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'True Blood' offers edgy inspection of tolerance

By Joanne Ostrow
Denver Post

It's not polite to stare. And you really shouldn't use defamatory nicknames. Political correctness demands at least awareness of what might be offensive. You risk your life if you offend this minority.

True Blood, premiering at 9 tonight on HBO, is Alan Ball's follow-up to Six Feet Under, only more politically pointed.

Turning the Sookie Stackhouse Southern gothic vampire novels into darkly funny, risque, suitable-for-cable fare, Ball has the best new adult drama of the season.

In the not-too-distant future, vampires have ''come out of the coffin.'' They no longer need to prey on humans since the Japanese have invented mass-produced synthetic blood. They walk freely (after dark), although they remain subject to prejudice and misunderstanding. As a group, they're trying to pass an equal-rights amendment, but as individuals, they still harbor a bit of self-loathing.

In the tiny town of Bon Temps, La., Sookie works as a waitress at Merlotte's bar. She's just a normal human, with a hitch: She is clairvoyant. When Sookie meets the mysterious 173-year-old Bill Compton, the first vampire patron at Merlotte's, she feels a connection.

Anna Paquin (The Piano) smolders as the mind-reading barmaid. Stephen Moyer (The Starter Wife) is suitably other-worldly as the vampire.

Talking to critics this summer, Ball addressed the vampire metaphor. Who do they represent?

''They totally work as a metaphor for gays, for people of color, in previous times in America, for anybody who is misunderstood and feared and hated for being different. I think, because of the cultural climate that we exist in today, it seems like, oh, well, they are a metaphor for gays because gay marriage and gay rights and that kind of thing. But I think it's a bigger metaphor, and at the same time, it's also not a metaphor at all. It's vampires.''

It's not polite to stare. And you really shouldn't use defamatory nicknames. Political correctness demands at least awareness of what might be offensive. You risk your life if you offend this minority.

Get the full article here.


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