Posthumous Humans, Modern Vampires: Re-use, seriality, chorality of horror tropes in True Blood
Abstract
Why are some of us – inhabitants of increasingly dense and complex narrative ecosystems – compulsive spectators of horrors? What determines the liveliness of horror tropes that already have a long history of being used and re-used in narratives across different media, and what favors their being used incessantly on the small screen?
This essay argues that in analyzing contemporary television series, we need to takes into account specific productive and narrative aspects, and (intra- and inter-)textual elements as well as sociological ones, starting from the theoretical assumption that the fortune of horror series (and not only of them) is in fact determined by those territories where these elements come together.
As a case in point, this essay takes a look at True Blood, which was created in 2008 for HBO by Alan Ball, and came to an end with its seventh season in 2014. Positioned within the broader context of horror proliferation in contemporary television series, True Blood offers striking examples of the new mechanisms and distinction practices utilized by the television genre which is bringing about an increasing differentiation of audience segment.
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