when film criticism goes viral
Jeebus tap-dancing Christ on a cracker. I'm on EW.com now?! That’s frickin' nuts!
When this whole Twilight thing first started blowing up, I was sure that my little corner of the intertubes would be inundated by superfans freaking out. So I was very surprised (and stoked) that so many people wrote to tell me “right on!”. Still.. lemme answer a few criticisms:
Whaaaa! Read the books! I did. Or I tried. I managed to get through a few chapters of Twilight while I was killing time at Borders. Then I rolled my eyes and chucked it back in the pile because the writing is just so… bad. To be fair, I did the same thing with the Da Vinci Code, so at least Stephenie Meyer is in good company. Or bad company, as the case may be. Most of my knowledge of this series comes from the movies, and I’m not about to apologize for that.
Whaaaa! You’re a terrible writer! Actually, I’m a pretty good writer. But you’re damn right it’s poorly written. I banged out the original post in about 30 minutes, in a fit of pique after I got back from the movie theater. I’m amused and a little appalled that of all the ranting I’ve been doing in this space over the years, this one is the one that manages to break out of LJ-land and escape into the Internet at large. Whoops. :D
Whaaaa! There are much worse movies to pick on! Very true. The Dark Knight-- now the second-biggest opening ever-- is way more violent and scary than Twilight. (How the studio wrangled a PG-13, I have no idea. Goes to show how effective the MPAA is, but that’s another rant for another day.) But the key difference is this: Dark Knight was never sold as a romantic movie. Teenage girls aren’t buying Batman pajamas and making Batman crafts and comparing their boyfriends to the World’s Greatest Detective. Twilight, though, has been almost exclusively sold as something romantic, and something to be emotionally invested in. The fact that a very warped idea of "twooooo wuv!" is so aggressively promoted by major publishers is really freekin' creepy.. (Also, Batman can get away with being a creepy stalker. Why? Because he’s the god damn Batman, that’s why. ;) )
Like, DUH! It’s fiction! Well, no shit, Sherlock. But like someone else said (probably more eloquently than I did ), just because something is fictional, doesn’t mean you’re immune to its influence. Lord of the Rings made fantasy cool again, after the genre had been dead for years. Brokeback Mountain spawned a lot a gay cowboy jokes, but it also got a lot of people considering what it's actually like to live as a gay person. If you wanna go lowbrow, consider this.. The “church” of Scientology has had detractors for years, but it wasn’t until the “Trapped in the Closet” episode of South Park that they became an international laughingstock.
How many times do you hear references to 1984? Harry Potter? One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… what we read and what we watch has a huge influence on our values, so why make excuses for Twilight? Domestic abuse is not fictional, and when it’s basically condoned by bestselling books and movies, that’s something that’s worth some criticism, ya think?
Anywho.
I stand by my original point. The central “romantic” relationships in the Twilight series have a disturbing number of characteristics of abusive relationships. This is Not Okay. Other people have been awesome about pointing out their own problems with the book (crappy character development, lazy writing), but this particular thing really sticks out as a Major Problem. When the biggest movie in the world is billed as a romance, but the lead character acts like a stalker, I have a problem with that. When I see legions of fans swooning and wishing for a boyfriend just like Edward!!!1!!!.. I have a big problem with that. I gotta speak up.
Thank you for continuing the conversation on your own blogs and sites and with your friends. Whether you agree with me or you think I’m insane, I'm glad that this has touched off some long-needed criticism of these movies. You all rock.
*(squee)*
-Kar3n (ms.kar3n@gmail.com)
When this whole Twilight thing first started blowing up, I was sure that my little corner of the intertubes would be inundated by superfans freaking out. So I was very surprised (and stoked) that so many people wrote to tell me “right on!”. Still.. lemme answer a few criticisms:
Whaaaa! Read the books! I did. Or I tried. I managed to get through a few chapters of Twilight while I was killing time at Borders. Then I rolled my eyes and chucked it back in the pile because the writing is just so… bad. To be fair, I did the same thing with the Da Vinci Code, so at least Stephenie Meyer is in good company. Or bad company, as the case may be. Most of my knowledge of this series comes from the movies, and I’m not about to apologize for that.
Whaaaa! You’re a terrible writer! Actually, I’m a pretty good writer. But you’re damn right it’s poorly written. I banged out the original post in about 30 minutes, in a fit of pique after I got back from the movie theater. I’m amused and a little appalled that of all the ranting I’ve been doing in this space over the years, this one is the one that manages to break out of LJ-land and escape into the Internet at large. Whoops. :D
Whaaaa! There are much worse movies to pick on! Very true. The Dark Knight-- now the second-biggest opening ever-- is way more violent and scary than Twilight. (How the studio wrangled a PG-13, I have no idea. Goes to show how effective the MPAA is, but that’s another rant for another day.) But the key difference is this: Dark Knight was never sold as a romantic movie. Teenage girls aren’t buying Batman pajamas and making Batman crafts and comparing their boyfriends to the World’s Greatest Detective. Twilight, though, has been almost exclusively sold as something romantic, and something to be emotionally invested in. The fact that a very warped idea of "twooooo wuv!" is so aggressively promoted by major publishers is really freekin' creepy.. (Also, Batman can get away with being a creepy stalker. Why? Because he’s the god damn Batman, that’s why. ;) )
Like, DUH! It’s fiction! Well, no shit, Sherlock. But like someone else said (probably more eloquently than I did ), just because something is fictional, doesn’t mean you’re immune to its influence. Lord of the Rings made fantasy cool again, after the genre had been dead for years. Brokeback Mountain spawned a lot a gay cowboy jokes, but it also got a lot of people considering what it's actually like to live as a gay person. If you wanna go lowbrow, consider this.. The “church” of Scientology has had detractors for years, but it wasn’t until the “Trapped in the Closet” episode of South Park that they became an international laughingstock.
How many times do you hear references to 1984? Harry Potter? One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… what we read and what we watch has a huge influence on our values, so why make excuses for Twilight? Domestic abuse is not fictional, and when it’s basically condoned by bestselling books and movies, that’s something that’s worth some criticism, ya think?
Anywho.
I stand by my original point. The central “romantic” relationships in the Twilight series have a disturbing number of characteristics of abusive relationships. This is Not Okay. Other people have been awesome about pointing out their own problems with the book (crappy character development, lazy writing), but this particular thing really sticks out as a Major Problem. When the biggest movie in the world is billed as a romance, but the lead character acts like a stalker, I have a problem with that. When I see legions of fans swooning and wishing for a boyfriend just like Edward!!!1!!!.. I have a big problem with that. I gotta speak up.
Thank you for continuing the conversation on your own blogs and sites and with your friends. Whether you agree with me or you think I’m insane, I'm glad that this has touched off some long-needed criticism of these movies. You all rock.
*(squee)*
-Kar3n (ms.kar3n@gmail.com)