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labingiThis is more meta than review, but here we go. Light spoilers for the episode, promo stuff, and book follow…
This is a fantastic quality show. Of the shows I'm following right now (The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Andor, and this), ep. 1 suggests this may be the best—or it's vying hard with Andor. If I were coming in cold with no knowledge of TVC, I would be enthralled and an instant die-hard fan…
On the Setting
And if I became one of those as new readers of Rice's books the showrunners hope will become Rice fans, I would be very disappointed to discover that the book associated with this story doesn't exist.
So, yes, I'm still struggling with the change of setting (and new characters in place of Louis and Claudia), struggling all the more because this series is so good, and we do need more BIPOC representation. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it is to throw away an original text (one that has never had a good, faithful adaptation) in order to update racial commentary, especially when there is so much potential for unpacking racism in a far more challenging way by actually engaging with Louis as a slave holder.
I don't think the answer is to just stick with the original either, even with the addition of excellent challenges to its racism. At best, Black characters would still be marginalized.
My favorite compromise is still to tell the original story and make Lestat Black (colored: father white, Gabrielle Black/colored), which would require fairly minor changes to his backstory, as opposed to creating a new Louis wholesale. I get that's not commercially viable because his blond look is iconic, but I think it might be best in terms of (a) honoring the original story, and (b) honoring the need to address race. I would also truly love to have seen something very close to this series as an original series in Rice's universe. It would fit beautifully into Lestat's life right around the time he and Louis last meet in IWTV. Some rewriting required, of course, but, again, comparatively minor. This new "Louis" would make sense as a somewhat Louis-like person who might be Lestat's rebound from Louis. This series they're making deserves to exist—but so does Louis's story deserve a dramatic adaptation (just once) that actually shows him as a character (Brad Pitt did not).
I know it's a done deal here, so why harp on it? But in a broader sense, how to adapt beloved texts is a big issue now, and the issue is usually framed as "proper updates to match current progressive ethics is more important than faith to the original" vs. "any 'woke' changes are killing the beloved original as part of a 'woke' conspiracy." It's more complex. Personally, I would love to see more original series and adaptations of non-Western/non-White texts that can center marginalized voices from the outset (and give us new/different stories). But given that marketing dictates name recognition of old White, legacy franchises is crucial, yes, I understand changes need to be made to have decent representation of marginalized groups, and that's important. I also worry about the philosophy that adapting the original text fairly closely (vs. reinventing) is irrelevant. Yes, over time myths and legends always evolve. But when we're talking about just one or a few adaptations of a particular text, that's not a mythos yet. It's an engagement with a particular author's story and with fans who care about it.
I find it culturally interesting that we (the progressive left) have decided that doesn't matter. It's like saying our elders' voices don't matter. It's like saying the massive work and talent put into creating a story that became a classic in the first place doesn't matter (Rings of Power suffers from this far more hugely than IWTV so far). I think that’s an attitude indicative of a youth-focused culture that tends to disregard age and tradition, and I think that can be taken too far. I think there can be a balance between forward looking and backward looking, evolution and respect for what's come before. I think IWTV is striving for that balance, but I don't think it's struck it; its rewrite is far too extensive—a Lestat fan fic with some of the same names and relationships.
And, yes, there are million shades of gray, and there are examples of great adaptations wildly different from the original, like Blade Runner or Akira. I'm not suggesting a one size fits all, but I would like to see a general swing away from his polarity between being "woke" vs. being faithful. We really do need some of both, and the best stories, I think, will be very careful about how they balance these things. (I wrote a reflection on RoP in which I reflected that, usually, I'd rather see adding than changing: ex. engaging with Louis's racism rather than turning Louis into a victim of racism, which is the easy way out and leaves a lot of how racism works unaddressed).
Okay, on to episode 1
Honestly, as its own story, I really loved it. I was deeply engaged and impressed with its subtlety and care: great acting, great direction, great attention to accents and language. I'm sad to hear that Daniel is getting blowback for racism or whatever. I mean Daniel (in the original) is racist—he's a '70s White man—and I'd love to unpack that, but this character is a great as he is and his racism, if present, is pretty mild.
