…which I’ll get to, right after the midnight showing… Here’s a redux of my “Early, Girly” review of Twilight. My first 3D post! Ahhh, good times:
By the time the average boy is thirteen, he has a pretty good idea what’s going on and why below his belt buckle. He’s constantly forced to interact with his penis — peeing, for one thing. And the matter of sexual release, even if not…um …practiced, is specifically concentrated.
But woe to the 13-year-old girl, who’s forced to think above her waist! Further down is just “down there”, a place of embarrassing mystery, and home of the scent that can’t be washed away. Worse, boys make that very thing a joke. A joke! And that’s why girls live in their heads at that age. In your head is Romantic — a place where the boy is perfect and perfectly handsome; he bends you back in your perfect dress and showers you with perfect kisses and then…the fade-out. No sex. That’s…down there.
I only mention this because last night (this morning) I cracked, and went to the midnight showing of Twilight. My notes ran something like this: “I am surrounded by 13-year-olds in their p.j.s…and they’ve got…blankets with them. It’s the slumber party of your dreams! if you’re a Twilight fan, that is.” And for the entire running time, I had to endure squeals and screams = the equivalent of masturbatory release for the teenage girl.
I discovered Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romances after the series finished (thank GOD, the wait’d’ve killed me). Intense and fast and overblown, like a first love should be. I liked them, and wished they’d been around when I was that age. The author is often derided for, among other things, making teenage heroine Bella so wrapped up in her romance with teenage pin-up Edward that she lacks ambition. To that I say: you want ambition, go read Nancy Drew. It’s a ROOOOOOMANCE, fer crissakes. I hate reviews that mourn the story the critic thinks it should be.
TCM gave me appropriate prep for the evening: Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame — both silent film stories of Beauty and the Beast. Of course, in Edward Cullen’s case, the beast is what’s inside. And it’s as terrifying as anything Chaney ever pulled together from his makeup kit. Because Edward is a vampire! true, one of a conveniently “vegetarian” cult that only goes after animals. But the thirst for human blood lingers, and therein lies the danger to our heroine. The character explains it perfectly to his on-screen love: “People can eat tofu all their lives, and be satisfied. But the desire for the real thing is still there.”
Director Catherine Hardwicke knows her teenagers. I never saw Thirteen, but now I believe all the raves. Her camera gets in the middle of things, and it’s all as familiar as Brian de Palma’s high schoolers in Carrie (I guess the prom dress sequence made me go there). I was more comfortable among these kids then with all the glossy Gossip Girlettes & their ilk. That’s why the first appearance of the Cullens (met by Jonas Brothers-volume-level squeals) is such a visceral sock to the gut; here’s the Gap ads come to life! And Edward (Robert Pattinson) is the loveliest of all. Good on Pattinson for taking this role so very seriously (he kept a journal as the character & even — rumor has it — fell in love with his leading lady) — he embraces what could be camp and cheesy and draws one in and makes you believe in his beautiful monster.
He is ably assisted in this by his co-star. Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan seems to be all eyes when she looks at him, as if by sheer will she could consume him that way. It’s a humorless, die-for-you, Romeo and Juliet, teen angel love. It’s perfect for a teenage girl — because it’s the boy who forbids it to go further — because “consummation” means something wholly different when you’re undead.
I thought it a tidy little romantic thriller that bowed to the book rather than swallowing it whole (the fault of the first two Harry Potter films). I loved the dream and flashback sequences, which put me in mind of the silent movies I’d just seen (another reason Pattinson was a great leading man choice; there is something of that era’s leading men in his profile and gaze). And Hardwicke handles Meyer’s version of the Dracula legend with panache and fun — the sequence when Edward sweeps Bella to the treetops looks as soaring as it feels. One quibble: I was itching for daylight, or sunlight, or at least bright florescent. By the halfway point I wanted to run up to the screening room and replace the bulb in the camera.
It’s now officially the middle of the night and, annoyed that I am typing instead of sleeping, here’s my fast close: Yay for: 1.Taylor Lautner (Jacob) — knowing what comes ahead, he strikes just the right note, and thank GOD for his grin, I needed the white in that soupy atmosphere! 2. Billy Burke, in a great Spencer Tracyesque turn as Bella’s stoic, slightly twitchy dad, and 3. Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen). She’s only got a few minutes of screen time, but she makes an impression as a Mama Vamp with warmth and humor. I want one of those! And I’ll take one of the Edwards, too.
