True Blood is a stupid show. I realized this halfway through the second season, when the show became more about the gratuitous sex and other forms of fan service rather than the tension between vampires and humans. It’s too bad, because the first season had a fairly tight story, likeable characters, and enough suspense to make me want to marathon one episode after another. After the season 2 finale, which had a terribly corny ending that I will not spoil, I rolled my eyes and vowed to never watch this show again.
For those of you who are completely lost, let me explain what this hot vampire commodity is all about. Adapted from the Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is premised upon the idea that vampires have “come out” and decided to live with the humans. They claim not to be the bloodthirsty killers who only view humans as walking lunch boxes and to prove this, they’ve resorted to drinking synthetic blood created by the Japanese. Set in the mystical American south, the show is supposedly about the vampires’ struggle to fit into society, but somewhere along the way it degenerated into the NSFW version of Twilight.
The show is centered around a Mary Sue of a female lead, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). She’s your typical God-fearing white girl-next-door, except she’s also some sort of telepath. She cannot have intimate relations with people because she hears their thoughts, especially during physical contact. This is why she falls in love with a vampire named Bill (Stephen Moyer); for some reason, she can’t read vampires the way she can with humans and she feels at peace with someone for the first time in her life. There’s also a really hot vampire named Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) who is older and more powerful than Bill. He also as a thing for Sookie, which I don’t understand, because she’s so wholesome and dull it sickens me to look at her. Sookie works in a bar, where her boss Sam is apparently some sort of shape-shifter. Guess what, he has a thing for Sookie too! There are a bunch of other characters, but I won’t talk about them because they faded into the woodwork after the everyone-wants-Sookie angle became True Blood’s dominant theme.
You’re probably wondering, if I hate this show so much, why am I even blogging about it? Well you see, I learned that season 3’s first episode would show Alexander Skarsgard’s nekkid ass. How can I resist? Just look at how gorgeous this man is! So I downloaded the episode, watched it with my boyfriend (who hated me for it afterwards), and found a reason to continue watching True Blood once more.
WARNING: spoilers, sexual content, and NSFW images up ahead!
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Thanks to The Pirate Bay, I finally got to see Dutch director Tom Six’s highly-anticipated horror movie, The Human Centipede. I’m warning you now that this review contains vomit-inducing concepts and images that cannot be unseen, so if you don’t have the stomach for this sort of thing, I highly suggest that you read something else.
The Human Centipede starts out predictably enough. Two ditzy American girls on a European road trip are on their way to go clubbing with a cute German guy they met earlier in the day. They end up with a flat tire in the woods, and there’s nowhere else to go but a modern sprawling bungalow. We’ve encountered all these tropes before. Unfortunately for the girls, the bungalow is occupied by Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), a retired German surgeon with a sick fantasy and way too much time on his hands. The following day, the girls wake up next to each other, their hands and ankles bound to a hospital bed.
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When I chose to leave graduate school to pursue my financial independence, I promised myself I would maintain my vigorous reading habits and read at least several pages of a book everyday. Doesn’t matter what book written by which critic or which author, as long as I read something to keep my mind sharp and critical. One of the few friends I made in grad school told me flat-out that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my plans. When I asked why, he said something about how the changes in my priorities will leave me too tired to crack open a book after work. I wanted to prove him wrong because I hate it when people tell me what I can and cannot do, but eleven months later, I have to concede defeat and admit that he’s right. Which I also hate doing. (Incidentally, that friend stopped talking to me after I told him about my decision to leave UP. Not a single word from him after that conversation. So sorry I’m no longer smart enough to be your friend, Marius.)
Even though I have complete control over my work hours (12 noon until whenever), work habits (breaks every hour), and office attire (whatever I slept in last night), I do have the workload of someone with a “real job.” When the day is done my brain cannot tolerate anything more intelligent than a well-written sitcom. I do still read actual books, but very rarely and only in coffee shops; I find that my mind is too inattentive to read more than several sentences when I stay in my bedroom. Once, I tried reading Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, because Marxists make me feel bad about spending my money on clothes and makeup. While I had no difficulty making sense out of the language used (yes!), I did have to keep pausing after every page just to kind of let the information sink in.
I live in constant fear of becoming a bimbo because I feel that my academic intelligence sets me apart from everyone else. I know how arrogant that must sound, but let me clarify – I don’t mean to say that my perceived intelligence makes me think I’m better than anyone else. I simply feel more comfortable knowing that I can easily form an erudite opinion when I watch movies, read books, and when I encounter current events. If not, at least I have a theoretical paradigm to consult and help me decide. These days, I wouldn’t be able to articulate why I think a particular novel is good, much less discuss its underlying themes in great length. As for my lifestyle, I’m way too bourgeois to classify myself as a “Marxist”; I’m still sharp enough to see through the veil of ideology covering my eyes, but I don’t do anything to pull it off my head anymore. Hell, I bought a condo, didn’t I? I’d rather learn how to do my own makeup because current events depress me, and I have no idea who I want to vote for in the coming Presidential elections. God help the Philippines.
Clearly, I want to be happy, but I also want to stay “smart.” To slow down my descent into bimbodom, I’ve decided to impose a belated new year’s resolution: I must start and finish at least one novel for every month of 2010. Since my weekends are also spent working, I no longer have the luxury of time to spend hours on cultural theory. I am, however, an insomniac with several hours to kill before I finally fall asleep. This is when I will get my reading done.
My reading list so far:
Blindness by Jose Saramango (I finished this a few days ago)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Porno by Irvine Welsh (Anne’s, borrowed a few months ago)
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
All the Names by Jose Saramago
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
I realize that a random reading list of novels won’t exactly help me reclaim my “intelligence”, but hey, at least I’m reading actual books again. If there are any novels you think I should read, feel free to comment with your recommendation! But please, no American writers. I’ve decided to minimize my consumption of American culture because I already spend countless hours watching their TV shows and movies; I don’t need to become any more colonial than I already am. Yes, I am aware that Kurt Vonnegut is American, but Slaughterhouse Five is one of the few unread ones I have on my shelf. Might as well get started. :P Also, no Murakami and Gaiman – I’ve already read everything they’ve written.
