@kafka-cryptid - Tumblr Blog

💖 these are the four artists who, in light of the most recent season, appear to have carried iwtv on their backs while the white showrunner got all the credit. very impressed with their work not just writing/directing/editing-wise but because their presence clearly set a certain tone in that writers' room. and i imagine it took quite a bit of effort to maintain it, considering what that writers' room turned into once they were no longer in the picture. i'm really excited to keep an eye on their careers and i hope they move on to do great things with more creative control

loyalhorror

tvl episode 7 spoilers:

he would not fucking say that

he would not fucking do that

we did not need to see that

he would not fucking say that

he would not fucking do that

he did not fucking do that

repeat

ourholiestlove

the seance scene... the more i turn it around in my head the more insulting and disgusting it is. not only it isn't given the weight it needs by making louis and lestat get over it so quickly and bonding over it (!!!!!) but it also destroys the tragedy of louis and claudia's dynamic. saying that claudia preferred lestat to louis and only chose louis to run away with her because he was easier to manipulate completely undermines the love claudia had for him. they had a complex relationship! claudia hated him and loved him so deeply all throughout her life. she loved him so much! she came back to rue royale because she knew he couldn't get out of that abusive relationship by himself. because she wanted to save him. she nurtered and took care of him for months after the drop. she tolerated lestat for him! even after he chose armand over her in paris, she still visited him with madeleine. she screamed his name in the trial after they dragged him away.

louis and claudia's relationship is tragic and doomed. it's not black and white! she hated him for what he did and how he failed her and she loved him deeply! that's her father/brother she couldn't save, who would never choose her first, who would always put someone else before her. that's why it hurts! it's crazy to even think she hates louis and lestat the same amount

retconning this to portray lestat in a better light makes no sense, because it doesn't even make him more likeable. instead of justifying his abuse or revealing that the poc characters were actually lying/manipulating each other they should've made him acknowledge his actions and look at what he did to those he loved in the eye. this is disgusting, cowardly and bad writing

#they really butchered claudia’s character this season imho #the seance scene felt particularly out of character #tvl critical #tvl spoilers #tvl #iwtv #iwtv spoilers #the vampire lestat

kookiedeadbutterflies

I think I speak for everyone in this fandom when I say that we need Black writers back in the writer’s room.

The Black writers for seasons 1-2 of IWTV were Ben Philippe, David B Harris, and A. Zell Williams.

These are the men responsible for providing substance and depth to the Black characters in the first two seasons, mainly Louis and Claudia. They knew how to tackle struggle, injustices, history, rage, pain, and the ugly truth of American and European Black history. They didn’t pull punches with the hard stuff and they knew how to work with the soft stuff.

Season 3 tried to create edgy content and humor without these men and absolutely failed at it in every way possible. And they have failed both Louis and Claudia.

The Black jokes about Louis being “Louisiana Fried Chicken”, Louis continuing to be the pimp and needing his White savior that is Lestat, Claudia’s entire monologue about Louis being a literal slave to Lestat in that old Louisiana accent. And not to mention the complete erasure of Lemuel after only a couple episodes.

It’s not working.

If there’s gonna be Black actors on screen, there needs to be Black writers in the writer’s room.

#tvl critical #interview with the vampire #the vampire lestat #ben phillippe #david b harris #a zell williams

