Democrats as stick-in-the-mud incumbents.
Most lower middle-class Americans don’t give a rat’s ass about what the proper procedures for “vetting” a VP are. We’re making a mistake if we make too big of a fuss over trivia.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
It’s Perverse Only If You Do It Right
Sarah Palin’s daughter can have as many babies as she likes, wed, unwed, or between hubbies. I don’t care and would be happy to be spared the details.
I’ve said as much regarding John Edwards, too; my interest in other people’s sex lives exists in only trace amounts, hardly detectable to the human eye. If any part were to interest me, it would be the sex itself—so long as it’s hot, sweaty, and nasty—so no thank you on the exclusive ultrasounds of little Baby Palin Johnston.
But, look here, this is what I ask: Palin needs not to breathe word one … ever … in eternity … about abstinence-only education. Governor, you no longer have a right to your old opinion on the subject, and if events haven’t taught you to change your mind, then please just shut up about it.
Another thing. Can the religious right pipe down about how the real story here is about the sanctity of life? Admittedly, as a “poster child of the pro-life movement,” this fetus is many steps up from the bloody lump in a garbage can the movement has been schlepping around for three decades now. Still, the hypocrisy is mind-numbing—and I’ve seen my share of hypocrisy, with only minimal numbing effects.
If the pious prudes were serious when they fretted over the negative message Murphy Brown teaches to young people, then for heaven’s sake don’t put this girl on a pedestal and pretend she’s some kind of faith-based miracle. The sanctity of life, God’s precious gift, is affordable to girls everywhere who spread their knees without benefit (or knowledge) of safe birth control.
And last. Yes, following the family’s press announcement, some responses to Palin’s private family predicament have been inappropriate and excessive. But let’s not pretend that, if one of Obama’s daughters got knocked up, the rightwing responses would have been any more measured and polite.
Just take two or three deep breaths now. Think: Sex is OK. It’s all right for our kids to think it’s OK. Sure, they need to learn responsibility—about money, voting, and calorie intake—and, yes, sex, too. Babies are a fine thing too, taken on a one by one basis.
The problem is not sex, people. It’s thinking you or your representatives in government have the right to stick a nose into other people’s private business. It’s whining about the choices other people make and seriously questioning their right to make those choices, and , then, when you make a bad decision yourself, pretending that your shit don’t stink.
I’ve said as much regarding John Edwards, too; my interest in other people’s sex lives exists in only trace amounts, hardly detectable to the human eye. If any part were to interest me, it would be the sex itself—so long as it’s hot, sweaty, and nasty—so no thank you on the exclusive ultrasounds of little Baby Palin Johnston.
But, look here, this is what I ask: Palin needs not to breathe word one … ever … in eternity … about abstinence-only education. Governor, you no longer have a right to your old opinion on the subject, and if events haven’t taught you to change your mind, then please just shut up about it.
Another thing. Can the religious right pipe down about how the real story here is about the sanctity of life? Admittedly, as a “poster child of the pro-life movement,” this fetus is many steps up from the bloody lump in a garbage can the movement has been schlepping around for three decades now. Still, the hypocrisy is mind-numbing—and I’ve seen my share of hypocrisy, with only minimal numbing effects.
If the pious prudes were serious when they fretted over the negative message Murphy Brown teaches to young people, then for heaven’s sake don’t put this girl on a pedestal and pretend she’s some kind of faith-based miracle. The sanctity of life, God’s precious gift, is affordable to girls everywhere who spread their knees without benefit (or knowledge) of safe birth control.
And last. Yes, following the family’s press announcement, some responses to Palin’s private family predicament have been inappropriate and excessive. But let’s not pretend that, if one of Obama’s daughters got knocked up, the rightwing responses would have been any more measured and polite.
Just take two or three deep breaths now. Think: Sex is OK. It’s all right for our kids to think it’s OK. Sure, they need to learn responsibility—about money, voting, and calorie intake—and, yes, sex, too. Babies are a fine thing too, taken on a one by one basis.
The problem is not sex, people. It’s thinking you or your representatives in government have the right to stick a nose into other people’s private business. It’s whining about the choices other people make and seriously questioning their right to make those choices, and , then, when you make a bad decision yourself, pretending that your shit don’t stink.
Monday, September 1, 2008
The Seeds of Atheism in Jason and the Argonauts: Some Notes
I don’t think any man of my generation did not see the 1963 Columbia Pictures production of Jason and the Argonauts in his boyhood. But behind the thrilling special effects supplied by Ray Harryhausen (a god to FX lovers and readers of Famous Monsters of Filmland), could there be a serious, maybe even subversive message?
It seems that a good portion of the film’s dialogue, written by Jan Read and Beverley Cross, concerns the belief in God or gods—about which little is said that is favorable to theism.
