"If you complain about the best queer show on tv, they'll cancel it"
The show has 3x better ratings than expected, constructive criticism isn't going to get it canceled
You don't seem to understand how progress works. Are you familiar with the overton window? Bc you don't get the gay black vampire show in the first place by keeping your mouth shut and being grateful for whatever slop Hollywood decides is good enough for you. Ppl had to keep speaking up and being exceptionally annoying to get where we are and they will actually keep taking more and more away from you if you do keep your mouth shut. When the director of Silence of the Lambs heard the feedback about transphobia, he said that militants are important to continuing progress in society and media. If that guy can take the criticism and be cool, so can Rolin Jones. And stop leaving it to the ppl who are directly affected by racist writing to do all the work.
This show has become less explicitly queer now that it has been made/come out during the second Trump term (James Dolan, friends with Trump is a ceo of Amc and was at the Lestat premier) the marketing has downplayed the diverse characters, the nonwhite characters have far less screentime (even Armand who has much more of a prescence in books 2 and 3). This is not a coincidence. This is a pattern in history when goverments become more fascist and conservative. If you're genuinely curious to learn more, the "You Must Remember This" podcast has a series about the red list in old Hollywood where basically any progressive hollywood creative was blacklisted especially if they were anti nazi "too soon" before the US decided to do anything about WWII (bc facsism was kind of our thing you see). And understanding the Hayes code, how it was implemeneted and fluctuated to suppresse any remotely peogresive ideas is important to understand. Margaret Killjoy also has a few episodes on her "Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff" podcast about the progressive gay film making happening in Germany just before fascism took hold. Don't comply ahead of time. It does you no favors.
"You're risking the jobs of the actors of color by complaining"
Black writers and a director already lost their jobs. Do they not matter also? We can get into the pedantic arguments about whether the writing was racist or not, idrgaf. At the end of the day, getting rid of your black writers is a racist action in and of itself. Did they leave of their own volition? Maybe (and I'd be curious to know why ALL left if that's the case) but why not hire new black writers? At least one? You still have black main characters even if the new protagonist is white. Did AMC make them do it? Maybe so in which case it's worth yelling at AMC about it. And even if they did, I've seen showrunners quit over less so maybe Rolin sees caring about diverse stories as a 2020 fad that he's over now 🤷♀️
The poc characters have far less screentime already. Perhaps voicing our desire for them to have more screentime might I don't know...achieve something. Or you can just sit bk, be grateful for what they give you as they keep stripping away anything of value. Up to you I guess. I'm going to keep being annoying.
Also this argument is so deeply disingenuous. You should be supporting black creatives sure but maybe put that energy towards supporting black creatives who actually having creative control of their work. Directors, writers, producers. Also, no one has been complaining about the poc actors. Every complaint i see has been couched in "obviously Jacob/Delainey/Assad are amazing but..."
"Shouldn't you care about what black ppl are going through in the real world instead?"
You're never going to believe this but a lot of us can do 2 things at once. In fact, most of the ppl I see criticize the racism of the show care about real world shit. Scroll down our blogs and you'll find current events, history, mutual aid fundraisers, commentary on what's happening in the world. It's almost as though caring about racism in reality might translate to caring about representation in media. It's almost as tho caring about racism in the real world might have attracted us to the initial themes of the show in the first place.
"You guys just don't like complicated characters or understand gothic horror/you didn't read the books"
Most of the criticism I've read are from knowledgeable books fans. Gothic horror fans. Ppl who liked the nuance/morally grey aspect of the characters. Even ppl who shipped Loustat at the end of season 1. They have a lot of suggestions on small changes that could be done to that seance scene to fix it. (While still keeping Claudia's anger and character intact) perhaps you could read their input (I share a lot of what I see on my blog) instead of being disingenuous about what their actual criticism is.
"Only white ppl are complaining about this. Black ppl don't care amd they like the show"
So that's a lie 🤷♀️ the ppl I learned from about the nuanced ins and outs of this are black. Scroll on down this blog. Click on their blogs. Check em out. Learn something. I get that you got excited about the couple of black ppl you found to agree with you but, can't believe i have to say this, black folks are not a monolith?
"The show was always racist"
The show always dealt with themes of racism. Daniel said racist microaggressions. Lestat was racist. Yes. Correct. I haven't seen anyone argue that that was not the case. What i have seen them argue is that the show (without black writers to advise) has Daniel and Lestat say racist things for more shock value/humor with no pushback, in the exact same ways when culturally they would be different. It's almost as tho the writers are just making racist jokes they find funny. I recommend you check out Rolin's first tv show, Weeds, to see the same pattern. The show started as a critique of white wealthy sheltered suburbanites who were framed as being shitty for saying racist things. There were nonwhite characters who were not (at least not fully :/) stereotypes to show that the viewpoints were false. Then over the seasons, the racist white characters are just funny little blorbos who constantly make racist jokes unchecked with no poc of that group around to check them...sound familiar? No one is constradicting Lestat's narrative. Daniel has not been able to push bk on him the way he did on Louis. And Louis was not around Daniel to push bk on the kentucky fried chicken comment and Claudia is not around to push bk on Lestat's racism bc when she is around she's the one saying racist shit to Louis and says almost nothing negative to Lestat. At a certain point you're not making commentary, you're just reveling in saying racist things. And the ppl i see arguing against this are the same ppl i see repeating the kentucky fried chicken comment as their own joke. So i have a hard time taking them seriously when they claim that the writers aren't racist, they are just writing dialogue for a racist gothic horror character. Are the writers giving you dialogue too?
Not telling you to not like the show. Hollywood is racist. Our society is racist. It's going to be really hard to find media that isn't going to fuck something up (particularly ableism). Post about your love of the show. I'm not going to come for you. I'm still going to post things i like about the show. You can pry Armand from my cold dead hands. No matter how cartoon villain they go with it. You need not take the criticism from ppl with lived experience and knowledge on this personally. Just...maybe learn...maybe even yell at AMC.