I could make a big list of things I liked about this episode, but others have named many of them, and I'd rather just offer a blanket "very good!" because I don't really have much to add.
My one real niggle with the episode, apart from its loose adaptation of IWTV, is its loose adaptation of a piece of Rice's broader vampire worldbuiding—and, though it was just a throwaway line—I'm going to harp on it because it matters to me: I didn't like Louis's statement about being a present-day gay vampire (vs. a gay man in 1910).
Lemme frame this: when I was fifteen and read TVL and IWTV (in that order) for the first time, the thing that made me love them, the single most important thing that made them stand out from everything else I'd read and claim a place in my fannish heart was that they stood outside our discourses of sexual orientation. They did not futz about with "I'm gay" or "I'm straight" or "OMG, am I gay?" etc., etc. (or at most extremely marginally). They just had people connecting with people.
And this is built into the worldbuilding of Rice's vampires fundamentally and heavily: that they are attracted to (a) human blood, (b) beauty—very broadly defined, and (c) people's personalities, not to gender. That's not to say that vampires necessarily have no gender preference, just as they might have a preference for evil doers or innocents or nuns or whatever. But it's not a deep, innate, indelible trait as we consider sexual orientation to be. It's not an "identity" trait.
At fifteen, I found this hugely liberating. The way that Rice simply doesn't engage with all this massive discourse around how what gender you're attracted defines your identity in society was as freeing as stepping outside capitalism into a fully functioning gift economy. Though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, it spoke to me as someone who has never fit any of the available orientation categories, no not even straight-demi-gray-ace-queer-platonic, which is probably how far out I'd to reach to even approximate an identifiable sexual orientation, and that one is inaccurate and misses the point.
And so to see this episode have Louis, several decades into being a vampire, identify himself as gay felt like a misunderstanding of one of the pillars of what makes Rice's vampires interesting and innovative. Mind you, this is totally separate from writing human Louis as gay; that's fine. But I sincerely hope it's a blip in the vampire worldbuilding and they won't spend the whole franchise having people unpack who's what in this, as Lestat might say, boring litany of very culturally specific boxes.
This is a fantastic quality show. Of the shows I'm following right now (The Rings of Power, House of the Dragon, Andor, and this), ep. 1 suggests this may be the best—or it's vying hard with Andor. If I were coming in cold with no knowledge of TVC, I would be enthralled and an instant die-hard fan…
On the Setting
And if I became one of those as new readers of Rice's books the showrunners hope will become Rice fans, I would be very disappointed to discover that the book associated with this story doesn't exist.
So, yes, I'm still struggling with the change of setting (and new characters in place of Louis and Claudia), struggling all the more because this series is so good, and we do need more BIPOC representation. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it is to throw away an original text (one that has never had a good, faithful adaptation) in order to update racial commentary, especially when there is so much potential for unpacking racism in a far more challenging way by actually engaging with Louis as a slave holder.
I don't think the answer is to just stick with the original either, even with the addition of excellent challenges to its racism. At best, Black characters would still be marginalized.
My favorite compromise is still to tell the original story and make Lestat Black (colored: father white, Gabrielle Black/colored), which would require fairly minor changes to his backstory, as opposed to creating a new Louis wholesale. I get that's not commercially viable because his blond look is iconic, but I think it might be best in terms of (a) honoring the original story, and (b) honoring the need to address race. I would also truly love to have seen something very close to this series as an original series in Rice's universe. It would fit beautifully into Lestat's life right around the time he and Louis last meet in IWTV. Some rewriting required, of course, but, again, comparatively minor. This new "Louis" would make sense as a somewhat Louis-like person who might be Lestat's rebound from Louis. This series they're making deserves to exist—but so does Louis's story deserve a dramatic adaptation (just once) that actually shows him as a character (Brad Pitt did not).
