I feel like not enough people are aware that Lestat having a lawyer named Christine in the books is because Anne Rice had a lawyer named Christine. And when I say Anne had a lawyer named Christine, I mean THAT lawyer named Christine. The only lawyer of Anne's anyone would ever care about because she was the one who got to send out the C&D notices to fanfic authors. Which I can personally attest to, having been one of the four people who got such an email directly from Christine herself.
And thus by extension I feel like not enough people are aware that The Vampire Lestat the TV show, by taking what one might term as creative liberties with the books, has not only written what amounts to fanfic about Christine, the lawyer who sent out C&D notes telling fanfic authors to stop writing fanfic, but has specifically written fanfic about her which casts her as a drug addicted party girl with a sex dungeon who happens to occasionally do some law on the side.
Probably not on purpose, but amusing to note all the same. And probably not what the real Christine ever imagined this particular lawyer and client relationship would result in.
What's hilarious to me is that Sam Reid was asked what moment of season three would be the most memed and he genuinely struggled to think of an answer.
You know when there's like, a straight show and everyone's like "it's full of queer subtext between the main straight dudes, and this character is obviously autistic and they really meant to say trans rights"? And then there's a queer show and all of a sudden it's "no but they weren't sensitive about this character's trauma and the queer sex scenes are too short and they're all problematic as fuck, i can't even watch"? And then our shit doesn't get renewed, and we hated on it the whole way for not embodying the perfection we'd never dream of demanding from the straight show?
Ive seen a few people get mad about the tweet that says "this has been talked about extensively, youre just 21" on the basis that the poster is referring to a trans girl talking about silence of the lambs.
And look, okay, listen. I have a film degree. Im not in any an expert on cinema nor am I a film scholar but I do have some higher formal education on the topic, and I am a trans person who has, unfortunately, been 21. Here's my 2 cents:
Firstly, trans-coded villains in horror movies (namely the "man in a dress" archetype) is pretty cinema 101. It IS so extensively talked about that you were probably drawing an eye in the back of the lecture hall if you dont remember anything being said about it. If you ever take a horror movie class specifically then you are absolutely guaranteed to have this conversation and have the plethora of scholarship about it thrown at you for required reading.
Secondly, I do not like this idea that simply being a bit rude or short with someone of a particular demographic is always and exclusively rooted in a prejudice towards the identity group(s) they are a part of. There is a VERY big difference between active transphobia and just being a bit of a dick, and conflating the two is going to make things very messy and potentially dangerous. For starters, you are going to create an extremely paranoid and jumpy bunch of young trans people who are absolutely convinced that the entire world is out to kill them when they inevitably encounter some random asshole in the real world. And you are going to give a whole bunch of conservatives a whole bunch of ammunition to say that we think every minor inconvenience or moment of discomfort is a targeted attack against us, frankly because you are acting like it is.
Additionally, every 21 year old has a very weird superiority complex. I did, you did/do/will. It just comes with the territory. Youre having your first taste of true independence and are probably in undergrad, which is an environment that drip-feeds you a lot of rewards for doing essentially what you just did in high school again but at a slightly higher difficulty with less social ostracism. If you live on your own or in the dorms with other 21 year olds, you will all just feed into each other's superiority complexes. You end up convinced that you and your friends are the smartest people alive and the first ones to ever come up with certain ideas, that I promise have been thought of by millions of 21 year olds before you. This includes "has anyone else noticed that trans-coded villains are common in horror movies?" And I think its justified to have a bit of a reality check in someone saying "yes, everyone has, this has been discussed extensively for generations, youre just 21."
Finally, I do not appreciate in the slightest the response to this tweet being "silence of the lambs has no artistic merit and should be scrubbed from the media landscape entirely because of Buffalo Bill." If you personally are not comfortable with/do not have the ability to look past the trans-coded villain archetype you dont have to watch it, but to act like the presence of a poorly-aged trope completely negates all the very real positive impact a foundational film did for modern horror is infuriatingly anti-intellectual and betrays your one-dimensional morality around media, as well as your complete inability to look at something objectively.
As one final thought, the idea that a snippy tweet about being frustrated with typical 21 year old behavior is "ageist" is the most 21 year old shit ive ever heard. Truly impressive levels of missing the point.
