Hey, there, me droogies.
Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. Well, yes, I do, but I don’t know why I’m making a Clockwork Orange reference at this particular time, other than it seemed really boring to just say “Hi, I’m back from DC, how are y’all?”
Anyhow, I’ll be posting a recap of my Washington trip soon, but in the meantime, I’d like to celebrate tonight’s big New Moon premiere with an image that depicts the movie I’d like to see:
Let’s see if Edward Cullen’s emo dreaminess can protect him from the sword of the Daywalker! Ha!
Seriously, I’m usually right there in the front of the line for all of the latest pop-cultural fads, but the whole Twilight thing mystifies me. The Girlfriend says it’s because I was never a 15-year-old girl, and perhaps there’s something to that. (Although if 15-year-old girls really fantasize about awaking to find a sullen, beady-eyed, greasy-haired guy who says it’s a constant struggle to keep from killing them because they smell so damn good standing at the foot of their bed, and they think that’s romantic rather than alarming, then I obviously never understood teenage girls half as well as I thought I did.) In any event, vampire stories just aren’t what they were when I first discovered Lestat back in college. I’m predicting that once the cycle of movies based on Stephanie Meyer’s novels runs out, these venerable immortal anti-heroes are going to, ahem, go underground for a good long while… at least, it’s my opinion that they ought to. They’ve pretty much run their course for this generation. While they’re resting up for a few years, maybe someone can figure out how to reinvigorate werewolves the way Anne Rice did the bloodsuckers…
(Credit Where It’s Due Department: That nifty photoshop job has been all over the ‘net, but I grabbed it from Michael May; he also posted this little gem, if you’re looking for more Twilight-mocking fun…)
I can speak from experience that while I really enjoyed the books (have yet to see the movies) a lot of the story turns really creepy on closer examination. Sneaking into your house (room, even!) and watching you while you’re asleep? Disturbing! Admitting that he’d like to eat you? Creepy! Disabling your car so you can’t see another boy? Controlling and emotionally abusive!
Really, what I find the most disturbing (and yes, I did find the books entertaining!) is the number of people out there who think Edward is the Perfect Boyfriend and no one else can measure up. Um… no?
Hey, Jen, I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees the more troubling aspects of these stories. Admittedly, I’m judging only from the first movie and what Anne has told me about the books, but this so-called perfect romance seems very messed up to me. Anne disagrees and doesn’t seem to see what I’m seeing, so I often wonder if I’m missing something somewhere…
If there’s one constant rejoinder from Twilight fans that makes me crazy, it’s the inevitable “Oh, you’re a guy! You were never a 15-year-old girl in love!” crap. Why that makes me crazy is pretty simple: so what?! It’s the job of the writer to make me understand the viewpoint of the characters in the book and make me sympathize. You know what else I never was? I was never a hobbit suddenly tasked with a job whose failure would result in Evil Sweeping the World. I was never a little girl trying to understand racism in a little town in Alabama. I was never a mate aboard a ship captained by a man obsessed with finding the whale who maimed him. I was never a man in love during the French Revolution. I was never an old man struggling against a marlin in my little fishing boat. I was never a Musketeer.
So if I wasn’t a 15-year-old girl in love, it’s Stephenie Meyer’s job to make me understand and sympathize. She failed, utterly and completely. Because she sucks as a writer.
(Wow, I feel ranty this morning. This coffee must have twice the caffeine or something!)
Or maybe not enough caffeine… 🙂
I never said this was an example of the perfect romance. And I do agree with you that there are elements of control and possibly even abuse going on.
I know you didn’t, honey, but I have heard others say that.
At least we have True Blood to enjoy together…
I’ve never been a 15-year-old girl, but I happen to be a father to one, and all I can say is she’s never stopped to either admire or criticize the literary aspects of the story. Somehow, to her, Robert Pattison is just too dreamy and all that. And who cares about the particulars!
She’ll grow out of it, I’m sure.
Ilya, that is perhaps the angle of this whole phenomenon that baffles me most… Robert Pattinson? Really? He’s a reasonably nice-looking chap, but the end-all, be-all of girlish desire? There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose, but I really don’t get it. He doesn’t even own a comb, from what I can tell, and there are rumors about his, ahem, personal hygiene that are truly ghastly.
But then, I never got the fascination my feminine peers had back in the day for Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, either, so what do I know of teenage ideals?