True Blood, Please Don’t Perpetuate the “Rugged Werewolf Hunk” Stereotype. Oops, Too Late!

Let’s play a game! One of the people in this photo is portraying a werewolf. Which one could it be?

I have only one rule when watching network TV: the show I am watching must be Dexter. True Blood fails this test, and now that I’ve seen this photo of Joe Manganiello as werewolf Alcide Herveaux, I’m obliged to report that the show has failed in another, more crucial way: it promotes the ridiculous and insulting “Rugged Werewolf Hunk” stereotype. This is a phenomenon I have just made up, but consider the evidence.

Joe Manganiello was hired to play a werewolf. Here we see him wearing a plaid lumberjack-style shirt. “Put this on,” he was told. “This is what a werewolf wears. Don’t forget to unbutton the top three buttons, to imply a burly man-chest.” Note the carefully sculpted hair and the full (but carefully trimmed) beard. The result is a figure you might recognize from the covers of countless trashy supernatural romance novels: the Rugged Werewolf Hunk. Dangerous… but tender. Manly… but sensitive. This is the best image that marketing people can come up with when they want to make a werewolf attractive to the average woman. You know he smells like Old Spice and leather, and although he’s a beast he’ll never forget your birthday.

This is what they did to poor, poor Joe Manganiello. To be extra-certain that no one would misinterpret his character’s species, someone asked him to stand in front of a painting of a wolf silhouetted by a full moon and put on his best “hunted” expression.

Now where have I seen this before? Oh yes. I have one of these on my shelf.

Apr. 22nd 2010

George R.R. Martin Werewolf Novella “The Skin Trade” to Become a Film

It’s all right there in the headline! According to Variety, “Spoke Lane Entertainment and Mike the Pike Prods. have acquired film rights to George R.R. Martin’s werewolf novella ‘The Skin Trade.'” Here’s the premise:

Martin’s story is based on a female private investigator on the trail of a serial killer linked to an underground werewolf clan ruling the remains of a vibrant city devastated by a recession.

The novella was first published alongside work by Stephen King and Dan Simmons in a short horror anthology called Night Visions 5. It seems to be out of print, but there are some used copies available on Amazon. I’ve read a little Martin, but not enough to know how I feel about this. I suppose I’m cautiously optimistic. Martin readers, should I be stoked?

Apr. 21st 2010

The Werewolves of Ferelden in Dragon Age: Origins

The opening paragraph of Bobby Travis’s Greywardens.com post on werewolves in Dragon Age: Origins reads like it was written by a guy who bought a cape at Hot Topic and wears it without irony.

I was decidedly annoyed. Annoyed that the creators of something I had been waiting for, and for so many years, had apparently sullied their potentially great work with something so common to run-of-the-mill fantasy and pop-culture.

“This is the sort of pseudo-intellectual wankery that Roukas lives to destroy,” I thought, but I read on, and I was rewarded. I’ve never actually played Dragon Age, but I’ve heard good things from people whose opinions I trust. Once he gets going, Travis waxes philosophical & sociological on the game’s werewolves in a way that got interested enough to look up the game’s required system specs (yes, I can run it). He analyzes the role of werewolves within the game’s world, and comes to the conclusion that they contribute something important to the development of Ferelden’s culture. How cool to see werewolves in games being utilized as something more than hairy “pass the McGuffin” NPCs!

I’m not gonna lie, though. The embedded gameplay video helped.

Apr. 20th 2010

Werewolf Babysitter on This Week’s “This American Life” Podcast

Monday morning’s walk to work is often the best commute of the week for me, courtesy of the This American Life podcast that arrives on my iPod. This week’s episode, Babysitting, begins with a story that had me grinning like an idiot all the way to the office.

Act One. What Big Teeth You Have.

Lots of babysitting is done by family members. Hillary Frank reports on what can happen when a teenaged son is put in charge of his younger brothers. It’s not pretty.

Hint: a full moon and a group of little kids camping in the back field come into play. I can’t recommend This American Life enough, even when it’s not about an 18-year-old traumatizing his little brothers. Check it out.

Apr. 19th 2010

Vote for “Berserker Teenage Werewolf” on Threadless

Designer Chakz has got a werewolf shirt up on Threadless: Berserker Teenage Werewolf. If it’s gonna get made, it needs your votes.

Berserker Teenage Werewolf - Threadless T-shirts, Nude No More

Apr. 19th 2010

Mozart and The Wolfman Vs. The Mummy

It’s by Alex Cox. It’s four panels long. I might have printed the last panel and stuck it on the wall. Maybe. Probably.

Apr. 18th 2010

You Wish This Was You: Applying a Werewolf Facial Prosthetic

UK special effects & creature company Nimba Creations have posted a how-to video featuring the application, painting and fur-ing of their werewolf prosthetic. I don’t usually have the patience to sit through a 7-minute Youtube video, but this was quite interesting– it was possible to watch the model slowly transforming throughout the process. The laying of the hair (sounds like an arcane ritual, doesn’t it?) was particularly cool. Check it out, and if you fancy trying it yourself, you can buy the supplies directly from Nimba.

Apr. 17th 2010

Monsterpalooza 2010

If you missed Monsterpalooza this year (like I did), avail yourself of Dread Central’s event report. By all accounts the Monsterpalooza Museum was awesome, so be sure to check out the photo gallery. Here are two famous werewolves from the Museum (let’s just ignore that plaque by Michael’s mysteriously perfect shoes).

Apr. 16th 2010

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Screenshots (in Which a Werewolf is Beaten Up)

Everything old is new again, even Castlevania. I spent the summer of 1987 hitting things with Simon Belmont’s whip, and now Kanomi is rebooting the series so that today’s gamers can hit things with Gabriel Belmont’s whip. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is being developed for the Xbox 360 and the PS3, and should be out later this year. Here are two screenshots from a batch that Kanomi recently released (thanks, CinemaBlend), and they’re the only two that show any combat. Fortunately(?) that combat is against a werewolf. Click madly on the images below for (much) larger versions.

Apr. 15th 2010

Beware the Cream Wolf!

Tired of Robot Unicorn Attack? No, neither am I, but if you need a break, why not try Cream Wolf, where you’re an ice cream truck driver who fattens kids up so you can devour them when the full moon arrives? I’ve been playing it for a few minutes every day for the past week, and it never fails to make me feel filthy and gleeful at the same time. What an awesome combo!

2019-01-24: updated broken links

Apr. 14th 2010