A Little ‘Twilight’ Story To Occupy As I Finish My Review…
Posted by Dirty Harry on Friday, November 21st, 2008
‘Twilight’ author Stephenie Meyer
So I stumble out of my Twilight screening, dazed and unsure that what I’ve just seen is what I’ve just seen. Concerned I might be crazy, I email a buddy of mine:
Dude, I’ve just come out of the most subversive film since … who knows when. This isn’t a vampire flick, it’s a total piece of cinematic propaganda disguised as a vampire flick and aimed right at your children. Only — get this - it’s subversively upholds traditional values.
Not only is it a high school movie set in a small town filled with likable characters of different races where race is never mentioned but the whole film is about restraint and discipline; the teenage girls aren’t sexualized, the boys are chivalrous, and the parents caring and real.
Hell, the the good family of vampires even play baseball because it’s “the American pastime,” and on a shelf in a bookstore owned by an American Indian sits Rush Limbaugh’s first book.
We know none of this stuff happens by accident and I’m still processing it.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed
He emailed back to say that the movie is based on a series of novels written by Stephenie Meyer, a Mormon (translation for liberals who don’t mind that Bill Ayers’ Friend opposes gay marriage: MORMON - gay-hating, fascist Nazis who should be exterminated).
The first line of my review: “Well let’s just say that I finally know what it means to be gobsmacked.”
But is it any good? For that you’ll have to wait.
Filed in General |
The Ugly Americanon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:14 pm 1He emailed back to say that the movie is based on a series of novels written by Stephanie Meyer, a Mormon (translation for liberals who don’t mind that Bill Ayers’ Friend opposes gay marriage: MORMON - gay-hating, fascist Nazis who should be exterminated).
Hahahahahaha!!!……oh, this is why I love you, DH…LOL
BTW, Stephanie Meyer = Hubba Hubba
(I like ‘em meaty)
Mr. Hon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:26 pm 2Just a note: it’s Stephenie Meyer, not Stephanie.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:27 pm 3The teenage girls aren’t sexualized? Ha! Just wait till the sequels come out, where Edward has to spend all the time beating Bella off with a stick. The girl is completely obsessed with getting into his pants, pardon my crudeness.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:29 pm 4Haha - you made me laugh DH! Yeah, Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon, and though I don’t for sure know her politics, she has been on Glenn Beck’s show.
The books stay pretty much sex free until the last one (even though it’s lightly talked about), and even then hardly anything is described in any detail. Everyone at my school has been going bananas for this all day - EVERYONE is going to see it tonight. It’s insane.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:35 pm 5Ahh, Gina, that wasn’t all the third one was about. And plus, it was done in that awkward teenage way - loving each other so much, wanting to take it to the next level, but afraid to…although for different reasons. Besides, they don’t end up doing it until they get married.
Johnny Ed's Babyon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:35 pm 6The superb Wankette has a review over at threedonia that makes me wish my daughter was still 12 years old and I could take her to see it. As it is I will see if she wants to go when she is home for Thanksgiving.
It really sounds like a movie that is impossible to see coming out of Hollywood in 2008. And that is meant as a compliment.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:41 pm 7“that wasn’t all the third one was about.”
Oh, right. It was also about Edward being controlling and possessive and borderline abusive.
I’m sorry. I’m all for abstinence — I’m an abstinent adult, for goodness’ sake — and it pains me to have to argue against books that ostensibly promote it. But there is just too much else going on that’s disturbing and harmful. One good message isn’t worth all the bad ones.
Keiraon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:43 pm 8I couldn’t make it through the books—I struggled with the genre. (It wasn’t what I would recommend for teens (Bella spends a bunch of it in an obsessive relationship while lying to her father) but I thought not quite an adult category. Otherwise fine but not my cup of tea.)
Anyway, I thought through the 2 and a half that I made it through that they were really great screenplays and that on film a lot of the awkwardness would disappear.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:49 pm 9Gina,
Okay this is my last post about this. I don’t really want to get into a serious discussion about Twilight, but I really am curious why you think Edward is “borderline abusive.”
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:55 pm 10From the review I wrote of the books:
“He spies on Bella while she sleeps, eavesdrops on her conversations, reads her classmates’ minds, forges her signature, tries to dictate her choice of friends, encourages her to deceive her father, disables her truck, has his family hold her at his house against her will, and enters her house when no one’s there — all because, he explains, he wants her to be safe. He warns Bella how dangerous he is, but gets ‘furious’ at anyone else who tries to warn or protect her. He even drags her to the prom against her expressed wishes.”
And let’s not forget how Bella wakes up the morning after her wedding night covered from head to foot with bruises. Sorry, but if your husband bruised you like that on your wedding night, that would not be a wonderful and sweet and tender experience, as Meyer tried to portray it. It would hurt like crazy.
John in Dublin Californiaon 21 Nov 2008 at 4:57 pm 11Will this actually get me to go to the movies again? Please get the rest of the review up asap. This gives me hope.
