I might be a bit too optimistic and maybe naive in trusting the showrunners but could all this promo be meta? I keep thinking about Daniel in the first teaser saying that people care more about the white guy. And then Sam saying something recently about the oversaturation of his image. Just a thought but I feel like all of it is a bit too on the nose.
when i encounter some sort of ironic metatextual thing/commentary, i always ask myself: is there material difference between endorsement and criticism in this case? or in other words, what exactly this meta thing is trying to achieve and is this artistic decision more important than material consequences? because if the end result is the same, i don't think it matters if this was an ironic "meta" thing or simply a bad (racist/misogynistic/homophobic etc) decision.
the marketing could be meta. or it could be not meta. the end result is the same: actors of color do not get recognition and attention on the same level the main white actor does. s1&2 did everything to boost sam reid's presence in the show and marketing, even when lestat barely had any reason to be in the narrative. s3 marketing does everything to downplay the importance of jacob, assad and delainey and there are very clear negative consequences to it.
if amc respected bipoc, it'd find a way to keep their presence in the marketing without hurting any kind of "meta" vision of it. they could put up ominous clips of ghost or hallucination of claudia lurking behind lestat or haunting louis. they could make more silly in-character interviews like they did with "documentary outtakes". they still could show more of louis and armand in the official trailer. they simply could talk more about the first two seasons and encourage people to watch it instead of downplaying any connection between iwtv and tvl.
as it is now, the actors of color who carried this show do not get nearly as much exposure, attention from the news outlets, public and industry professionals. they're all actors, it’s how they get new interesting big roles and recognition for their work. do you see the problem here? no matter the intention, the material result still sucks ass. in fact, i believe many networks has started covering their asses with "meta" excuses and that's why i no longer fall for them.