I know it's a done deal here, so why harp on it? But in a broader sense, how to adapt beloved texts is a big issue now, and the issue is usually framed as "proper updates to match current progressive ethics is more important than faith to the original" vs. "any 'woke' changes are killing the beloved original as part of a 'woke' conspiracy." It's more complex. Personally, I would love to see more original series and adaptations of non-Western/non-White texts that can center marginalized voices from the outset (and give us new/different stories). But given that marketing dictates name recognition of old White, legacy franchises is crucial, yes, I understand changes need to be made to have decent representation of marginalized groups, and that's important. I also worry about the philosophy that adapting the original text fairly closely (vs. reinventing) is irrelevant. Yes, over time myths and legends always evolve. But when we're talking about just one or a few adaptations of a particular text, that's not a mythos yet. It's an engagement with a particular author's story and with fans who care about it.
I find it culturally interesting that we (the progressive left) have decided that doesn't matter. It's like saying our elders' voices don't matter. It's like saying the massive work and talent put into creating a story that became a classic in the first place doesn't matter (Rings of Power suffers from this far more hugely than IWTV so far). I think that’s an attitude indicative of a youth-focused culture that tends to disregard age and tradition, and I think that can be taken too far. I think there can be a balance between forward looking and backward looking, evolution and respect for what's come before. I think IWTV is striving for that balance, but I don't think it's struck it; its rewrite is far too extensive—a Lestat fan fic with some of the same names and relationships.
And, yes, there are million shades of gray, and there are examples of great adaptations wildly different from the original, like Blade Runner or Akira. I'm not suggesting a one size fits all, but I would like to see a general swing away from his polarity between being "woke" vs. being faithful. We really do need some of both, and the best stories, I think, will be very careful about how they balance these things. (I wrote a reflection on RoP in which I reflected that, usually, I'd rather see adding than changing: ex. engaging with Louis's racism rather than turning Louis into a victim of racism, which is the easy way out and leaves a lot of how racism works unaddressed).
Okay, on to episode 1
Honestly, as its own story, I really loved it. I was deeply engaged and impressed with its subtlety and care: great acting, great direction, great attention to accents and language. I'm sad to hear that Daniel is getting blowback for racism or whatever. I mean Daniel (in the original) is racist—he's a '70s White man—and I'd love to unpack that, but this character is a great as he is and his racism, if present, is pretty mild.
I could make a big list of things I liked about this episode, but others have named many of them, and I'd rather just offer a blanket "very good!" because I don't really have much to add.
My one real niggle with the episode, apart from its loose adaptation of IWTV, is its loose adaptation of a piece of Rice's broader vampire worldbuiding—and, though it was just a throwaway line—I'm going to harp on it because it matters to me: I didn't like Louis's statement about being a present-day gay vampire (vs. a gay man in 1910).
Lemme frame this: when I was fifteen and read TVL and IWTV (in that order) for the first time, the thing that made me love them, the single most important thing that made them stand out from everything else I'd read and claim a place in my fannish heart was that they stood outside our discourses of sexual orientation. They did not futz about with "I'm gay" or "I'm straight" or "OMG, am I gay?" etc., etc. (or at most extremely marginally). They just had people connecting with people.
And this is built into the worldbuilding of Rice's vampires fundamentally and heavily: that they are attracted to (a) human blood, (b) beauty—very broadly defined, and (c) people's personalities, not to gender. That's not to say that vampires necessarily have no gender preference, just as they might have a preference for evil doers or innocents or nuns or whatever. But it's not a deep, innate, indelible trait as we consider sexual orientation to be. It's not an "identity" trait.
At fifteen, I found this hugely liberating. The way that Rice simply doesn't engage with all this massive discourse around how what gender you're attracted defines your identity in society was as freeing as stepping outside capitalism into a fully functioning gift economy. Though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, it spoke to me as someone who has never fit any of the available orientation categories, no not even straight-demi-gray-ace-queer-platonic, which is probably how far out I'd to reach to even approximate an identifiable sexual orientation, and that one is inaccurate and misses the point.
And so to see this episode have Louis, several decades into being a vampire, identify himself as gay felt like a misunderstanding of one of the pillars of what makes Rice's vampires interesting and innovative. Mind you, this is totally separate from writing human Louis as gay; that's fine. But I sincerely hope it's a blip in the vampire worldbuilding and they won't spend the whole franchise having people unpack who's what in this, as Lestat might say, boring litany of very culturally specific boxes.
