Dear IWTV Writer's Room and Production Team...
Dear IWTV Writer's Room and Production Team,
Hi, it's us. The fans and viewers ofAnne Rice, The Vampire Chronicles and AMC Immortal Universe.
We wanted to have a talk with you that’s been long overdue. And I think it's best to address this as Louis would. With hard words and soft words.
Soft words. The AMC Immortal Universe is a massive dream come true for a lot of us. The fans who have read Anne Rice books since the 80s and the fans who grew up watching the 1990s and 2000s IWTV and QOTD movies. And then there's the new fans who came on board from other spaces like the Hannibal fandom who found a new gothic fiction home when we felt like we lost ours in 2015.
The initial reaction to the revival of what was IWTV was I'm sure mixed, what with Louis being reimagined as a Creole man and Armand being a brown man. Not to mention all the sexy gay vampire themes that were going on that I'm sure not everyone was on board with. But you stuck to your guns and you made a whole new universe with confidence and surety that this is what was meant to be. And you were right. We're so glad that you decided to take the show in the direction that you did and for a lot of us, this is what is cemented as The Vampire Chronicles.
Other things that have never failed to amaze us are the perfect casting choices for every character, the magic that Daniel Hart's music brings to the story, and the costume and make up team that always brings passion to the fashion. The aesthetics of this series is truly something to behold. We truly love this series with all of our hearts. IWTV was such an explosive array of wonder since its pilot and it has been a wonder to all of us since then.
Hard words. We have witnessed the noticeable drop in writing quality in the new season The Vampire Lestat and that is not our only concern. We have also noticed a major pacing issue past episode 2, flanderization of characters, the meta commentary ad nauseam, and most notably the consistently antiblack writing for characters of color.
The AMC Immortal Universe has never been shy about issues of race and racism since day one given that Louis had been cast as a Creole man with Jacob Anderson and Armand as a French-Bengali man with Assad Zamman. Seasons 1-2 masterfully handled these themes in not only New Orleans, but also Romania and Paris. In fact, it was one of if not the central thing in IWTV that was praised among fans and critics alike when it aired. The incredible details to historical facts, rich cultural aesthetics, multilingual mastery, and confronting the brutal truths of America and Europe's history of slavery and racism were what we could consistently and confidently hold pride in when we recommended this show to others. But after this new season, we are unsure if we still hold that pride within us.
In the first two seasons you had core Black writers in the room who were Ben Philippe, David B Harris, and A. Zell Williams who brought their experience and expertise into the scripts. As did director Keith Powell. Their absence and the absence of any Black writers in the writing room this season has reflected in the show’s overall quality, especially in the characters. To say that you have handled it poorly is an understatement.
There were 4 new Black characters introduced to the show yet they have had no character development and were more or less used for plot device and decorative stereotypes. The scammer. The crack whore. The eye candy boyfriend. What will you do with the Queen, we wonder. We also couldn’t help but notice that you hired a South Asian writer this season and yet she has contributed virtually nothing to Armand’s development this season. In fact, the brown characters in this show constantly seem to be the bad guys doing bad things to Black people. Claudia’s monologue in the seance scene was riddled in racist and misogynistic connotations including casually throwing around the word “slave” and “nappy headed” and claiming that she hated Louis more than her literal rapist and murderers. Nevermind the fact that she said Lestat was her “blood” and she liked him better, which contradicted all of S2 Claudia’s development as a Black female character. Louis had lost practically all of his character growth from the first two seasons that he was reduced to a “pimp” and a failure of a “good Negro” who bends to others around him. Even before the gory torture scene, the fandom was literally asking “Why do the writers hate Louis?”. And we most certainly did not miss the off brand "bucket of Louisiana fried chicken" joke in episode 4. Nor the highly uncomfortable absolutely tone deaf excuse filled After Dark for episode 7. This is more than just character assassination. It’s character undoing and erasure.
And as a bonus, it’s not just your writers, but your own production designer, Andres Cubillan, who is making statements like this about the actors of color in interviews:
When we see these things happening so frequently and repeatedly, we seriously need ask ourselves, what kind of people are running this show and what are they allowing in the production environment that makes them believe that this is possibly acceptable. What exactly are you subjecting your actors of color to?
