Sparkle Motion

[moonwise]

On Saturday, jaina, fadingembers, irenak, and I went to see Sparkle Motion! aka Twilight, for the lulz. We brought in our own beverages, liberally spiked with rum, and joined the hordes of tweenies and TwiMoms who had come to see Edward's effulgent emo-tasticness. Drinks in hand, we decided to take a shot every time someone sparkled, and we sat through about 1,000 previews before the main event.



Now, to be fair, I have never read Twilight, nor do I intend to. There's too much good literature out there to give Ms. Meyer another dime besides the money we spent to laugh at the movie (guess the joke's on us, after all!) That having been said, I have no way of knowing whether the scenes everyone was laughing at were supposed to be funny, or whether that was a consequence of the horrendous source material writ large and with copious amounts of pancake makeup. Because if Twilight wasn't supposed to be funny, then an awful lot of people in the theatre with us were also in it for the lulz.

There's so much wrong with the Twilight story that I won't even try to scratch that surface. Suffice it to say that I was creeped out by the stalker overtones and the infantilization of Bella even before reading this excellent academic breakdown of the first three books of the Twilight series as it relates to Mormon. (makes you wonder what the author would have made of Breaking Dawn!) Maybe I'd get the same whim-whams from the Chronicles of Narnia if I were reading it for the first time (and iirc, "The Last Battle" bothered me; where was Susan?) but I have to believe that the TwiMoms who think the Twilight saga is a good alternative to other teen lit (Robin McKinley, anyone? now there are some kick-ass chick role models!) must not be reading it very closely. If some guy were hovering over my daughter and following her around the way Edward does to Bella, I'd get the police involved.

But, that's too heavy for our lighthearted tale. There was plenty of audience participation and running up and down the aisles, so we didn't bat an eyelash at out-loud snarkery. There was a young fellow sitting with his sister in the row in front of us, and he was by far the best part of the movie. As an example: Edward tells Bella that she is "his own personal brand of heroin," and the kid pipes up, "You need to go to rehab!"

We laughed at everything, especially the "YOU'RE A PONY! LOL!" scene, and the vampire baseball was one of the silliest scenes I've ever seen in a fantasy movie. Maybe it's supposed to be silly, and it demonstrates what a Great Mormon Vampire Family the Cullens are, but talk about pulling vampiric fangs! Even the bad vampires aren't all that menacing, and Integra from Hellsing could take them all in a fight, probably with one bullet. The sparkling was hi-freakin-larious, and I think RPattz' face has permanently frozen into his Edward leer, or else he is just drunk all the time (for which, none could blame him.) The guy who played Carlisle looked like a Kabuki player, he had so much makeup on. (Alice was adorable, though.)

The acting was about on a par with an ABC After-School Special. Kristen Stewart looked like she had gas, and I don't remember anyone being quite so perky in my high school as her schoolmates are. Certainly not so welcoming or insta-best friends. Her dad could just as easily have been played by a cardboard cutout. (maybe that's the point?)

At the end of the movie, one of the Twlight fans in front of us remarked on how much better the book was, and we nodded gravely while holding in the giggles. Perhaps that's because page after page of longing and Michael Myers-like stalking don't translate well to the big screen? Or, more basic: while teen love and angst are Srs Biz to other teens, mature and well-balanced adults realize that what felt like world-ending emotion at 16 is a great deal of immaturity from an older perspective.

The teenies like Twilight because it's a kind of love they are naive enough to believe is healthy and not COMPLETELY CREEPTASTIC. I'd like to think that many people grow out of this stage, but this series seems to have a great deal of older fans, and given the connotations of the Edward/Bella dynamic, I don't entirely understand the endorsement. I can't help but think that the TwiMoms are sold on Twilight for the same reason SMeyer loves her creation so much - in some basic way, they're missing that unquestioning devotion that Edward represents. Or, they have it, but it's not what they were expecting. My husband would walk through fire for me, but we still squibble over picking up dirty socks.

I'm ashamed to say we'll probably go to see the next one, because rum'n'cokes + badfic on screen + us was too much fun to pass up. But, us four Trigun Bitches are all balanced enough to realize just how fucked up Twilight really is. I worry about the girl in the audience who ends up finding Edward, but her vegetarian vampire ends up being a sanguinarian after all.

Comments

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

So is Twilight as damaging as Disney Princess Propaganda? Because the former seems to smack of the latter's brand of crippling wish-fulfillment. Granted, I haven't read Twinkle Twinkle Little Vamp Twilight, but the way Val describes it to me, it sounds like same type of emotionally-stunted romantic idealization, only in a high-school setting, with twinks yaoibois adolescent Edward Scissorhands bloodsucker clans. Kinda like Near Dark sans Nathan Petrelli & Lance Hendrikson meets a Burning Heart movie The Covenant.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

From what I've gathered, the Princesses are actually better-- none of them ever go catatonic after their prince disappears, as Bella apparently does in the second book.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

And you can grow out of the Princesses in time, but Twilight can give you some really fucked up ideas about relationships as you grow into that age.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the early teen years are a particularly shitty time to learn you're nothing without a man.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

*points to other responses* What they said. Many of the modern Disney princesses are tougher cookies than Bella.