Not Yet Having Seen American Horror Story

I can’t say that I’m not excited about American Horror Story. I am, despite my feelings toward Glee, the latter two-thirds of Nip/Tuck and Ryan Murphy in general. TV generally doesn’t do horror and rarely does it well — remember NBC’s Fear Itself? — but I’m hopeful about the prospect of people tuning in every week to see something strange, something disturbing and something unlike anything else on basic cable. After all, horror allows the kind of broad metaphors that writers can use to touch on subjects that remain off-limits to other genres, and I’m fairly certain that American Horror Story will go deeper than, say, our nation’s concerns about the housing market. (The devaluation of homes is scary! Get it?)

But independent from the actual show, which premieres tonight, there’s the advertising.

Every night, I drive beneath a billboard that displays the above image: a pregnant lady pointing her womb fruit at some sort of vinyl fetish sex ninja straight out of Ryan Murphy’s darkest fantasy. My reactions gradually shifted from “This is a really messed-up thing to see every day” to “I’m kind of glad I don’t have kids in the car asking what Midnight Stealth Spider-Man™ is doing to the trampy lady” to “What an interesting-seeming family” to “Hey there, Mr. sexy Gimp! You have yourself a good evening!” In short, the shock wore so quickly that I know find that to be the disturbing thing. I hope this won’t hold true for the actual show.

In any case, I will be watching tonight, eagerly waiting for the debut of Vinyl Man, whom I already have come to view as a friendly acquaintance.

(For reference’s sake, here is my post about why I stopped watching Glee and why I’m okay with that.)