Sparkly Vampires...
Are these Eurotrash? Or a Goth band on the way to a Eurovision contest? Well, that or vampires.
(For those of you who are wondering, we shall return to our regular drama programming on Monday, after a two-week hiatus by yours truly from any drama watching - A Man of Honor and Kim Tae Hee's jdrama are waiting).
I was in the mood for something cheesy and silly so, on an utter whim, I decided to watch New Moon.
Now, my whole Twilight history is as follows - I bought Twilight (the novel) before it got big, mainly because it had a pretty cover. I enjoyed it as a fun, romance-novel, brain-dead piece of candy. I barely made it through New Moon and never did read Eclipse or Breaking Dawn. Oh, and I saw Twilight the Movie, which was horrible ("this is the skin of a killer!" Our whole theater lost it).
Watching NM, I skipped all vampire-less scenes - I thus didn't have to deal with Bella moping or Jacob (sorry, nothing against the guy, but he's kinda boring).
You know what hit me this time around?
1. I am actually pleased that female-targeted movies/books are such a hit. These things are basically cleaner romance novels, minus shirtless hunk on the cover. I like seeing that succeed.
2. I know it's fashionable to view SMeyer as the Archenemy but I don't get it. Sure, the plot could be tighter (but once again, this is a romance novel, where any plot is incidental to romance. Complaining these books lack plot is like complaining space opera has a lot of battles. I think privileging a plot-driven narrative over an emotion-driven one is problematic tbh), but she is a self-made woman - how many of us can turn our fantasies into $$$?
3. Related to 2 - the fashionable complaint is that SMeyer is antifeminist and her books are going to ruin ruin RUIN teen girls! This is silly. It's like the argument conservatives like to make that videogame violence leads to murder in real life. Whatever you may think of Bella (I couldn't help but notice, Bella is in the position of power - poor sparkly Edward has no say in anything - she wants to be a vampire, so guess what happens? He literally cannot live without her awesomeness, etcetc. Sure, he's obsessive and posessive, but this is a trashy Gothic romance novel - it's par for the course), nobody is going to model her life and relationships on her (or any other heroine of a novel or even a series of novels) unless there is something else hugely problematic going on in their lives. I spent my childhood/teen years reading Victorian novels and ancient Roman and Greek works - I have not turned into a pagan nympho (from reading Apuleius) or a Victorian child-woman.
Anyway, enough comments...Have the funniest thing in the movie - Edward trying to off himself by sparkliness. Literally. Ah, a small, silly part of me revels in this romance-novel cornucopia.
So, yeah, my verdict on the series still stands - so very trashy but so very entertaining...
I think more romance novels should be adopted into things for my delectation. The movies of this have a huge advantage of not having to read about Edward Sparklepire's perfection on every page. Plus, since I skipped all emo Bella parts, I didn't have to watch how she throws an omg!can't!live!without!him party for herself.