always tvl hate watch

LOUIS THE PIMP

I remember the very first time Mr. Charles and I watched S1Ep1 and Daniel says "You were a pimp!" in this kind of 'homg, what kind of Black debauchery is this' way. We were cackling.

Have you ever met S1Ep1 Louis de Pointe du Lac? He banters with the girls, who in turn are not afraid to say whatever they want to him. He tries to smooth over problems and the only person we see him get rowdy with is Paul, because "You couldn't look weak on Liberty Street”

This was no Iceberg Slim. This wasn't Max Julien's Goldie. He wasn't even Willie Dynamite. That doesn't take away from the effect Louis had on his girls, those that cried and as he said, he stuffed his ears from the hearing of said cries - but he wasn't like others that I knew from the culture.

So, why has so much been made of Louis The Pimp this season? It's been hammered on again and again. Well, I think Merrick Mayfair tells us what the issue is in Episode 6.

"Great Mama Ernestine sends her regards, says the du Lac boys walked past her porch heads so high you wouldn’t know their money came from flesh."

You know who else had money that came from flesh? Louis de Pointe du Lac. The white one, from the books and films. Vampiredom's saddest, loneliest Participant in That Most Peculiar Institution.

I think this is RJ & Crew's way of saying "Sure, swap 'em out. Racebend to your heart's content, but he's not any better than the slave master and don't you forget it!"

Which is disingenuous for reasons I shouldn't have to explain to grown ass adults on this site.

This season, in my opinion, is about resentment of the Black characters. You don't have to agree, because I'm not writing this for agreement. I'm just thinking out loud. If you like s3, I love that for you. Anyways, the fandom to some degree has always hated Louis, but now I believe the writers are showing their hatred of this Louis to us. This Claudia This season is about the unmaking of these Black characters.

We've all seen the "Louisiana fried chicken" comment. That's not by accident, or a throwaway line. That's to "humble" the Black man that bought his sister a honeymoon package on The Blackstar Line - a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Rolin & Co. have fans clamouring for the 'knocking down a peg or two" of the Black man who loved his 'churchy', mentally ill brother enough to not institutionalize him and with him, give us a taste of our much beloved Nicholas, or Hines Brothers.

"With Episode 1, titled “In Throes of Increasing Wonder…,” the show not only crafts one of the best pilots in the history of television, it also showcases Black culture in New Orleans, and how essential this is to Louis’ life. It’s clear here, from Louis being called a slur by a fellow businessman to the familial joy seen at his sister Grace’s (Kalyne Coleman) wedding, that Blackness is not only integral to Louis’ story, but the story this adaptation is trying to tell." Paste Magazine

This is about the unmaking of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Claudia.

"I always thought that Louis slightly cribbed James Baldwin's speech patterns, and that's what he took with him to Dubai. It's an affectation. But then as he comes back to himself, his real, true New Orleans accent creeps back in." Jacob Anderson, Backstage

Claudia, Episode 6:

"took your Black queen and ran off with him across the ocean..."

Young militants referred to Baldwin, unsmilingly, as Martin Luther Queen. Henry Louis Gates, The Fire Last Time

The use of another Black voice to say these things is certainly interesting, but unsurprising. (I don't need to get into everything she said for obvious reasons - if you're fine with everything she said, hooray for you, we're here for what I think.)

"The one good thing in my bleak… [sobbing] Black life, and I don’t know where she is!"

I won't argue the difficulty of living as a Black woman with people who aren't either one, or agree with the sentiment above. I will point out that in her time in NOLA, following her transformation, Claudia did live better materially than most Black girls and women. The most notable exceptions that we know through the show being Grace and Florence - who did not live 'bleak Black lives'.

Claudia as a vampire had better chances at survival than most Black girls and women, even in her worst circumstances. But that line, isn't about any of that - that line is to undo every moment in S1 where Claudia did have moments of happiness. To undo moments in S2 where she found acceptance and what she wanted.

"Bleak Black Life", indeed. Catchy isn't it? Like the antithesis of 'Black Lives Matter'. AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE US - LOOK AT DEE PHARMA. A COCAINE WHORE BUCKET. (they like buckets, these white writers - buckets of chicken, whore buckets...)

AND SPEAKING OF HYPERSEXUALIZATION…

"Some joy I know, knowin’ is how good I humiliated you in New Orleans, how I ginned up the train for the slave here.

'Lestat said he’d do worse than rape me, Daddy Lou.'

Worked good, didn’t it?"

