The Other Man: True Blood Shows That All Women Are Queens

Excellent news! Everyone’s favorite vampire-mythology show for adults comes back to TVs tomorrow night.

There’s a lot to like about True Blood — its sense of humor, the best opening credits in TV history — but have you noticed how nearly all the powerful roles on the show belong to women? I don’t think any other show has ever been so consistent and unfailing in making women the drivers of change.

Obviously, the star of the show is Sookie Stackhouse, who holds her own with creatures way more powerful than herself — or are they? [Ed. note: You could write a whole post about Sookie alone, and in fact I've been told that's going to happen tomorrow.]

SPOILER ALERT: If you’ve never watched any True Blood but still want to, you might want to stop here.

Tara Thornton is Sookie’s best friend, and despite being one of the few totally human characters (i.e. no superpowers) on the show, she’s got attitude and often tries to take control of situations when they get out of hand. Amy, the yankee vampire-napper, drove the main subplot of the first season. Adele Stackhouse cuts through the BS and welcomes Bill into the community. In fact, that whole gaggle of gals in the older generation — folks like Maxine Fortenberry and Tara’s mom, Lettie Mae — are hardly pushovers.

Meanwhile, the vampire world is represented publicly by a woman, Nan Flanigan, who’s also probably the most senior member of the vampire hierarchy we’ve seen. Or that title could fall to Sophie-Anne, the Queen of Louisiana (is there really a king and queen of all 50 states? I’d imagine that’d make the rest of the world really upset.) Pam is shown to be Eric’s enforcer and is never allowed to sit out of anything serious. Bill was sired by Lorena, who is pointedly shown to be more powerful than him and most vampires around. And Jessica‘s raging (vampire hormones?) come to roost occasionally.

And don’t forget the main villain in season two, “Maryann Forrester,” has untold powers. She uses another woman, Daphne, to lure Sam into her trap.

It isn’t that the men on the show are particularly weak or ineffective. But if possible, given a choice between a woman or a man solving whatever problem faced them that week, the show chooses to put the power in the woman’s hands.

No other show in television history has done that so extensively.