Image description: Top text, "Stop Using Transphobic Language". On the left is a column of common phrases in red with the text above, "Instead of:"; and on the right is a column of actions in green with the text above, "Say:". First row, "'Sorry for misgendering you'"; "Here's $20". Second row, "'It's going to take a awhile to get used to the new name"; "My credit card number is...". Third row, "i just want you to know i'm going to mess up a lot"; "Have $40". Fourth row, "you know this hard for me"; "Let me give you my wallet". Final row, "I'm just grieving the loss of <deadname>"; "Do you want my car?".
When you are just starting out learning about crafting visuals, the "rule of thirds" is given to folks as training wheels. If you don't know what you are doing, it is a good way to force people to think about their framing and avoid obvious snapshot compositions.
The idea is that if you gain experience and get better, you will shed those rule-of-thirds training wheels and start thinking more deeply about composition.
Eventually, you learn that central compositions can be done well and may gravitate back to them. Professionals use central framing all the time and some use it almost exclusively. You can play with focus and symmetry and layered compositions. It's a great way to draw the eye with leading lines. The idea is that you put the subject in a central position and then the secondary subject and the periphal context support the subject.
This movie was not made for TikTok or vertical viewing. That Twitter user overlayed the vertical video lines to demonstrate their point, and it ended up proving them wildly incorrect.
Remember that composition, more than anything else, needs to serve the story.
Let's look at how this falls apart.
How does this composition work without the other kids gossiping about her? This composition was constructed to show she is a school pariah. If it were on TIkTok, she'd just be walking down a hall.
Here we might not even know these are legs.
Here you can't tell she's hiding in a bathroom stall. Never has a roll of toilet paper been so important to a composition.
Have some random fingers, TikTok.
The subject is actually the glowing hands. This is a symmetrical composition, not a central one. Her in the mirror is not actually the subject.
I'm pretty sure that floating mouse needs to be in frame. TikTok gets an eyeball and a thumb to figure out what is going on.
You get one leg to figure this one out. Good luck.
I did find one single scene where the entire context could be shoved into a vertical video format.
That is the only shot that would work on TikTok out of the entire trailer.
What most people call composition is actually just subject framing. Which can be an important part of the composition, but it is only one variable.
I'm going to steal from another post of mine because I don't feel like writing essentially the same thing over. But I detailed how a professional visual author thinks about composition beyond just framing and rule of thirds...
Things that are often considered when designing a shot… background, midground, foreground. Symmetry or asymmetry. Primary and secondary subjects. Visual weight and balance. Visual anchors. Subject separation via depth of field, background/foreground exposure ratio, contrast, or color palette. And most importantly… storytelling.
Let's think through the composition of this shot.
I prefer to think back to front. What do I want the viewer to see?
Background is the sky. Midground is the town. Foreground is Michael B Jordan.
They chose a mostly symmetrical composition, with the gun being asymmetrical to help it stand out. The visual weight of the left is balanced on the right. Symmetry is a powerful and dramatic visual anchor. If you would rather the viewer chew on the environment and absorb the entire frame, you may frame the subject off-center.
The primary subject is his face and the secondary subject is the gun. You can tell this because the gun is out of focus. They want you to visually anchor your attention to his expression. The angle of the gun even has a leading line that goes straight to his eyes.
Subject separation is mostly done with an exposure ratio. He is dark against a bright white sky. There is some background blur as well.
The camera is slightly below his eyeline, so it is looking up at him. This gives him a sense of power and control. He is dangerous and imposing. They are using a strong central framing with a low perspective as storytelling tools.
All of those creative decisions are part of composition. If all you consider is subject framing, your shot is probably going to be weaker for it.
I agree that there is some content being made more friendly for watching on phones. But even with shows and movies, most people still make the effort to turn their phone sideways. So I don't think this central framing thesis holds any water. I think it was just a compositional preference by the filmmakers.
Either that or Wes Anderson was a visionary, creating the most TikTok-able movies before the platform even existed.
So because every time I make a Jesse post that gets traction, someone tends to comment on the fact that Ned Brower, the actor that portrays him, is a nurse, I've decided to make this post about the real life medical professionals in the cast of the Pitt.
Partly so more people will know about them but mostly because these are six characters that are seen in a solid majority of episodes, as they are typically in the Trauma rooms, and get next to no recognition since a large part of the fandom could not name these characters if they tried. And that seems wrong since (aside from Ned), they are also part of the Medical Technical Advisors that help nail down the realism of the show.
