Chambers’s (1865-1933) The King in Yellow, first published in 1895. True Detective writer Nic Pizzolatto peppered the Cthulhu-meets–Mardi Gras mythology of the Tuttle-Childress cult with nods to Robert W. The Carcosa Award for Posthumous Book Sales: Nic Pizzolatto and Robert W. I had to read it several times to make sure it wasn’t actually a very subtle satire on the phenomenon of hypertextualized Internet theories. The Banh Mi/Yellow King Theory is notable for its ham-handed application of racial color-morphism and for its author not realizing that the significant number of people of Vietnamese descent in Louisiana (44 percent of the state’s Asian population is of Vietnamese extraction) means Rust and Marty eating at a banh mi stand is totally not a big fucking deal, like, at all. It would make perfect sense that they would refer to a person from Vietnam as “yellow.” Secondly, almost the people we’ve met that are either directly linked to the alleged cult or have knowledge of the King in Yellow are backwoods white guys with white power ideals (Ledoux, Lange). How can we write this off as a coincidence? The amount subtle clues/details in this show are staggering, but one that is constantly overlooked is the fact that Hart and Cohle somehow not only found, but ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in the backwoods of Louisiana. Not since Lost has a show provided such a fertile breeding ground for fan theories ranging from plausible (Marty’s daughter Audrey was abused), to “probably a leap, but interesting” (Audrey was abused by Maggie’s father, based on the delivery of the line “No” by the child actress playing Audrey), to wait, what? Via Reddit: The “What Is That, Nietzsche? Shut the Fuck Up” Award: The Yellow King/Vietnamese Restaurant Theory It’s basically Reverend Tuttle’s VHS snuff tape minus the child murder.
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Thanks to True Detective, I am now aware that Mardi Gras in the rural Acadian parishes of Louisiana can also involve men on horseback who brandish whips wear homemade mesh nightmare masks, skull face paint, vaguely KKK-ish pointed capuchon caps, and sniper-clown ghillie suits and roam the countryside demanding ingredients for a gumbo. My understanding of Mardi Gras, like many of yours, was limited to parades, colorful costumes and floats, second-line drum music, tourists’ breasts bared in exchange for cheap plastic necklaces, and mobs of out-of-control drunks urinating in every shadowy corner of Bourbon Street. The Rust Cohle Award for the Formerly Fun Thing You’ll Never See the Same Way Again: Mardi Gras The Errol Childress Award for Best Texas Chainsaw Reference: True Detective Season Finale Oh, and he speaks Spanish and French? Stay away from my girl, Fukunaga. Fukunaga works it like he came out of a fantasy-boyfriend computer simulation.
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In lesser hands, admitting to writing “immense love letters that are supposed to be opened over days at a time” or not owning a television and being obsessed with “cabin porn” would be positively cheeseball. Vulture has called him a “heartthrob director” and described him as “‘Ryan Gosling but with even better bone structure’–level handsome.” But what elevates Fukunaga from being just another handsome and talented person in an industry rife with attractive and talented people to Best Metamythical Character Award Winner and Dude You or Your Significant Other Are Secretly Crushing On are his Lloyd Dobler–meets–Barry White character quirks. As buzz for True Detective grew from an appreciation of good cinematography and transformational hairpieces into an obsessive search for clues and literary influences, so has the appreciation for director Cary Fukunaga grown from discussions of his visual style to, oh, wait, This guy is really hot.