True Blood Season 2 – Can Vampires Grow or Dye Hair?
by Amelia G : June 18th, 2009
As you all probably know, the HBO series True Blood, based on the Charlaine Harris novels, was one of my favorite new shows this past year, maybe my very favorite. The new season is kicking off with fun altmodel cam boy and local vampire blood dealer Lafayette Reynolds possibly in trouble and more murderous whodunit and more surprisingly well done and extended sex scenes. I’m not sure the first True Blood Season 2 teaser pics and True Blood Season 2 promo photos really do the show justice.
I am sure that a bunch of the product placement tie-in billboards and suchlike around Los Angeles are a bit cringe-inducing. There are billboards for motorcycles, cars, automotive insurance, and and Gillette razorblades and other not terribly vampy products. (I don’t necessarily want to give tons of bonus exposure to silly things advertised this way, but I have to give Gillette a shout-out because years ago I worked the product launch for the Gillette Sensor and it was the most awesome and creative technical theatre gig I ever saw.) Pale-skinned dark-haired vampy femme fatale Dita Von Teese says, “I don’t understand this vampire bandwagon. Just saw a billboard advertising razors that “vampires prefer”. Vampires don’t have to shave!” I could get into a dissertation about the necessary equilibrium between enjoying the success of what you love verus avoiding having what you love co-opted. But really . . .
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Near as I can tell, most of the beliefs about what happens to vampire hair if you cut it come from Anne Rice – the idea that it’ll pop back to what it was before… And while it’s interesting, I don’t feel like it makes any sense in light of the rest of the vampire myth.
The main things that characterize vamps are their thirst for blood, their incredible regenerative powers, and their resistance to aging, as well as their basic weaknesses such as extreme sensitivity to sunlight and garlic allergy. Hair and fingernails don’t regenerate or repair themselves – they grow out, and their quality is a reflection of the health of the body. I might expect a vampire that’s been locked in a coffin, unable to feed, to have grey or white hair and discolored nails until they’re able to feed and grow out new hair and nails. I might even expect a vampire that was older when they were turned to have their hair return to the way it would have been when they were younger: that the follicles regenerated and now grow youthful hair. Certainly, I wouldn’t expect an arthritic, senior human to become an arthritic, senior vampire for all eternity.
In the True Blood universe, you can pull a vampire’s teeth and they will take ages to grow back (it was done in Season One as a punishment) – I suspect if you cut off a vampire’s arm, it might do the same thing and might take a similarly long period of time. Certainly a night’s nap in the dirt shouldn’t make a new arm magically appear, but since we don’t see a lot of 400 year old vampires with missing limbs we have to assume they somehow are able to repair even catastrophic damage. This is ‘growth’ of the same sort that produces hair. To me, it makes perfectly good sense that hair and nails grow in at a somewhat normal rate, that they can be cut, styled and colored the same way a human’s hair can be. Certainly True Blood vampires can do this, even if poor little Claudia in Interview was stuck with long spiral curls for all eternity.
Besides… When Eric walked into the cellar with foils in his hair, it was freakin’ hilarious!
It was indeed freakin’ hilarious. I wonder what percentage of their viewers recognized what that was.