I’m a little drunk and tired so this isn’t going to be as eloquently written as it deserves to be, howeverrr,
I think it’s evident that in the IWTV/TVL fandom, there’s this simmering debate about moralizing the characters/show vs analyzing the show through a more critical & distant lense. And it reminds me of this time in college when I gave a presentation on a controversial religious sect and I was all “well, they’re good because of blah blah blah, but…. they’re bad because of blah blah”. And my professor interrupted me in the middle of the presentation and goes “this is the problem with Your Generation™️, you want to moralize everything and center yourself, but you will have a more impactful analysis if you stop inputting your own opinion and just analyze what is actually happening.”
So it’s kinda like the joke of there being a ‘Woke 1’ era vs the (current) beginning of ‘Woke 2’, you know? There’s an emerging bend towards understanding that identity politics and moralization flattens your (our) understanding and analysis of fictional events, or of historical events, etc. There’s an emergent recognition & reflection of how identity politics has been used by the far right & the capitalist class to keep people divided and bickering. And stating this DOES NOT therefore mean that identity politics should be trashed altogether, or that there’s no such thing as marginalization or privilege, etc. It just means that viewing things purely through the lens of identity politics is, by definition, reductionist, and that this element of this type of analysis is essentially why it has persisted for so long…because we talk in circles and circles and, in many cases, the result is… what?
In fact, I’m not even bagging on identity politics in particular, it’s just the prevalent method of our time. Like, analyzing anything through the lens of any one viewpoint is reductionist. That’s what reductionist means… to reduce to one thing, one viewpoint, etc. In political theory classes you may be asked to write papers on topics from the perspective of certain theories, like camera lenses, and even though you don’t agree with a particular theory, you need to write the goddamn paper anyway. It is okay, and safe, and can even be fun, to engage with art or concepts that you don’t personally agree with.
And I sorta think that this is why IWTV has become so popular, besides the good writing, etc, etc. I think, when we look back in 10 years, this show is going to be so clearly ‘of it’s time’ [affectionate] in the sense that it forces people to battle with this idea of there being a grey area. All of the characters suck and all of them are great. They’re literal monsters, remember? Like, they murder people? Like just cuz they’re hot doesn’t mean they’re not monsters. You like Lestat despite him abusing Louis by dropping him from 5,000 feet or whatever. You like Louis even though he’s creeping on some waitress. You like Claudia even though she accidentally murdered the men she dated. You like Armand even though— even though, even though, even though.
And I think this season so far has created the start of some fantastic discourse about the cycle of abuse. It reminds me a lot of this Gabor Maté video (around the 20min mark) where he discusses how a traumatic childhood event manifests in his relationship style with his wife. And he says that doesn’t excuse him and absolve him from responsibility, but rather it makes him ask what can he do to liberate himself so that he doesn’t continue this cycle of imposing his issues onto his wife. Do you see how this is a deeper & more effective analysis than “bad man in relationship is bad”?
So anyway, I think that’s the underlying reason of why this show is so popular within the broader context of our societal consciousness (for lack of a less-pretentious way to say it). We’re being introduced to this muscle that we haven’t had to exercise in a decade, or two, or maybe never. We’re being forced to recon with the idea of there being grey areas and nuance. At the end of the day, characters are tools in the story, in the same way the lighting or the setting or the background score are tools. You know what I mean? It’s uncomfortable and that’s what makes it interesting, it makes you chew on it. A little friction isn’t bad. And in fact, not to be dramatic, but slowly adjusting to the idea of experiencing friction is probably necessary as we descend into fascism, etc etc. And pondering about a TV show is a very safe and easy way to do that.
