Image Source: http://tvgorge.com/shows/true-blood/We live in a dichotomized world and there is no doubt about it. Regardless of how hard we try to eliminate the extreme separation and attempt to establish a common ground amongst those who do not "fit" the social norm, things may always remain black and white. We experience the black-and-white model in almost everything as well as the need to separate and to categorize. This becomes evident in the concepts of gender and sexuality, where the idea is that there are only two sexes and two genders. However, Terry's article, "Fluid Sexes" demonstrates that categorizing people into only one of two groups is impossible considering that no person can be strictly male or strictly female. Terry also brings up the point that people such as, "... Ulrichs, Hirschfield, Ellis, and Freud suggest that humans were fundamentally bisexual and that each individual would have features of the other sex, to one degree or another." (Terry, pg. 161) But to say that supposed experts did not believe a third sex was possible is incorrect. In previous times, the third sex was considered to foster homosexuals, who were, "... between the normal categories of male and female..." (Terry, pg. 160) The fact that these "experts" were able to recognize that there was space between "male" and "female" was a step forward, however, the fact that they believed that whatever was in between the male and female characteristics were considered to be homosexuals was essentially taking two steps back.
Terry's closing statements also included that, "Endocrinologists persisted in thinking that homosexuals had physiological defects," and "... the very framework, methods, and conclusions of psychometricians indicated that they saw homosexuals as inferior and defective." (Terry, pg. 177) This last segment of Terry's article really started to remind me of the show True Blood, which is centered around the romance between a human and a vampire in a small town in Louisiana. Although this seems to be the main plot, True Blood also embodies an allegory for LGBT rights. The idea of vampire equality is similar to that of LGBT equality as well, especially in the deep parts of the South (phrases such as "God Hates Fangs" stemming from the Westboro Baptist Church's propagandist anti-homosexual campaign "God Hates Fags") . Although True Blood does include homosexuals and homoerotic relationships, the main focus of discrimination is mostly on vampires, simply because they are not living. The blood-sucking aspect has even been dissolved since the creation of a synthetic blood that is used by vampires to sustain "life" without the use of human or animal blood. This is very reminiscent to the AIDS scare during the 90's where people were afraid of homosexuals because it was based on the belief that homosexual men were all infected with AIDS. This bias and lack of correct information is what led people to fear homosexual men just as with vampires, the bias that they killed humans and drank their blood. NPR wrote an article of when the show first came out, noting the obvious allegories toward LGBT equality. TV critic David Bianculli stated, "True Blood has other things on its mind. It's big on allegory, and the tension about accepting vampires into society is an obvious play on civil rights in general, and gay rights in particular." These vampires were coming out into society and were, "... starting to mainstream into regular society..." (Bianculli, NPR Sept. 5, 2008) and with a play on words, "coming out of the coffin".
In regards to Terry's "Fluid Sexes" article, the human vs. vampire dichotomy exists too (at least in True Blood). The vampires in the show are discriminated against due to not being part of the dominant culture, but in fact being part of the deviant culture, just as homosexuals are portrayed. In the case of homosexuals, Terry states, "...the popular perception that homosexuals belonged to a distinguishable and pathological group, set apart from the normal healthy population." (Terry, pg. 176) This is evident amongst the vampires in True Blood, where they are set apart from the "normal" population due to their lifestyles and the fact that they are non-living. At the same time, if one were to over-analyze the situation and were to look up the definition of "human", one would find that a human is defined as, "a characteristic of humanity" and/or "having human form or attributes as opposed to that of animals." (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Note that there are no references to living or dead. Lacquer's article perfectly fits this analysis of what is human. The representations of the body and form are "...dictated by art and culture" and that these representations can differ in historical settings (i.e. the development of the mythical vampire) and different cultural portrayals. (Laqueur, pg. 164) But because of these historical and cultural constraints on the representation of the body, biases are formed and what is irregular amongst a society can be deemed deviant or even unnatural (as in the case of vampires in True Blood) Laqueur continues to state that, "... anatomy, and nature as we know it more generally, is obviously not pure fact... but rather a richly complicated construction based not only on observation... but on an aesthetics of representations as well." (Laqueur, pg. 163-164)
To conclude, these representations of the body are significant to how we portray others. At the same time, we must also take into consideration that there are no black-and-white models when it comes to gender and sexuality and that we must give leeway to the gray areas where people do not necessarily conform to dominant culture. The example of True Blood is to provide an insight of the LGBT community's fight against discrimination and that just because they do not fit the social norms of the dominant culture does not mean that they should be categorized as "inferior".
Sources:
"Fluid Sexes" in An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Jennifer Terry, pg 159-177
"Discovery of Sexes" in Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Thomas Laqueur, pg. 149-192
"True Blood: Tasty New TV from HBO"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94320825
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