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I hope Wanks doesn’t take this too hard and doe those ladies who like Twilight, you might want to plug your ears.
First, let me start off by saying I’m a sucker for romance (love Jane Austen) and I’m a mild fan of the vampire romance sub-genre. I made it through the first Twilight book and I even catch The Vampire Diaries on the CW (boilerplate to the last iota, but they know what they are do it solidly). So, I’m not antagonistic to all this, in general.
Now, I will not denigrate the series by connecting it with the worst of what I will describe, because it’s truly better in some respects. That it’s quite a bit more innocent than the typical sludge from the open sewer of running through the pop-feminist ghetto puts it head and shoulders above its ilk. It also has a hero that acts gentlemanly and heroically, which is always a positive.
The problem I have with the Twilight series is that it is only wish-fulfillment that is influenced by the worst vices of pop-feminism. The pretension that girls are really smarter and more mature than boys is present, ironically joined with the type of self-involved emotional blindness that is often a weakness of the fairer sex. How? Bella, a bland character, never suffers any true consequences for her actions, no matter how immature, impulsive or selfish. The supporting characters are barely there and their emotions don’t seem to come into play too often. You’re never really quite sure if Edward is obsessed or in love. And how the series ends? Well, it could’ve ended that way after the first book and saved a whole lot of headaches.
If you look at the works of Austen, they are as intellectually engaging as they are emotionally compelling (Pride and Prejudice was, in part, a subtextual rebuttal to Humean empiricism), with characters that feel like real people doing real things. All of her characters are flawed and all of them are chastened and changed by the end of the story, with powerful themes of redemption and transformation through love, which is the difference that allows her heroes/heroines to rise above their flaws, while her villains are dragged down by them. All of them learn significant lessons, even as we can root for them.
Her stories, so intricately woven, are always in a process of dividing the true from the false, using pairs of characters who are mirror images of one another as a study in contrasts to explore moral themes; Colonel Brandon and John Willoughby; Fitzwilliam Darcy and George Wickham.
And that makes much of the fan base and community of literati around Austen so aggravating. You have academics that want to reinvent her as a radical feminist and subversive author, reading into her works all the pathos and neuroses they can think of, pouring out the filth and litter of liberal scholarship. Much of the female readership–catty, self-absorbed, Oprah-worshipers who never grew past the “we’re more mature than boys” stage–is all too happy to go along and fill the air with pointless and tepid babble who never learned to temper their emotions and their mouths.
The Twilight series indulges in what should be harmless fantasy, without ever channeling it away from worst attitudes that have been taught to young girls for decades now. On a personal note, I think it’s especially important at that age to help discipline the minds of young girls and to be extra in instilling good character. When young girls are never taught to grow up, instead of Austen, we get John and Kate, Plus 8.
Am I jumping the shark by comparing middle-aged women’s (nearly all of them moms) excitement over teen male bare-chested (because they are too young to have hair yet) vampires is a lot like middle-aged men hooting and hollering for 18 year old strippers in a titty-bar?
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing . . . I’m just sayin’ it comes to mind.
The two have nothing in common, TRO. I can’t believe what a pig you are. In your second example the men are acting like pigs. In your first example there is nothing wrong, because it’s women doing it.
I haven’t read the books (natch), nor seen any of the movies (movie?), but I have to reiterate this was the best inaugural post in 3-D history.
+JMJ+
I read Twilight and didn’t think it was so bad. The prose wasn’t great, yeah, and there were tons of other flaws, BUT it fit squarely in the tradition of the “Gothic Romance” novel (which also spawned the rest of today’s “Paranormal Romance” subgenre)–and I found myself defending it to critics with that as my main point.
New Moon on the other hand, was AWFUL. I agree with David that Bella is just allowed to get away with everything irresponsible she does and to treat other people like crap. That may be part of the wish fulfillment, so I’ll give it a pass, but I remember what infuriated me the most was how incredibly DUMB she was about the other people’s feelings. She took advantage of all her friends and then couldn’t understand why they were upset. I’m still floored that she was floored when Jacob wasn’t jumping with joy to be friends with Edward, after she had spent most of the book leading Jacob on and the rest of the book rekindling her romance with Edward.