Tink in Calion 21 Nov 2008 at 5:03 pm 12Just post it already! I have been waiting all week. I am supposed to go the movies tomorrow with some other ladies and want to have all of the facts in to make the best choice. I’m on pins and needles here, lets see what you got.
Stephanieon 21 Nov 2008 at 5:28 pm 13Us chicks named Stephanie or Stephenie are AWESOME! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA!
Templaron 21 Nov 2008 at 5:29 pm 14BTW, Stephanie Meyer = Hubba Hubba
(I like ‘em meaty)
*sigh*
And there goes my dinner…
Wayfareron 21 Nov 2008 at 5:51 pm 15*gasp*
Your first review kinda sounds like High School Musical…
Just saying.
John Miltonon 21 Nov 2008 at 5:53 pm 16If the movie had been about Mormon vampires, that would have been interesting. I’m thinking September Dawn crossed with Underworld.
As it stands, I’d rather stare at a blank screen and fart for two hours. In fact….
wanketteon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:02 pm 17JEB,
That’s high praise indeed, coming from you. And your daughter’s pretty lucky!
Steph: I love that you’ve formed the “Stephanie Club”! [wankette hustles off to make group tees with a package of Hanes & a Sharpie]
Johnny Ed's Babyon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:05 pm 18John Milton
What we need are Mormon vampires vs cross wielding gays in Los Angeles. The rumble in the temple or something. Harry Reid standing in the street pleading ‘but we love you - you are part of our base’.
Throw in a few werewolves and you have a strange version of Underworld.
That I might pay to see.
Charles Delacroixon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:06 pm 19Well, now, this *is* interesting … !
I was planning to see Twilight foolishly thinking it was a vampire movie. And I like vampire movies.
Then I heard a reviewer on NPR (yes NPR) talking about the movie and characterizing it as a film targeting the 13 y.o. girl audience, and succeeding with that demographic, precisely because it articulates the intense world of a high school girl with utter seriousness: for everything but everything that happens in H.S. is serious after all at that age. And this reviewer (don’t recall his name) saying this is a romance not a vampire movie.
Well, that didn’t sound very attractive to me, but I tried out the movie this AM. I mean, I do like vampire movies. And the modern tendency to romanticize the vampire is really on the whole OK by me as long as there’s plenty of good old vampire stuff. I’m no Barnabas Collins fan, but Lestad is cool enough for me.
Well, the NPR reviewer is right, this is an HS romance, not a vampire flick. Or wasn’t before I left. I’m afraid I walked out about halfway through. That’s a world in my distant memory but just not a world that appeals to me at all these days. But the movie does look to me like an honest depiction of that world as far as it goes.
As far as the values in the movie … before I left, at least, it’s very true I think that there’s little or no underage sexualization which is a very, very welcome by today’s standards. The remainder of the values though seem to me to be far less positive. But again, I left early, so maybe they’re there later on.
Stephanieon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:14 pm 20Wankette you are the charter member! Heh!
v.on 21 Nov 2008 at 6:28 pm 21Charles Delacroix: that would be David Edelstein, and you can read it here: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97308355
Warning: may not be to the taste of most DH readers.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:29 pm 22“The remainder of the values though seem to me to be far less positive. But again, I left early, so maybe they’re there later on.”
No, they’re not. Your impression is correct.
whiskeyon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:41 pm 23I agree with Gina, and I’ve ripped this novel and the entire vampire fan-fic / chick-lit genre (including “Lonely Werewolf Girl” and all those Gossip Girl meets Buffy mash-ups, the stupid Anita Blake and Sookie Stackhouse series) in my latest post on my blog.
My objections, not only is the boyfriend controlling and abusive and isolating, but the heroine never accomplishes anything of use or value outside the relationship. It’s terrible. And quite unlike traditional female fantasy like McCaffrey’s “Dragonriders of Pern” where the heroine actually … saves the day. Not simply stands around being pretty.
HS girls are the MOST in need of guidance about how to: avoid having sex, avoid choosing the wrong sort of guy, react intelligently and with knowledge of the opposite sex, get self-worth and validation through educational, sports, and community achievement, understand that HS ends VERY swiftly and that they need to make plans about what to do with their lives. Including exploring possible careers, college, and so on.
All of which intense and socially isolating emotional entanglement with boys will kill. And “Twilight” encourages.
HS girls are in an environment where media/entertainment along with peers form dominant social mores. This is the last thing they need.
whiskeyon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:43 pm 24Let me add, as for the sex it gets quite explicit in the later books excluding a Clintonian parsing of what “is” is … no explicit intercourse but pretty much everything else which characterizes the genre of most these books — chock full of icky sex for shock and entertainment value.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:49 pm 25Good review, whiskey. Mine’s at my blog (click on my name). And you’re right that [i]Breaking Dawn[/i] gets pretty gross. They don’t make the sex explicit, but there were some references that made me shudder. The waking up bruised was only one of them.
One thing I noticed about the movie: At least in the book, Bella likes to read good books and she cooks for her dad. (Not that I ever really bought that she had enough brain cells to enjoy a good book, but at least they promoted good books.) In the movie she does neither. She listens to her iPod and moons over Edward: That’s it.
