Sunday, December 12, 2010

Laissez les bons temps rouler

 My wife and I watched the first season of True Blood this week.
***THIS POST IS A SPOILER - YOU'VE BEEN WARNED***

While I know there is a comic adaption of this series, I have not read them and this isn't directly comic related, but I'm going to pick it apart anyway. First, let me explain something about my feelings towards Louisiana.

My wife is Cajun, and a history major, and a religious studies minor, so I've learned alot about Louisiana and things related to the culture and history of the Acadian people. That being said, is always angry to see Cajuns depicted on television. People don't seem to know alot about Cajuns, so when they watch the show Swamp People, they will assume Cajuns are all bayou-treading, back-woods, gator-shootin' rednecks. Disney is guilty too. The newest cell-animated Disney movie depicts a Cajun firefly wit tree teef an' some bayou folk wit ugly yella overalls. Not very well represented, dem. Which leads me to True Blood. People hear the character Rene speak in a strange dialect. He's trying so hard, and Michael Raymond-James even hired a dialect coach to train for his role. We find out near the end of the season that Rene is the killer. My wife interjects "Of course the only Cajun guy is the psychopath". Well, we learn later the the accent is fake and the killer is not really Cajun, so no harm, no foul, right. Still...

Where the hell is Bon Temps?
It looks like southern Louisiana, it sounds like southern Louisiana but these folken just don't seem to know where they live. At one point someone says they goin down to Shreveport. Shreveport is nearly at the northernmost point in LA, so if they goin down to Shreveport, they be in Tennessee, chere. At another point in the season, someone says they plan on going up to the Gulf....so apparently Bon Temps is in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Also, since it looks and sounds like southern LA, yet all of the people at the cemetery are buried underground...they are buried in water. Cemeteries in the southern part of LA are beautiful because the water table is so high that people don't get buried, they get an above-ground family tomb. So Bill Compton would have a hard time staying out of the hot sun.

Also, I have this thing in which I try to figure out what movies British and Aussie actors study to pick up the American accents they use in shows and movies.
Robert Pattinson is Marlon Brando. "Hey BELLA!!!"
Hugh Jackman is Clint Eastwood. "Do you feel lucky, bub?"
Stephen Moyer is Elvis Presley. "I'm a hunka-burnin' vampire."

The show is entertaining, but some of us have to suspend more disbelief than the rest.

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