why do u think louis was able to be out as a vampire and a gay man in paris he wasnāt able to do in new orleans? why during paris and armand did he blossom while in new orleans and lestat he was deeply closeted and in denial of himself? could it be the allusion of power armand gave him?
I think proximity to Armand and the illusion of power (and liberation, but I'll circle back to that) Armand helped to give him, as well as the more forthcoming education in vampirism (Coven life, vampiric law and society, the fire gift, etc.), definitely played a role, but I think a lot of it was because Louis was completely removed from his human context in Paris until the very moment he wasn't.
In Paris, Louis' not just away from Lestat and anyone who ever knew him in his mortality (after all, Claudia never knew him as a human), but the repressive and oppressive society he was born in and will ever have his roots in. He's surplanted into a city where, on the surface, his sexuality is just fundamentally less of an issue. That's not to say that it wasn't one, but for context, France was the first Western country in the world to decriminalise homosexuality, which it did during the French Revolution in 1791, and fascinatinly, from the 1870s-1930s, French queer life really flourished. A lesbian subculture came into its own across the late 1800s in Paris, what are largely believed to be the first queer riots defending homosexual relationships occured in Normandy in 1905, gay magazines launched and literature flourished, particularly led by Marcel Proust, cruising culture exploded in the Roaring Twenties, but so did the establishment of gay and lesbian bars, and gender affirming surgeries began which were met with, and I quote, 'enthusiastic press coverage in 1930s France'.
That isn't to say homophobia wasn't rampant, it was, but you could live a life that was, well, a truly queer life. That did change broadly with World War II, with the Nazi occupation of France aggressively targeting LGBTQI+ people, with many lives being lost and subcultures destroyed, but there was also a strong culture of queer resistance and resiliance during that time because of the foundation that existed before it. Interestingly too, a part of that capacity for resistance and resiliance is because Paris itself, oddly enough, wasn't hugely targeted when it came to queer repression. From Wikipedia:
In Paris, homosexual life was not significantly disrupted by the Occupation.Ā Henry de MontherlantĀ noted that it was even easier to "pick up" young men than before the war. Homosexual meeting places such as Liberty's,Ā Le Select, Chez Narcisse,Ā Le BÅuf sur le Toit, or simpler venues like the groves of theĀ Champ de Mars, theĀ Strasbourg-Saint-DenisĀ metro station, theĀ Bois de Vincennes, or public urinals remained heavily frequented, now also by German officers and prostitutes alongside regular patrons.
Despite prohibitions by German authorities, many German soldiers engaged in sexual relationships with French civilians. While some, likeĀ Daniel GuĆ©rin, morally condemned these relationships and abstained, others, including far-right figures like Jacques de Ricaumont or Jewish resisters like Robert FrancĆØs, engaged with German soldiers.Ā Such relationships also occurred outside Paris and were depicted in post-war semi-autobiographical novels such asĀ Pompes funĆØbresĀ byĀ Jean Genet,Ā Le monde inversĆ©Ā by AndrĆ© du Dognon, andĀ Les amours dissidentesĀ by Boris Arnold.Ā Fearing that a total ban would lead to increased rapes, the German occupiers requisitioned brothels, including about forty in Paris, for exclusive use by theĀ Wehrmacht, while monitoring homosexual prostitution venues and punishing German soldiers who frequented them...
...During theĀ Liberation of France, thousands of women who had relationships with German soldiers were publicly shaved; while rumors suggest similar treatment for men, no evidence exists.Ā The period saw a surge in male homosexuality, withĀ Le BÅuf sur le ToitĀ in Paris becoming a gathering place for gay men from around the world, including Americans, Poles, Scots, Algerians, French, and Russians.Ā However, the virilist policies of the Resistance, liberated France, andĀ GaullismĀ ended this brief period, reaffirming the penalization of homosexuality [criminalisation of homosexual relations involving minors under 21] established by Vichy on February 8, 1945.