The antiblackness is so prominently highlighted in the season that even non-Black viewers and fans are feeling increasingly uncomfortable from the implicit and explicit bias. Some have deemed it a resentment of the black writers and their work. Others have completely tuned out and have ran back to their stack of Anne Rice novels.
The thing is there is a fundamental difference between non-Black writers who think they understand racial issues and Black writers who do understand racial issues down to their bones. But even with the best intentions of a group of non-Black writers and production crew, it isn’t enough.
It's also concerning to us, the fans and viewers, that the production and marketing team is going to Reddit of all places for fan input when it is well known that moderators there are known to silence and remove any Black and LGBTQ voices when it does not follow their agenda. It was absolutely jarring to us when we heard executive producer Mark Johnson say that the audience has no sympathy for Armand and that fans didn't like IWTV S1-2. Neither are true. “Make IWTV Great Again”? Please, no. There's a reason a lot of us are on Tumblr instead of the massive echo chamber that is Reddit.
Here’s what Tumblr thinks:
There’s only so much that a 10 photo limit of a Tumblr post can show you, but here’s a few more:
https://www.tumblr.com/lilacs-in-the-wind/821942164762329088/the-showrunners-chose-to-make-louis-and-claudia
https://www.tumblr.com/covenendearment/821949622662610944/i-think-besides-the-racism-perhaps-this-seasons?source=share
https://www.tumblr.com/hes-brad/821502051373744128/i-dont-understand-the-flattening-out-of-louis
https://www.tumblr.com/meanmisscharles/822144983189585920/my-post-about-the-vampire-lestat-im-going-to
https://www.tumblr.com/coldeveryseason/822027586819489792/the-way-some-people-who-love-tvl-arent-content-to
https://www.tumblr.com/murfpersonalblog/822127770870104064/i-just-sent-my-email-today-my-email-was-long
https://www.tumblr.com/certifiedlurker/821909922547744768/can-i-ask-ive-not-seen-the-most-recent-episode
https://www.tumblr.com/hollowwaveremnant/821874241595211776/the-way-sa-is-treated-in-this-show-as-a-joke-or-a
https://www.tumblr.com/lottafeelingsinhere/822142370097348608/if-you-complain-about-the-best-queer-show-on-tv
https://www.tumblr.com/subcrypha/822002542727823360/pre-the-vampire-lestat-finale-thoughts-ramell
https://www.tumblr.com/prettycoolforaperson/822363140861870080/what-does-amc-want-from-the-audience-other-than
https://www.tumblr.com/usaginoir/822489362253152256/circling-back-to-this-after-the-after-dark-episode
https://www.tumblr.com/usaginoir/822490367705350144/the-tvl-ad-train-wreck
https://www.tumblr.com/usaginoir/822495197067984896/tvl-after-dark-i-watch-it-so-you-dont-have-to
https://www.tumblr.com/gaypeople/822488912270376960
If you care to see more of such valid criticism, all you have to do is search #tvlcritical or #thevampirelestat.
You or others might say "Well if you don't like it, then don't watch it", which of course is always a choice, but that is not what we choose to do. We choose to hold you accountable for your writing choices this season and to not enable them. Which is also why our answer to Ryan Kattner's PR stunt on Instagram before the airing of episode 6 is a resounding "NO". We won't be wowed with glamourized trauma porn and we won't bend to pity filled soap boxes.
It isn't enough to hire stellar actors of color who will undoubtedly do a stellar job on screen every single time. When you made a choice to cast them, you had the responsibility to make sure that they were represented fairly. In a world of pro-capitalism where racism and antiblackness runs the consumer's world stage, we really rather this show not be part of that equation. You’ve lost the wonder that this show used to have and replaced it with something else. We want that wonder back.
We need you to do better and we are demanding that you do better in the next season. If you get a next season. Because to us, this is not a joke. Clean up your act and hire more writers who can represent these characters or we're pulling out.
ellievsbear
germansingergirl
titsay
pixelskylines
areudirty
amandla
blakekathryn
