I'm discussing a fictional show that has portrayed a Black man running a house in the Jim Crow south in a specific light, and then flipped a switched and asked us to degrade, water down, and demonize that man based on that even as that very same season makes both symbolic and literal sexual assault and rape set dressing, repeated failed attempts at alleged "camp," and comedic relief. Louis de Pointe du Lac is not real. Bricks, Lily, and Doris are not real. The show doesn't offer us a look into their lives after LDPDL or Jim Crow. I am analyzing the pieces THEY gave me. In fiction.
If you read that post and thought the message was "pimps are good," then you have a fucking hole in your frontal lobe. Likewise, if you think that TVL is genuinely engaging with the labor of sex work and anything that might coerce or control sex workers, you are in the war on literacy on the side of the illiteracy.
And I'm never here for language that infantalizes sex workers in a way that says, "no pimps, but someone MUST save them from themselves. No pimps, but police and criminal records and jail time. No pimps, but surely the inability to report a crime against their body, their safety, their home, etc, because it would criminalize them is helping," and that's why I wanted to open up that discussion. Because too many peolle are tip toeing around the realities of sex work, both the people saying yes, Louis is an eternal pimp, and those who recognize that aggression for the racist thing it is. I will not be one of them.
And this is the vampire show. Who is YOUR favorite? Because this is very, "girl, what were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament?"
Lovingly, y'all have to get better at and more comfortable with talking about sex work and sex workers if you're going to continue critiquing TVL on that note. Because some of y'all are tip toeing in a way that doesn't acknowledge that the show failed to even show this Louis they're claiming in s3, and also its a little dehumanizing to sex workers, when s1 went out of its way to show us them as living, breathing, real people DOING A JOB. SEX WORK IS LABOR.
Because my issue is that we saw Louis take the racial slur/heat from a John who rightfully got pummeled when he assaulted a sex worker. She's framed as CORRECT for fighting back and stopping that assault btw. We saw Louis and Miss Lily have a very clear understanding, though unspoken, that Louis was gay as the day is long. I believe the first sex worker we see is disabled, not as a bit or joke, and Louis addresses her by name immediately. It's Daniel implying harm and ill intent on Louis' part in those early scenes. But later in IWTV, we hear the way wealthy white men talk about their brothels and it's not at all warm or familiar...
I didn't see Louis coercing them or selling them against their will. And yes, there is always some level of ethical issue in sex work, especially as it's criminalized and relies on authorities turning a blind eye which also means they can manipulate sex workers and their whole house all the want. But from what the show itself gave us, Louis is practical and protective of the sex workers under his care. His only violence is making an example of Paul because he HAS TO. I think the show could've explored how Louis can compartmentalize anyone in his life into a calculated business asset, a means to an end, and I do think it's possible that his guilt with the pastor was genuine. But the SHOW chose not to do that.
Season 1 and 2 also establish that Daniel did sex work to fuel his addictions and perhaps an affinity for self harm. But it's then Daniel who refers to Armand as a rentboy. Armand, I *think* is the only person who says sex worker, but even then, it's unclear if Louis' using terms like "girls" or "hookers" when recalling the time period is supposed to be a derogatory habit or just part of the recollection, as that is what they'd be called.
I don't think Louis is a saint. I don't NEED or WANT Louis to be a Saint and if they'd fucking bothered actually adapting Lestat, that makes it all the more beautiful that to Lestat he IS sainted, not to mention the parallels or Lestat leaving a monastery and falling in love with/running away to Paris to be with Nicki versus Louis' desperate and self flagellating confession being interrupted by Lestat telling him he could have a life bigger than this religion and the limits of his race (which obv the show could've explored that not being 100% true as being gay & a biracial couple does still limit them despite their vampiric power). But if the show thought they were showing me a nightmare cold and cruel pimp, a master exploitation who dehumanized anyone at any time, they're outta their fucking minds.
Louis' father ran a sugar plantation and/or mill into ruin. Louis took the money he could selling it off to white business men who most definitely didn't want to help lift up a Black man. And we see how those men try to rip him off at the poker game (which also pisses Lestat off, so it's wiiiiiild the leaps and bounds they took from thoughtless French man to like... idk, Iggy Klan or Third Reich Bowie). Louis' call to being a pimp wasn't about owning women. It was the only avenue he had left to keep his family living the way they did. A white person falling from upper to kindle class is one thing. An entire Black family falling from the upper class in the Jim Crow south? There isn't a middle; There's only rock bottom. Did exploitation and violation lead the women who worked in his brothel there? Probably. But that's not unique to sex work. That's an issue of capitalism, of labor, and the additional challenges of being an unkept woman. I'm not gonna assume their Black boss who smoothes it over when they fight back is the worst thing that ever happened to them. And that's what the show has asked us to do all season.
And if the show wanted to get into how Louis' lashing out at those white businessmen likely harmed those women, it could've done that! But it didn't!
One thing that is honestly so frustrating to me as a fan is constantly having my views and opinions being ridiculed either directly in my comments or indirectly by people sharing their own opinions or responding to people with similar opinions as mine. Especially when you're proven over and over to be right. For example Claudia, I said in an earlier post that Louis and Lestat didn't give a fuck about Claudia and said and I quote 'they care for Claudia in the sense of wanting her happy and alive but don't do anything to achieve that.' Cause you can't say you love Claudia and imply you'd do anything for her while always treating her like some second priority thrift shop doll. And although I like many don't agree with some of the word choices and writing of the Claudia rant in ep 6 it does fully confirm to me that I was right. And again except for the racial remarks I am so satisfied that Louis and some of the fans got to hear that.
And just to emphasise it since I'm shitting on Louis right now. Lestat wasn't better. Louis was constantly enabling the abuse Claudia received. Being responsible for her suffering during the fire, the turning, the abuse under Lestat, the abuse and control from Armand and eventually her final death. So obviously the main focus is on Louis in terms of Claudia but considering some of the edits I've seen. Y'all need to drill it in your head that Lestat fucking SUCKS. He was never a good father to her, and did not care (enough) despite how much he might say it. And the closure at the end was just those two being per usual fucking selfish. That closure was them wanting feel good about their actions and life while fucking up Claudia's, they never deserved closure.
Edit: Since some people can't fucking read I litteraly state that they cared about her and sure they loved her. I'm just saying love isn't worth shit when you treat someone like that, they also loved her as a doll not a person. Their selfishness ALWAYS came before her. Sure the beginning was nice but as someone else said as well the novelty wears off and of course Claudia started growing up and resisiting after finding out the truth of the relationship. And when I said 'he did not care' of course he cared a little just not nearly enough, that's what I've been saying wanting her alive and happy but doing nothing to achieve it.
Oh jeez, Louis paid for "Claudia", which is messed up but understandable with his grief over a daughter, unhealthy, but understandable.. but now a fake Madeleine for her to fake date in front of him at dinner... WHAT IS THIS MAN DOINGGGG.