It's that time period just after the Liberation of France that Louis and Claudia arrive in, and we see parts of that with Madeleine having her head shaved for sleeping with a German soldier, but we also see it in the fact that Louis' able to be relatively out in a way he never has before. I think that did free him in ways that he didn't expect, especially given how much the repression of his vampirism in the show is deepy tied to the repression of his sexuality. Outside of the context of New Orleans (and it's worth noting here that homosexuality in NOLA was only decriminalised in 2003), and without any human ties, I think Louis felt free to explore his identity in a way that gave him the space to embrace parts of himself, but he also embraced the feeling of being able to choose how he engaged in society, and he chose to exist outside of it.
In that sense, I think in feeling above his roots, Louis also felt both above the vampiric society he had little interest in, but also above his human context as a Black gay man, which is a part of why the trial is so uniquely punishing.
I've said it before, but just because Louis might feel done with human society in 2.01 as he and Claudia leave Romania and enter Paris, it doesn't mean human society is done with him. He still moves through the world as a Black gay man, and it's pointed that his rejection of vampiric society was met with the weaponisation of his identity beyond it. The trial is a lynching that a mostly white mortal audience gags for, and I know people make jokes about it, but Lestat and Louis on that stage being met with homophobia from an audience member is a very pointed writing decision in my opinion. It's a part of reflecting that Louis' freedoms in Paris have been an illusion, but I think it's reflecting that Lestat's have always been too, even if some of the contexts are different for them. That homophobic comment was as much about Louis as it was about Lestat after all, which I think is something undersold in this fandom, and it pulls us, in many ways, back to their circumstance together in New Orleans.
It's why Louis' cruising kill is brought up too, which in turn recalls Louis having to bite his wrist so that he didn't eat Jonah - Paris may have felt like it didn't care about Louis' sexuality, but it also didn't care about the dead gay man he left in that park either, just as NOLA wouldn't have cared about Jonah, and San Francisco didn't care about 128 boys in San Francisco.
The homophobia of Paris, of San Francisco, may be less bold-faced than it was in New Orleans in that sense, but it's still there and still something that will victimise both Louis and Lestat when it turns its eye to them. The thread of it happening in a mock 'law and order' way in the trial I see too as echoing the police officer from s1 who told them to get a second bed for the boudoir. Similar, yet very different riffs on the roles queer people are forced to perform to survive.
Louis doesn't know any of this prior to the trial though, so I do tend to read his embrace of his vampirism and sexuality as genuine up until that point. I think it's likely a little more self-destructive after the fact (it certainly was by the 70s), but - - yes. Sorry, this has been such a roundabout way of answering your ask, haha.
I think Louis was too tied to his mortal existence in New Orleans, and both repressed and opressed by the society he lived in to embrace either his vampirism or sexuality there. Lestat's (partial) refusal to conform to the social norms that were forced on Louis I think is a part of what Louis was (and is) attracted to in Lestat, but at the time, I think his own trauma made him deeply resentful of him for it too. Lestat's inability to be anything other than, well, Lestat when Louis had to play so many roles was something I think Louis struggled with, and Armand's abiliy to play whatever role Louis wanted him to (at least superficially), gave him a sense of control that he never felt he had with Lestat (even though I agree with Jacob that Louis controls the weather of his and Lestat's relationship more than he is willing to acknowledge). I think that, paired with the freedom of Paris, that circumstantial control offered the impression of liberty that let him explore both his sexuality and vampirism.
The trial though I think did completely undercut that, and the impact of the trial on Louis is often hyperfocused on the loss of Claudia (as it should be!), but I think there's a lot to be said there too in how much the trial was also an abrupt and compounded reminder that Louis will always be, well, Louis too, and how much of his identity is deeply politicised by society. I do think that that phase of his life (the time in Paris, not the trial) was at least enough of a gasp of something that was important in his growth and building towards his self-acceptance beyond Paris, but I think it's also a part of why he collapsed back into the illusion of Armand for as long as he did too.
And yeah, in the moment of it is why he felt he could be out with Armand in a way he couldn't with Lestat.