lilacs-in-the-wind

The showrunners chose to make Louis and Claudia black and experience life in the Jim crow era. They chose to do the full race swap in season 1, not just making the characters but also the story black. They chose to racialize the violence that both Louis and Claudia face throughout the first season. No one was forcing their hands and they got praised for the stuff they did in the first two seasons, for bringing in the added nuance of systemic racism. So why should I as an audience member of colour give them any grace when they choose to write dialogues containing numerous racialized and gendered micro aggressions not just towards Louis or Claudia but also towards minor characters like Dee or Lemuel who weren't supposed to exist as they are (black) in the show?? Why is Daniel (a white man) who is supposed to be a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist who was lecturing Louis on his own story about the racism he faced referring to him as a "bucket of Louisiana fried chicken"?? Why is Armand textually belittled for being a CSA victim while Lestat is endlessly provided with grace and understanding in the text of the show for his victimhood?? Who thought it was alright to adapt a scene from the books involving white characters talking about parental betrayal and insert racially charged dialogues (that too old school racist shit not even the n word) when it was unnecessary to preserve the nuance of the scene?? Why is this show denying the racialized nature of domestic violence that they chose to portray in S1 ??? (Lestat getting mildly annoyed that Louis didn't enjoy going to the operas in nola when he had to act as Lestat's servant to be allowed in tf??) Why is Gabriella like that??

I cannot help but look at this season of the show as a sign of the times tbh. IWTV aired during a very liberal era of entertainment and now that fascism and white supremacy are on the rise everywhere white entertainers have become comfortable enough to fall back into old habits. Never thought this show in particular would have this problem when I watched the first season but it is what it is I guess

#tvl critical #interview with the vampire #the vampire lestat #tvl #iwtv #it seems fairly evident that the (clearly) white writers rooms of these shows were not prepared to tactfully execute the racial dynamics-#-that they introduced to the text #like they wanted to race swap characters to increase the diversity of rice’s source material #but they didn’t follow through #the changes they made would influence the characters’ perspectives and experiences #this show desperately needed more black writers #its really disgusting how often the narrative excuses and coddles the white characters

tv-kiki

with few exceptions we have only seen black characters graphically get brutalized. they had closeups of louis’s body and face after lestat tried to murder him showing the extent of what was done, we saw just how burned and disfigured he was after her suicide attempt, claudia’s death is one of the most graphic i’ve seen on any tv show, we got closeups of their ankles slashed and shots of louis being kicked in the head and claudia being shoved into a box of live rats by the coven members. the majority of louis’s scenes in episode 7 were of his decapitated head on a pike, forced to look at his body as it flailed, begging to die, forced to apologize in something so close to a saw trap that it was bordering on copyright infringement while being painted as cruel and deserving of the abuse and then branded by armand.

we didn’t see any shots of lestat’s head in the bowling bag. we saw him burn, but it was portrayed as comical. we did not see bruce as he died, we did not see lestat get torn up by the wolves, we did not watch nicki die. in the majority of the scenes where a white character is injured, the action is cut away, out of frame, out of focus, mostly implied.

the extent of what we saw of the brutality of black characters now feels almost fetishistic. at the end of episode 105, lestat is floating in the air looking dreamy and louis is beaten to a pulp on the ground; episode 207, lestat is put together in a suit with his hair done and louis and claudia have been severely beaten. like, after this season, the rest of the show just looks weird.

#tvl critical #tvl spoilers #the vampire lestat

supahbeefcakes

with marcille’s necromancy and noelle’s ice magic, they could finally create tumblr’s greatest nemesis: the strong as fuck ice mummy

jauniegal

I love wikihow so much

katlovesshrimps

many such cases

sluttynurse

when someone talks about deconstructing the nuclear family but really they mean creating a DIFFERENT scenario where women would still be doing most of the work just for a larger group of people

konoko

regging

eating disorders and abortions are two things that are like, spoken about in most mainstream discourse as though they are pretty rare and aberrant, but then when you’re actually friends with a lot of women you come to find out that they are extremely extremely common and kind of banal & mundane

sashayed

thinking about Brad Dourif in "Istanbul" and the fact is Grima Wormtongue would have gotten away with it forever if they'd let him be hot. with better hair he could've run that horse girl country into the ground for decades. eomer would've been like "dang, seems like my uncle is a very bad king for no reason, oh well." pretty privilege grima wormtongue could have girlbossed middle earth into the flames of mordor

sashayed

hot grima wormtongue: lmao look who's here. late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear. láthspell i name him, ill news, and ill news is an ill guest