Leftover thoughts on Vampires

The other day in class, during one of the heated Firefly discussions, Jason and I got side-tracked by a comment that Josh made about how the sci-fi/western stuff isn’t as important as the fundamental human struggles that characters go through and how Joss makes them relatable.

We started talking about how shows used to have the sense that something big always had to be at stake. Like how Buffy always had to give up love, family, school, and relationships for her duty as the slayer. Or how Angel could not keep his soul, gain his humanity and get the woman he loved, he had to choose his calling. These are all HUGE black and white issues, there are all HIGH stakes experiences, and it seems as though television during that era was very much marked by these characteristics.

This spawned a discussion about how some modern supernatural TV shows, our example was True Blood, seem to be countering, almost back-lashing against the idea that all TV has to have a “save the world” endgame. True Blood, for example is more focused on inter-personal relationships and the everyday workings of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, i.e. Sookie’s amazing new boyfriend just happens to be a vampire. Sookie, the lead female character, is not trying to save the world, she is not trying to find her place, make a difference, or anything of the like, she is just trying to take care of her friends and be with her boyfriend. The show openly avows this, and does not try to force a bigger message. If bad things happen, they are situational, not dictated by some higher force or karmic bad guy, they are rooted in the “humanity” and the “evil” within all creatures (vampires, werewolves, shape-shifter, dryads, fairies etc.) and the things that happens are meant to be the normal things that happen to friends, families, and couples, just twinged with a bit of magic!