Ned Brower, RN as Jesse Van Horne
The man, the myth, the legend himself, Ned Brower. Ned is an active nurse at Sollis Health when he's not working on the Pitt. And while most fans of his may know that he was the drummer for the band Rooney and is one half of the band, Bloodwerk (whose name was thought of by one of his medical colleagues if you can't tell), he is also a former EMT with LA County Fire Department.
And really, it's a minor miracle that he's on the Pitt since, when he first heard about it, it was through Joe Sachs, MD, who is a physician at Sollis and a consulting physician for the Pitt. A job Ned did not want, though he suggested his actress wife might be interested (he's married to Sarah Jane Morris, who played Robby's ex and Jake's mom, Janey Malloy). However, when given the chance to audition for a role on the show, Ned did. And clearly nailed it since what was meant to be a 3-4 episode role definitely expanded into a fan favorite.
Tim Van Pelt, RN (Retired) as Tim Sallinger
Tim is a working actor who has appeared in shows like The West Wing and The X-Files and has worked Off-Broadway and in commercials. But when his career slowed, he went back to school at 50 to become a nurse. And what he brings to the Pitt is logistics. He is the man who makes the spreadsheets that map the department, track the patients, their symptoms and treatments. As a former Charge Nurse of UCLA Healther's Santa Monica Hospital, he definitely knows his shit.
Over the nine days it takes to film an episode, Tim is responsible for calculation how much fluid should've drained from the IV and adjusts it accordingly. He figures out who needs crutches or a wheelchair, or if they're in a bed. But also, he advises Katherine on how Dana should respond to certain situations.
Melette Le Blanc-Cabot, PA, as Sophie
Melette is kind of like Ned in that she was an ER nurse that got in to television through a colleague. It's just she did it in 1994 and was part of making the trauma scenes of ER (1994) look more realistic by being of the many actual medical professionals on set. And by the fourth season, she found herself seriously entering the world of medical technical advisor after Noah introduced her to his friend who was producing a commercial at the time, which in time became her advising more seriously.
So it's no real shock that The Pitt EP, Joe Sachs, a former colleague, reached out to her. On The Pitt, she helped train the cast during their two-week medical boot camp by demonstrating essential medical skills like suturing, prepping medications and performing intubations to give a sense of realism, but also found her role expanded from "Medical Technical Advisor" to "actual cast member".
Ambar Martinez, RN as Kim Tate
Ambar is another case where the acting preceded her entering the medical field. Because while she has experience as a nurse, having graduated from nursing school around 2013, worked as an ER nurse and worked as one during Covid, for Ambar acting (and later Medical Advisor) is a primary focus. In fact, when it comes to the Pitt, she first auditioned for the role of a patient. However, when offered the role of a medical advisor helping run the medical boot camps, she took that teaching the cast how to use the equipment, as well as working in the background helping to move patients.
It was only as they headed into episode 4 where she was approached about portraying a new character, Nurse Kim (eventually leading to her having to do a Zoom audition for the character when bigger scenes involving her was planned out).
Jamie Lynn Watkins, RN as Jamie Watkins
While there's not much to be found about Jamie in her own words, it's known that--much like Ned, who works at the same hospital she does--she is an active nurse when not working on other projects. Because, as noted in an interview with Ambar Martinez, Jamie has a long history of working as a Medical Advisor for shows such as 9-1-1 and, of course, the Pitt when she's not playing a nurse on tv shows like St. Denis Medical and the Rookie.
Jordan Farrand, RN as Jordan Prescott
When it comes to Jordan, he's a bit newer to the world of acting despite his established role as an ER nurse. Because of that it's a bit harder to find out about him at this time. However, much like the rest of the actual nurses in the cast, he played his part in coordinating what background actors should be doing during the Pittfest scenes and is an actual on-set reference like the rest of the medical professionals working on the Pitt.
I feel for everyone who isn’t having the time of their fucking lives with The Vampire Lestat. Every week I clap and cheer for the antics of the world’s saddest buzzword-laden bisexual crash-out diva and his crew of the least healed men to ever grace the small screen. The songs are cringe delightfully camp, the wigs are a nightmare, I’m living my best life, I’m loving every second. Why the fuck would you have a blood shower in your tour bus. The onscreen mother-son incest is only like the third wildest thing happening in any given episode. It’s insane. I never want it to end
It really cannot be sufficiently stressed that a blood shower is completely unworkable. Do you have one of those coffee machines with a milk fridge in your office? Have you noticed how often the milk delivery jams so you can't make a latte? Now imagine that with a substance that coagulates as soon as it meets air. You'd have to either maintain a careful mixture of blood and anti-coagulant, or keep as much air as possible out of the blood tank (which needs to be periodically topped off, of course). And either way, as soon as it ends up in the pipes, it would start clogging.