The Ugly Americanon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:49 pm 26What we need are Mormon vampires vs cross wielding gays in Los Angeles. The rumble in the temple or something. Harry Reid standing in the street pleading ‘but we love you - you are part of our base’.
Throw in a few werewolves and you have a strange version of Underworld.
LOL….that is all kinds of awesome.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 6:50 pm 27Oops, I forgot, no HTML.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:15 pm 28Okay, some of you are taking this [i]way[/i] too seriously. Making a bunch of points about what teenage girls ‘need’ - it’s a freakin’ FANTASY book. That’s why myself (a teenage high school girl) liked it! It’s not real! And you can spin these long winded rants about how ‘this is not what teen girls need - the boy is abusive!’ all you want. He’s a freakin VAMPIRE. Okay? When teen girls are reading this, they aren’t thinking “He’s so controlling!”. All my friends talk about is how hot he is. Or how much he loves Bella and protects her, and how they want a guy like that who will make her a priority and not treat her like crap. However, they understand the way the characters treat each other isn’t exactly reality. In fact, we get completely annoyed with Bella with all her hyperventilating over Edward.
Maybe instead of raving about supposed ‘messages’ in a romance series, you should look at the real problems with our youth.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:16 pm 29Oh…I made the same mistake Gina. Heh.
Carolynon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:16 pm 30Wow. I am definitely going to see this film.
On DVD.
(Come on, I don’t DO theaters.)
Carolynon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:19 pm 31BTW - the soundtrack for this film is No. 1 and the film hasn’t even come out yet. I can’t read ’signs’ for beans - but this sounds like this film is going to be a monster hit.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:21 pm 32Emily, you were the one who asked me to elaborate.
“When teen girls are reading this, they aren’t thinking “He’s so controlling!”. All my friends talk about is how hot he is.”
That’s precisely what worries me.
Obi-Wandreason 21 Nov 2008 at 7:22 pm 33A few weeks ago, we caught a “sneak preview” of one of the scenes that was being shown on tv. It involved a conversation between our two protagonists.
It made the “romantic” dialogue between Anakin and Padmé sound like Shakespeare.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:30 pm 34Gina,
Thanks for taking one sentence and ignoring everything I wrote after that. And besides, why are you worried about my friends giggling over a guy in a book? Or a movie? We’re 15, for Pete’s sake.
Ginaon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:32 pm 35I didn’t ignore it, Emily. I read all of it. I just wanted to respond to the one point, that’s all. I had already made my case that Edward’s “protectiveness” is merely a front for a more disturbing mindset, so I didn’t feel the need to repeat all that.
Emilyon 21 Nov 2008 at 7:35 pm 36Gina,
And I already said that you’re reading way too much into a fantasy romace novel. So, guess we’re done. Cool conversation! Thanks.
Enbrethilielon 22 Nov 2008 at 2:31 am 37+JMJ+
Hi, Gina. =)
I agree that Edward is over the top, but at the same time, he completely fits the mold for “Paranormal Romance hero.” Those guys are allowed to get away with even more than regular Romance heroes are allowed to get away with, which is a lot.
Yet I have yet to meet a Romance reader who doesn’t know where to draw the line between what’s cool in fiction and what’s insupportable in reality.
Sharon Fergusonon 22 Nov 2008 at 11:20 am 38Emily - let me, a 40+ yr old Mom, say this: Been there, done that. Yeah, its just a book, and yeah, Edward is a teen heartthrob - if I were 14 *I’d* be in love. Back in the day, Han Solo was my heartthrob…as an adult, a sarcastic reckless gunslinger with a penchant for getting into trouble is NOT ideal. So yeah, I hear you when you say “its just a movie/book!” But I was influenced just like everyone else was back then, and I had some pretty goofy ideas that fortunately did not play out as bad as they could have.
As a Mom, it is MY role to forewarn my daughter of the pitfalls of that kind of romance, because I have the experience and she doesnt. THATS MY JOB. Id much rather forewarn than counsel, but if I have to counsel, then I will know what I can reference. And Bella and Edwards’ relationship is not a healthy one, at least not one that will lead to lasting and happy marriage.
Stephanieon 22 Nov 2008 at 3:28 pm 39Ladies I think Emily has a pretty good head on her shoulders. She seems to understand more than your giving her credit for.
I liked Han Solo to. And Indiana Jones. Hell while my girl friends were gaga over Sean Cassidy and Leif Garret (1980’s and 1970’s) metrosexuals I was crushing on Barry Gibb and Harrison Ford. But it was the characters HF played. Barry Just looked bearded and HOT..I was 10.
Its funny when I met Gerard Butler and discovered a lot more about him my regard for him went from he is a dude to what a jackass. You gotta make good decisions but you also have to go through a lot of Richard Heads in order to find the good ones.
Citizen Grimon 24 Nov 2008 at 12:32 pm 40Okay, I’m not a 15 y.o. HS girl (I’m a 27 y.o. married guy), but I am officially Intrigued now.
Also, props to commenter Emily for her clarity.