Because the only solution to having an audience thinking their white lead was capable of victimizing these Blacks that the writers didn't want in the first place, is to show that a lynched, Black female (I use this word deliberately) is unworthy of your belief with regards to him.

The same white guy that killed poor Miss Lilly for the crime of being a poor substitute for Louis. That dropped Louis from miles above earth. That raged at Claudia like she was a rival lover instead of an inconvenient daughter.

This guy can't be held up as the great focus for the Great Conversion to S3 and a whiter audience and whiter tastes without the undoing and unmaking and unmanning of the lead/s of S1&S2.

Come on now, this was a bit heavy handed (from Merrick's summoning):

"Son of Ham," - That's real cute, paired with Claudia calling him a slave multiple times.

And this is why Season 2 started us down the path of being controversial among the fanbase. And by “controversial” I genuinely mean “debated”, because people have very different opinions of it. The S2 reunion scene is heavily debated (primarily in Louis spaces) with half saying they hated it and the other half enjoying it. You have half the fanbase happy with Lestat’s apology during the trial, and half saying Santiago was right and that Lestat was too hard on himself.

Season 1 was clearer on how things were to be interpreted. While there’s definitely argument for how fans/crowds/mobs take ideas and run with them regardless of intent, nothing in Season 1 garnered as many different interpretations as the content in Season 2. I think this is because this is when the team behind the show started, seemingly, disagreeing with each other.

This is how you get “wait what was Louis’ apology to Lestat in the finale about? Was that Louis coming to terms with himself, or was that the show engaging in victim blaming?” And everyone has different POVs on it. It’s clear now, that the ambiguity behind the scene, behind quite a few scenes in S2, is because the writers themselves couldn’t agree on what they wanted them to mean.

But with all the people they’ve let go for Season 3, and the new ones they hired on, it’s obvious which side remained on-staff and the kinds of likeminded people they got to take the others’ place.

So now, in Season 3, there is no debate. There is no “hm I can see this interpretation but I can also see this interpretation….” There’s no ambiguity. This side of the team, the side that viewed Louis’ apology in S2 as Louis apologizing for ‘abusing’ Lestat, that seemed to view Louis’ charred, crumbling body apologizing to Armand as deserved punishment instead of horrific abuse, are the ones that have stayed and taken over the show.

And we KNOW debates started happening in the Season 2 writer’s room given the recent interview where Rolin briefly mentioned it, such as whether Louis asked Armand to erase his memories or if he never did. Certain things in Season 2 are controversial among fans, because the writers themselves started disagreeing on characterizations and important story beats.

So with this portion of the team let go vs the ones that were called back + those newly hired to replace the former, this is how we got Season 3. A season that is not as ambiguous as Season 2 where the writers were fist fighting when they put pen to paper. We are back to the single vision of Season 1.

Except this vision wasn’t born from heartfelt creativity and love for the material. It’s out of agreed upon resentment and shared biases. You even have the production designers of all crew members throwing in “I always liked Lestat more” unprompted when their job has NOTHING to do with character preference. Season 3 is the way it is, because these are the people who originally wanted Louis’ arc to only be compiled into a single season, and were irritated when fans kept wanting more. Whether they wanted more of Loucob or simply wanted more of Loustat as a duo.

And Rolin’s “we wrote from the gut” or “the id” and all of his sayings that they wrote instinctively lays it out that this whole mess is emotional retaliation. The writing behind Season 3 is a temper tantrum.

Not just as retaliation to Louis, but to everyone. Assad’s Armand shot through the ROOF and instantly became one of the most popular characters in S2. I’d even argue is Thee second most popular after Lestat (I’d say Daniel is the second most popular among casual viewers whereas among non-casual viewers, it’s Armand.) With DM shooting to the stars as the most popular ship among non-casual viewers. (And DM does beat out Loustat in terms of popularity when looking at the dedicated fanbase.)

But once again, this seems to have pissed That Side™️ of the creative team off after Season 2’s release. With none of them expecting Assad’s Armand to be as beloved or for DM to be as highly desired as they are. And you can see this frustration in all of Armand & DM’s “development” in Season 3.

Why Armand had less than 15 minutes total of screentime across episodes 1-6 before reducing into a maniacal villain in 3x07. Why DM’s eagerly anticipated relationship happened completely off screen, and both characters butchered so it would be intentionally unsatisfying once revealed. (And the excuse that they’re a minor / secondary relationship so they were never going to be as focused on doesn’t make sense when looking at Claudeleine. Who was still emotionally moving and well paced even in the midst of the Loumand-Dreamstat-Loustat triangle.)