And this they apparently put on a bus? With a switch so you can get water and blood out of the same shower head? I need to know which member of the entourage has a plumbing certificate, because they should be working on that job full time.
I actually find the blood shower less upsetting, if no less implausible, than (1) the shower is just out in the open without walls in the first place (what a maintenance nightmare) (2) the toilet is apparently ALSO out in the open?!! (why??!!!)
Considering that vampires not being able to pee is such a point in the books that the concept of Lestat and peeing is an ACTUAL PLOT POINT in book four I'm convinced all the shots we're getting of vamps in front of urinals and toilets is Rolin Jones's thinly disguised fetish.
Also the blood shower is clearly based on a mortal being kept in the ceiling who gets stabbed multiple times when Lestat turns the faucet on. DUH.
we need to periodically remind everyone that a headline not including a person's name isn't an attempt to erase their identity from the narrative, it's just not good practice to put someone's name in a headline unless the reader can be expected to already know who they are
see that's historical bias.most ancient roman non-mammals were not considered citizens and did not have their words recorded. it's this sort of bias towards the wealthy and powerful in historical records that warps our perception of the past
Diogenes did some work to challenge this perception in the senate however surviving records of his activism were unfortunately those used to make a joke of his position rather than presenting an objective retelling of the events likely because he was Greek
The MET Gala is a fundraiser for The Met. Putting on the fashion exhibition is VERY costly. Has the politics, inflation, and bullshit gotten out of hand? Yeah. To give you an idea of how much this can cost, the collection I work for has 2 gowns from 1798 & 1809 currently being conserved and had mounts made for them so displaying them wouldn’t cause further damage. They were already in a solid B shape and cost more than 50k to conserve so the public can view them for 5 months each. They will then be reboxed (archival tissue and box) for a minimum of 10 years before they’re considered to be seen again. Oh, and archival material only lasts 10 years before it has to be replaced, whether or not it’s being considered for display.
Don’t like the gala? Support local museums with a textile or fashion collection, they get fractions of the revenue or publicity, and still aim to achieve a solid fraction of what the MET does. More collections are deaccessioning their textiles because they’re costly to maintain, large and need space. However, after big names artists like Van Gogh, Botticelli or da Vinci they get the most interest in from the public. The study of clothing is an opportunity to shine light on women & minority stories as well. Don’t let the fact that some of the guests suck and have more money than any of them need take away the importance of museums and dress study.
I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.
I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.
this is the key part of the song, that a lot of people miss. people have this misconception that the contest between Johnny and The Devil is about who is the better fiddle player. but it isn't. its about who is the better fiddler.
in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.
the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.
but Johnny wins because the contest is about being the best fiddler. the song uses these lines mentioned above as a shorthand for saying that Johnny is playing these songs. Johnny launches into a set of the most popular songs, played well, and that's what gives him his big win. A good fiddler knows all the hits, and can read the room to know what to play next. The Devil loses because he completely fails to read the room, and doesn't know the right songs.
It's likewise that the Devil's approach tags him as an outsider. Southerners are famously distrustful of anyone who arrives announcing they know better.
interview with the vampire, the novel, treats homosexuality in a pretty bog standard way for 70s american media—a grotesquerie too unseemly to be addressed by name, whose practitioners are either helpless but still disgusting victims who rightfully want to die to kill the disease inside of them, or gauche, subhuman predators who reach grisly ends as a result of their perversion. it goes through the homophobic traits noted in chapter three of the celluloid closet like a checklist. and then not that long later the vampire lestat has a completely revised view of homosexuality, treating gayness and gay relationships with a kind of clumsy, eager voyeurism, titillation where before there was only artistry and disgust. something happened between 1976 and 1985 that resulted in anne rice’s fujoshi awakening
First, Anne had an on again/off again relationship with Catholicism which directly influenced how comfortable she was with homosexuality in her novels. If you want to judge how it showed up in her writing, that's your touchstone first and foremost before anything else.
Second, it is a crime that newbie fans were not there for the glory of finding out that when Chris came out to her her response - which they talked about publicly in the media mind you - was "Are you sure you want to be gay? Read my book, Cry to Heaven."
"Read my book, Cry to Heaven!" was a meme for the ages back in ye olde VampChron fandom days, lemme tell ya.
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