#louis asks

pack it up shawn

i completely understand where you’re coming from. i’m not a person of color or part of a minority myself, but i can see how upsetting and disheartening it must be to watch him tied to someone with her history. it’s exhausting, and it feels unfair. but this is exactly where we have to remind ourselves that louis is not responsible for what zara says or does, nor does he have any real control over it. if we don’t separate him from the stunt, the narrative management wants just keeps winning—because then he gets judged by her actions instead of his own. it doesn’t make the situation easier, but remembering that distinction is one of the only ways to keep perspective.

😆 Just because Harry goes to the gym four hours a day and seems bulkier recently, doesn’t mean you can start rumors like these about your boy, Louis…

I hate this topic because Nick still gets shit for it, but because I’ve seen people talk about recently it in a way which completely misrepresents the facts, I’m going to set out what happened here.

In October 2013 Louis posted his #papsaretwats tweet about not being able to leave the hotel room, when 1D were touring. The Breakfast team mentioned the tweet on the show, with Nick saying “I love a complainy popstar. It’s my favourite thing” and then saying Louis should wear a mask. A Finchy mask. Finchy was a former producer on Breakfast. Nick seems reluctant to talk about the tweet when it gets raised initially, he says it’s a bit “sweary” but they do go on to have a brief moment of banter about it.

Louis then tweeted @grimmers < @chrisdjmoyles. For those that don’t know, Chris did Breakfast for years and Grimmy took over from him.

Chris tweeted to say how delightful and handsome Louis is. 

After the tweet from Louis, Nick tweeted ‘ooooh Stacey got out the wrong side of bed this morning’ with the nail painting emjoi. Meanwhile, Zayn waded in supporting Louis (saying something like he doesn’t know why people have to ‘get brave’) and Eleanor responded to the Eleanor update account with ‘me neither’ when they tweeted that they’ve never liked Grimmy. During this time, Harry tweeted ‘Shania Twain is so good’ because he’s a ridiculous human and I love him.

On Nick’s show a few months after (February 2014) there was a feature ‘who’s more annoying than…’ on Showquizness. Nick’s producer said Louis. Nick never mentioned his name and listed a bunch of different people. That didn’t stop people getting up in Nick’s mentions to the extent he had to ask ‘hey 1D fans!!!!! i never mentioned the word “Louis” on my show today so enough with the charming homophobic death threats yeh?’

As far as I know, Nick has never had any interaction with Eleanor or mentioned her name on social media, the radio or anywhere else. The only other thing I can think of is the picture of Nick and Miquita looking bored and holding hands, which gets used as ‘evidence’ that he was throwing shade at Eleanor. I don’t pay much attention to that as it tends to be used to drive forward conspiracy theories. The tweets above are the main public record of the ‘feud’ that gets brought up when people talk about Nick and Louis hating one another. It’s worth reiterating, Nick has mentioned Louis plenty of times on Breakfast before and since, they have been friendly at events they have attended together and Louis has said on multiple occasions he’s let knee-jerk reactions get the better of him on social media - something he’s even said during an interview with Nick. Of course, because it’s far less exciting to believe they might actually get on fine and just aren’t particularly friendly, those instances rarely get pointed out and there’s a tendency to focus on late 2013/early 2014 stuff and to paint Nick as the villain of the piece.

The only vampires he dealt with were Louis and Armand, who are fundamentally different people than Lestat. Show also very clearly says that Daniel unwillingly judged the book by its cover, the way fandom currently does the same (very meta). Louis is seen as deeper, more intellectual, while Lestat is a dumb blond, a trashy rockstar. Daniel doesn't see Lestat beyond prejudice and expected backstory that Daniel came up with himself, partially based on Louis' inaccurate description.

We have very telling bit where Lestat is trying to explain the meaning of his songs and inspirations behind them, including books, sculptures, painting etc. and Daniel interrupts him with juvenile mocking.

Of course, can't forget Daniel's choice of words regarding Lestat: "crack his cheeks", "blowup doll". They're extremely vulgar and rape-y. He views Lestat as beneath him because of how sexually free Lestat is, and clearly is under impression that since Lestat acts "like that", he has right to be intrusive towards him.