The “meta” that they kept talking about in pre-S3 interviews isn’t that the writers just kept the fanbase in mind while making it, it’s that the entirety of Season 3 is a response to the fans themselves. It’s less about the actual characters that were written in Seasons 1 & 2, and comes off more as one long Twitter thread titled “My IWTV Hot Takes”

Because you also can’t say any of this was for Lestat. It’s very reminiscent to Season 2, when Lestat point blank says “I hurt Louis because I wanted to hurt him” and a portion of the fanbase shoved a pacifier in his mouth to shut him up and for years afterwards kept saying “No he didn’t mean it.” Even Samstat was reduced from a character into a figurehead.

Loucob became a punching bag, Claudlainey and Assad’s Armand were weaponized against Loucob while simultaneously reduced to punching bags too, and the writers put Samstat on the same idealized pedestal that the characters Magnus, Marius, and Gabriella are supposed to be condemned for, treating him as a concept rather than a person.

Sorry, my response turned into something else lol. But “Why would the writers write Louis this way? Why would anyone like him?” My personal opinion after really trying to understand what on earth has happened, is that no, they likely were not writing like this since S1. The season just doesn’t make sense from that POV. Everything we’re seeing right now is reactionary.

s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.

they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.

but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?

and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:

louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written

louis being called a "nappy headed slave"

louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being

louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers

louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt

louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored

louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display

louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand

louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode

louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit

louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".

nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?

why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.

there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.

nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?

and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??

this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.

armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...

i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.

every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?

the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.

there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.

in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatement—they have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.

tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.

and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.

In Episode 6 of Season 1, there are two instances where Claudia uses the word "slave". The first time, she is referring to both herself and Louis. She is essentially saying that they are under Lestat's control, trapped in Rue Royale, prisoners of Lestat, his slaves. In that context, "slave" is being used to describe their lack of freedom and autonomy. The second time, she refers not only to herself and Louis, but also to Lestat. She draws a parallel between their situation and Lestat's situation with Magnus. Just as Claudia and Louis are trapped under Lestat's control, Lestat was once under Magnus's control. He was Magnus's slave, and he ultimately killed him rather than continue living that way (we know that's not what happened but that's what Claudia believed). In both instances, the word "slave" is tied to a circumstance, not an identity. It is being used to describe a power dynamic: control, imprisonment, coercion, and domination. You could replace the word "slave" with "prisoner" and the point would remain intact. More importantly, the narrative makes a deliberate effort not to tie slavery to Louis and Claudia's race. Applying the same language to Lestat is what makes that distinction clear. The point is not, "Louis and Claudia are slaves because they are black." The point is, "Louis and Claudia are slaves because they are trapped under Lestat's control," just as Lestat was trapped under Magnus's. Now, viewers can absolutely be uncomfortable with the racial implications of using that metaphor in the first place. I certainly was. But I don't think anyone can honestly argue that the use of the word slave in this scenario was racist.

The writers managed to create discomfort, arguably one of their goals without resorting to anti-Black rhetoric. That's exactly the kind of nuance the black creatives involved in season 1 brought to the story.

Now compare that to Episode 6 of The Vampire Lestat. Claudia calls Louis a slave and then goes further, suggesting that slavery is part of who he is. She implies it is in his DNA as demonstrated by her saying that "slave" is etched into his ribs. Add the "nappy-headed" remark on top of it, and the conversation is no longer about a power dynamic. It becomes an attack on Louis's identity as a black person.

That is the fundamental difference. In Season 1, slavery was used as a metaphor for control. In The Vampire Lestat, slavery is framed as something intrinsic to Louis himself. The word is no longer describing his circumstances; it is describing who he supposedly is. The narrative shifts from "you are being treated like a slave" to "being a slave is part of your nature."

Those are not remotely the same thing. You cannot write a scene in which a Black character tells another Black character that slavery is essentially woven into his DNA, pair it with a racialized insult like "nappy-headed," and then act surprised when viewers, particularly black viewers find it offensive. So if those remarks were intended to be a callback to Season 1 Episode 6, then the callback was an utter failure.

What made the Season 1 dialogue worked was that it treated slavery as a condition imposed on people. What makes the Vampire Lestat dialogue offensive is that it treats slavery as something inherent to Louis. One is about oppression; the other flirts with the idea that oppression is an innate trait. That is not a minor difference. It is the entire issue. And if you genuinely cannot see the difference between using slavery as a metaphor for imprisonment and using slavery as a marker of a black character's identity, then I really don't know what to tell you.