Comments on: Vampire Shows and Gendered Quality Television

By: Masculinity within Female Vampires « Stacy's Blog

Masculinity within Female Vampires « Stacy's Blog — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:35:02 +0000

[…] http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2010/08/26/vampire-shows-and-gendered-quality-television/ […]

By: Deborah Kaplan

Deborah Kaplan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:28:31 +0000

I’m fascinated that you phrase it that way, because I find the exact opposite. I stopped watching True Blood because I thought it took itself incredibly seriously in a way that made it unwatchable for me, and yet I find great joy in TVD mostly because I see it having so much fun wallowing in its ridiculousness (the scene with Damon reading Twilight was the clip that hooked me in).

Interesting that we both see humor and parody as the entry point, but we see it in the opposite shows.

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:57:33 +0000

David, yes, all of these! I agree with your pacing and consistency comments especially. Though rather than paced, can we say rollercoaster? 🙂

Good point about there only being one season yet. Aren’t second seasons traditionally the best? I hope your predictions are correct!

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:16:16 +0000

I agree on the credits. I think I’d really love the show that goes with them:)

And yes, you put your finger on the gendering that I’ve tried to address. Where the books are in Sookie’s pov, I feel the show emphasizes exhibitionism and a voyeurism more apt to allow men to watch the show. So, yes, is it the trash turned edginess that makes it an appropriate male show???

By: David Nataf

David Nataf — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:23:05 +0000

I think the main difference is due to the fact Vampire Diaries is a young show. A lot of people dismissing it have not really tried it yet, and their perceptions arise from the marketing campaign it received: Twilight for TV. In my opinion it is a fairly complex show which hits the ball out of the ball park on three very important factors: Ratings, pacing, and internal consistency. I believe it’s the highest-rated show on the CW guaranteeing its future, meanwhile parts 2 and 3 should allow it to grow. Personally, there are no episodes whichy I regret watching… every episode achieved some milestone in advancing the storyline, which is important.

I expect The Vampire Diaries to become a major television hit and to receive the associated praise by the start of the third season.

I also agree with the blog post — Vampire Diaries is probably the most logical successor to Buffy. True Blood captures the “funniness” that Buffy had, but VD captures the other personality components.

By: Louisa Stein

Louisa Stein — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:39:38 +0000

Terrific and thought provoking post, Kristina! I’m just now embarking on The Vampire Diaries, so I can’t speak fully to the comparison beyond the network branding and the perception of the two shows within TV studies… but what I’ve found simultaneously frustrating and fascinating about True Blood is its intent to confound the quality/guilty pleasure divide. My love for the credits of True Blood remains–they’re nuanced, stunning, and only grow more so on each repeated viewing. (My love for the credits might have been behind my enthusiasm way back at Flow!) Following on the credit, the series fails to engage (systematically, at least) with the issues of race and place the credits open up, and yet it undeniably does interesting, boundary pushing things in terms of representations of race, sexuality, and spectacle. But it’s the kind of uneveness I expect from a WB/CW show, not an HBO show. I’ll be curious to see if (based on what you say about TVD being somehow more honest) The Vampire Diaries actually offers a tighter, more cohesive if narratively complex viewing experience.

To bring this to issues of branding, gender, and genre, I’m struck by True Blood’s foray into sensationalism and eroticism: it’s certainly a different take on HBO’s “it’s not TV, it’s HBO”–but do you think it manages to masculinize what’s arguably has been framed (and continues to be framed) in other contexts (TVD, Buffy, Twilight) as a feminine generic space?

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:18:07 +0000

I’m trying to figure out how and where this connects with the conversations I’ve had and seen elsewhere over the recently premiered vid On the Prowl by Sisabet and the couple of year’s old Women’s Work, about the way we want violence (for different categories of we) and how when taking it to the extreme it turns a mirror on our desires and….yes 🙂 [And I am aware that viewer desires and fan remixes and showrunners are different things, but…]

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:15:29 +0000

Oh, I really love where you’ve gone with my admittedly ranty post 🙂 I think your and Annie’s point about daringness and trash are dead on (and dare I say possibly gendered?), and I do see the OTT campiness coming through in TB.

And you’re right that the characters pull me through. I totally could do without Bill and much of Sookie’s storyline, but the rest? Yes!!!

By: amanda klein

amanda klein — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:18:58 +0000

Oh man that scene! There are no words.

By: Anne Helen Petersen

Anne Helen Petersen — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:15:46 +0000

I also think that Ball tests, or at least points to the limits, of our lust for sex and violence. During the “head-360” sex scene, for example, the show flaunted our desire to see graphic sex — but then pushed it to a point that made the majority of its audience very uncomfortable. As you point out above, It’s as if Ball is saying “oh, so you like graphic sex? Well here you go” — and sometimes it takes us more out of our comfort zone than others. While I don’t think that graphic sex and violence are necessarily progressive, I do think that some of the depictions do make us question the previous depictions in which we so mindlessly pleasured.