Having just watched the movie on DVD, I give you my notes:
I. Hercules
When the giant statue Talos collapses on top of his young friend Hylas, Hercules complains that the gods are unjust. Talos comes to life because Hercules steals a Titan’s golden hairpin. Hylas in fact warns Hercules not to take the javelin-sized pin, so he’s entirely innocent.
Later, as Jason struggles to stop the vengeful statue, Hercules flees and drops his souvenir pin. Out of love for Hercules, Hylas runs back to retrieve it, but the falling giant crushes him.
Why should the gods punish an innocent boy for Hercules’ offense?
II. Phineas
Later, King Phineas makes another point about divine justice. Admitting that he has sinned and perhaps deserves Zeus’s punishments (harpies who steal the blind man’s food), Phineas states that he nevertheless does not sin every day, so why then must he be punished every day?
The question of perfect, proportionate justice is contradicted by continuous and everlasting punishment, for which even the worst sinners can not possibly pack enough offenses into their brief lives.
III. Jason
When the Argonauts are forced to pass through the Clashing Rocks, Jason accuses Zeus and the other Olympians of going “too far.” He complains bitterly, “The gods of Greece are cruel. In time all men will learn to live without them.”
Once Hera and Poseidon intervene to save the ship and crew, Jason offers only a well-qualified thanks. In a philosophical mood, Zeus decides not to punish Jason, stating that if he were to punish every blasphemy, no men would be left to worship the gods at all.
Hera remarks that once mankind stops believing in gods, Zeus will be “nothing.” Zeus agrees and notes that the fact that Hera stays by his side in the face of looming non-existence is almost “human.”
IV. Medea
Jason then rescues the princess Medea from the Clashing Rocks, when gods fail to intervene on her and her shipmates’ behalf. At the ends of the earth, where Jason and his men hope to find the legendary Golden Fleece, Medea, high priestess to the Underworld goddess Hecate, has a crisis of faith.
When her father the king arrests Jason for treachery and murder, Medea prays to the goddess to help her, even though she owes her life to Jason’s human intervention. She shares her dilemma with the statue of Hecate (whom, interestingly, the film never bothers to personify as anything but a stone icon). If Medea helps Jason escape, she is a traitor to her country and her gods, but if she does not, she is a traitor to herself.
Ultimately, at great risk, she helps Jason. But her father Aeetes in turn calls on Hecate for help. Through Hecate’s black magic, he raises an army of skeletons, the victims of the seven-headed hydra that Jason has slain to claim the fleece. Jason and his men fight the resurrected warriors by sword and hand to bony hand. Ultimately, Jason outwits the undead, and they fall into the sea.
* * *
The movie ends before the true end of the story (ultimately, Jason will spurn Medea, and in vengeance she will kill their children, along with the woman Jason hopes to replace her with).
The goddess Hera spares the movie audience this hopeless violence and provides a Hollywood ending, with Jason and Medea kissing.
However, despite the victory over the skeletal army of Hecate, two human adversaries remain for Jason—King Aeetes and King Pelias (who’s not seen after, in the film’s first 30 minutes, he tricks Jason to go on the quest so that Jason will not kill him for destroying Jason’s family and stealing the throne). (In the full myth, Medea disposes of both kings, in grisly ways worthy of Hannibal Lecter.)
Zeus and Hera agree to stop the chess game they’ve been playing with their human pawns … for the time being anyway. But clearly in their minds (and in the minds of the audience members familiar with mythology) the story (ultimately tragic) is far from over. The happy ending, then, is another ruse by the gods—whose shabby treatment of humanity has been repeatedly questioned throughout the film—but the movie audience is at least spared having to see the worst of it.
Opportunism Knocks
(from my post on Neal's "wall" on Facebook.)
I can speak only on first impressions here, but I suspect that Sarah Palin could teach Karen Walker a thing or two about venality.
With a friend last night, I watched Palin and McCain on C-SPAN, talking about their heartfelt capitalization on the Gulf Coast hurricane preparations--she sounded like a shrill flight attendant announcing that seats can be used as flotational devices, and he kept scratching his navel and nostrils.
I think if the Republicans aren't going to party, the least they could do is offer the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul to the gays for the displaced Southern Decadence.
I can speak only on first impressions here, but I suspect that Sarah Palin could teach Karen Walker a thing or two about venality.
With a friend last night, I watched Palin and McCain on C-SPAN, talking about their heartfelt capitalization on the Gulf Coast hurricane preparations--she sounded like a shrill flight attendant announcing that seats can be used as flotational devices, and he kept scratching his navel and nostrils.
I think if the Republicans aren't going to party, the least they could do is offer the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul to the gays for the displaced Southern Decadence.
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