Daniel believes that interviewing Lestat is his right, that he earned it by saving Lestat, and Lestat is being difficult on purpose and unfair by denying him private information. Meanwhile, Lestat letting Daniel see even a glimpse of his past is a gift. He has every right to not tell him anything at all. You can clearly see how disappointed Lestat was in ep3 when Daniel went overboard with questions.

And in ep4, instead of acknowledging his mistake, Daniel digs his heels in with Lestat. And Lestat is not entertaining it. "Do you want me to play dumb like your maker and pretend you’re two steps ahead of me?”. Don't get me wrong, Lestat has his own shit he needs to unpack. But I love that Daniel can't magically fix anything by pointing out inconsistency in Lestat's story. This isn't story about egoistical old vampire being taking down a peg by a fledgling.

I love it too, anon! I wasn't really expecting Daniel to be bullying Lestat all season exactly, but I'd thought they'd get along better than they are? It's really working for me that they're not though, and I agree that the combination of Daniel's own problems and hubris are getting in the way, as well as the book of course, but also the fact that Daniel really just has no idea how to handle Lestat at all. It's so interesting too how there's a sense of entitlement over Lestat's story having gotten Louis', and it makes you wonder how much he feels a sense of ownership over it having, well, already written parts of it, albeit from another perspective.

I was actually thinking about it the other night, but one of the fun things is that I do think how Louis and Lestat in particular respond to Daniel tells us a lot about not just who they are as characters, but their respective backgrounds. Louis does respond to provocation, and yes, that's partially because his goal in his interview was to get to the truth, but it's also, I think, because provocation both allows him the release he often needs as an often very controlled person, but also I think he sees being challenged and being able to push back as a reclamation of personal power. He's denied that for the entirety of his mortal life due to his subjugation, and so the push-pull of that does become a sort of spar that he enjoys.

Lestat doesn't respond to provocation though, Lestat shuts down, crashes out, lashes out or all three. Lestat was raised in an environment where provocation was a one-way street to humiliation or to violence ("Are you a good boy, Lestat?" / "Say cabbage one more time.") and the result is that it sets him offside almost immediately. It was such a funny thing re-watching 3.03, because Lestat actually says at the start of the interrogation you be gentle with me, Dan, which while he says it patronisingly - - kind of is the best way to handle Lestat in that sort of process? Like yes, he needs to be challenged too, of course he does, but getting Lestat to open up usually does require a lighter touch, which I think we see a little of in the band, Fareed and even Christine, who's not exactly a light touch, haha, but she's one who takes defending him seriously which you can see, I think, that matters to him.

And ohoho, the way Daniel talks about him!! I've probably got an essay in me about that after the season. I'm always fascinated with how the show explores rape culture generally, and none of the characters have been immune to perpetuating it - Lestat himself calling Armand in this last ep a 'rag doll for sale' in Big Boss is a lot! - but Daniel's soaked in it this season, both the two examples that you used, but the two times now he's outright 'asked' Lestat about him giving head, first with Louis in Black Licorice, as Lestat tries to actually explain the lyrics, and again now with the man in Italy Gabi fucked in 3.04. It's super interesting, and does feel more aggressive than it's been in the past.

Adore this show's focus on details and environmental storytelling

I love it so much too, anon! The titles work on their own, and I haven't seen Glorifying the American Girl, so will put that one aside, but I've seen all of The Gold Diggers films! I've seen what I can of both the original 1923 silent film, and the 1929 remake, which is what that poster is for (both films are unfortunately partially lost, so there's only about half you can still watch [and you can watch them both in their partial assemblies on YouTube]), and I've seen the 1933 remake too which I love - it's an early Joan Blondell film! Queen! - and the subsequent sequels and spinoffs, Gold Diggers of 1935 and Gold Diggers of 1937.

One of the things that I really love about them is that while they're ultimately musical variety romantic comedies (a tragically underserved genre these days, haha), they really understand and are, at their core, about the lack of financial autonomy and social freedom women have in the 20s and 30s, and how performance was a way to get both (even though they all end up married - it was the 20s/30s, haha), which I think speaks to both Claudia and Regina.

Regina's performance now is for financial autonomy, of course, just as Claudia's time performing with Theatres des Vampires was her trying to find and achieve a social freedom, as well as a creative one, which is pretty central to those films too.

What's especially interesting to me in the choice of that poster though is that they went specifically for the 1929 film's poster, which was not only the remake of the original silent film, but actually the second all-talking, all-colour feature ever made.