Louisiana and Southern Identities in True Blood (HBO, 2008-2014)

Abstract

HBO’s series True Blood (Alan Ball, 2008-2014) explores a storyworld in which vampires have come out of the coffin and live openly among humans, thus confronting hegemonic discourses with figures of otherness. This chapter focuses on the dramatic and political potential of the series’ places. Be they public (Merlotte’s, the Fangtasia) or private (Sookie’s house, Bill’s mansion), they participate in True Blood’s seriality by bringing viewers back to familiar places where identities are played out and subverted. For instance, Merlotte’s, the stereotypical southern diner, is where the stereotypical version of Southernness is confronted to figures of otherness. Its vampire counterpart Fangtasia embraces otherness and non-normative fantasies only to commodify them by integrating them into a capitalist structure. The four recurring places of the series are sites in which normative and non-normative behaviors compete and are contained. As central stages, these places, where most of True Blood’s moments of tension and reconciliation occur, partake in the series’ narrative and political complexity and in a reevaluation of the legacy of Southern history and cultural history.