Twilight

So I watched Twilight. Predictably, I hated it. The day before I read an interesting if somewhat confusing article on feminism and vampire fiction, which really just added more fuel to the fire. The thing about Twilight is that it's nakedly pornographic in that chaste mind fuck sort of thing that people pretend is porn for women (which is really yet another reductionist portrait of female sexuality, but that's a rant for another day). I wish I could even say that it's Laurel K. Hamilton written for the teenage set, but Hamilton knows how to give us characters in three dimension and relationships with real emotional weight.

I can't even really complain in a male post-feminist sort of way that Edward is incredibly flat as a character, because Bella is possibly even flatter. We never really get a look at just who she is. She barely even exists, and really only ever functions as a proxy for the teenage female viewer.

We get a few of the same scenes in Twilight as we do True Blood in terms of the struggle of the domesticated vampire and the male vampire's dilemma in entering into the company of a fragile, mortal, innocent girl. The main difference is that Bill and Sookie remain constantly aware and grounded of all the implications of their relationships and the inherent difficulties. Bella and Edward glide across all of these except for the one or two that provide us with a thin patina of drama to fuel the angst.

Twilight is grown from fertile soil that could have done numerous worthwhile things with the themes and situations present, but seems to almost intentionally snub them. Explore the myth of the domesticated, sensitive bad boy. Explore the tendency that teenagers have to want their first real relationship to last forever. Take an interesting look at how native north american teenagers raised on reserves interact with non reserve teenagers. All grand lost opportunities.

I wanted to empathize with Bella, and a few times it almost looked like I could. I've been in that situation where you want to be with someone who is constantly telling you that they're bad for you while being the complete opposite. The problem is that you never really see where her attraction to Edward- or his to her- scratches the surface. Every time they start to have a conversation, the dialogue fades out and the music takes over for a slow, fuzzy montage. We the viewers cannot be bored, we cannot be shown the characters actually connecting in any legitimate way.

I just fear for a generation that is being preyed upon so viciously by tapping into all of it's most vulnerable fantasies and pumping them for money in mediums that are only going to encourage them. Both the novels and the films are just perpetuating nonsense fantasies about romance that are only going to bedevil and disappoint these girls when they reach adulthood, and isn't that what Sex and the City is about? Crashing into the wall of the truth behind the Disney princess myths and filling that emotional hole with empty sex, expensive shoes, and candy-sweet cocktails?