On what "Twilight: Eclipse" gets right, what Jezebel gets wrong, & what "Men's Health" fuels
So, I saw Twilight: Eclipse. And I have to say, 
. Yup, that's right; I kind of enjoyed it. See, director David Slade did what Catherine Hardwicke attempted and what Chris Weitz utterly failed to do - he made a film that was cinematographically superb, reasonably well-acted, delightfully tense and action-packed, and (surprisingly) multi-layered.
But because I hate Twilight, I will focus on the negatives first. First, here's a list of quotes concerning the Bella/Edward relationship that I disliked. With my commentary in italics.
EDWARD. Marry me. It's a compromise.
BELLA. No, it's coercion.
[Who in the hell is this Bella, and how did a Mary-Sue get some sort of intelligence all of a sudden?]
BELLA'S MOM. Why is he always watching you? […] He moves, you move, like magnets. […] I want to make sure you're making the right choices for you."
[Listen to this woman. Don't marry just because you want sexings. Demand them upfront, or get out.]
EDWARD. I was trying to protect you.
BELLA. By lying to me?!
EDWARD. You'll always be my Bella. My Bella, except less fragile.
EDWARD. I want to. I just want to be married to you first.
[Oh, PLEASE. You've been dead 109 years. YOU'LL WANT TO HAVE SEX BY NOW.]
And now some concerning the Bella/Jacob relationship:
JACOB. I wish Leah would just stay home.
BELLA. Don't be such a guy.
[Uh-huh.]
JACOB. Better you'd be dead than one of them!
[Hmm. I seem to remember a similar slogan the U.S. government used in the '70's concerning the Native Americans. Oh, what was it…oh, right! "Better dead than pregnant." The U.S. promptly brutally sterilized thousands upon thousands of Native women, often without consent. Thank you, Jacob, for promoting such an ideal.]
JACOB. She's not sure what she wants!
[She is woman. Learn to hear her roar.]
JACOB. I didn't ask for permission [to fight].
[Oh, okay, just like YOU DIDN'T ASK HER PERMISSION BEFORE YOU MADE OUT WITH HER AND SHE THREW YOU OFF.]
JACOB. She's in love with me too, but she won't admit it to herself.
[I'm glad to see that you consider the woman you love and whose daughter you'll imprint on to have such a strong will of her own.]
* * *
In a related vein, I reapplied the logic and information that kar3ning used in her brilliant post last year to the Twilight series, but particularly to Eclipse where possible:
You may be in an emotionally abusive relationship if your partner:
Calls you names, insults you, or continually criticizes you.
I think the constant "If you were smart, you'd stay away from me" from the first film applies here…
Does not trust you and acts jealous or possessive.
Well, he does break her truck to prevent her from going to the reservation to see Jacob.
Tries to isolate you from family or friends.
Again, the truck-breaking thing.
Monitors where you go, who you call, and who you spend time with.
Uh, yeah.
Does not want you to work.
Or drive by herself, or go to school…
Controls finances.
Mm-hmm.
Punishes you by withholding affection.
"I won't have sex with you at all unless you marry me first."
Humiliates you in any way.
Uh-huh.
You may be in a physically abusive relationship if your partner has ever:
Damaged property when angry (thrown objects, punched walls, kicked doors, etc.).
Yeah, like her car. (Though this really does apply more to Jacob, with his wrench-throwing.)
Pushed, slapped, bitten, kicked, or choked you.
As kar3ning said, "Does tossing her through a glass table count?"
Abandoned you in a dangerous or unfamiliar place.
Like in the middle of a forest?
Scared you by driving recklessly.
See first film.
Forced you to leave your home.
Again, see first film.
Used physical force in sexual situations.
There was that time she woke up, covered in bruises.
You may be in a sexually abusive relationship if your partner:
Believes in rigid gender roles.
No sex till marriage? Even though he admitted he's old-fashioned?
Is often jealous of your outside relationships.
His name starts with a J and rhymes with Schmaycub.
Ignored your feelings regarding sex.
Again, the no sex till marriage thing.
If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions you may be in an abusive relationship; please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) or your local domestic violence center to talk with someone about it.
* * *
Now, for the positives. Here's a brief list of the things that worked.
Rosalie (Nikki Reed) had hair that looked naturally blond, and her roots weren't showing. She did look eerily beautiful, as the character is supposed to be.
The attempts to make the film available to a male audience, particularly via the large number of amazingly choreographed action sequences, were all very successful.
We learned about Rosalie and Jasper's pre-vampiric pasts with well-scripted (yet unfortunately incomplete) flashbacks.
Jasper and Alice were freaking adorable together. And their hair was great.
The majority of abusive aspects from the book were diminished or omitted.
Jessica (Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick) had a lovely, informal graduation speech.
Loads of attention is given to evil vamp Victoria and her vampire army, especially Riley (the leader) and Bree (the youngest and most reluctant to kill).
The vampires, when dismembered, make the sound of breaking ceramic. Their insides resemble ice. A nice touch.
While we're talking about vampires, I recently realized one minor, irritating problem that permeates True Blood: no one ever uses a cell phone. Half the problems in season two of the show could have been solved in half the time if characters just talked to each other long-distance once in a while. Bill and Sookie could've stopped Maryann, Sookie could've learned where Jason had disappeared to, Tara could've gotten confirmation from Sookie before opening up Sookie's house, etc. It kind of seems like the writers have been stalling, and I don't like that much.
The original article: http://jezebel.com/5572097/why-shameless-objectification-can-be-a-good-thing
An excerpt:
When we drool over soccer players' bodies, are those of us who critique the objectification of women's bodies being hypocrites? No. And here's why.
Mostly, our #shamelessobjectification posts celebrating soccer players' bodies - the abdominals, the thighs, the man-love, the thighs - are being met in the spirit in which they are intended: a fun, randy way to participate (one of many) in the global collective experience that is the World Cup. But there have been some understandable concerns with which I've got to disagree. Here's the gist:
"If the World Cup featured women, and Gawker were to post Breast Moments as a way to laud legitimate feats of athleticism, we'd be pissed about the objectification. This is not any different."
Yeah, we'd be pissed about it. But it's not the same. Here's why:
1) Context matters.
2) These guys are healthy and at the peak of fitness.
3) At the World Cup and elsewhere, ogling knows no borders.
4) They're having fun doing what they love.
5) Women also like to look.
[…]
One reader wrote about watching a match at the gym: "The men routinely spend their time ogling (and yes I do mean ogling, they make no bones about it) women in the fitness magazines. However these same men were distinctly uncomfortable and put out that we women were cheering and enjoying the Greek footballers taking off their shirts. Double standards? I think so." I do too.
My response:
Objectification: degradation to the status of a mere object. The term doesn't fully apply here, at least not in what the Jezebel bloggers say about the soccer players in the World Cup. Their treatment of these male athletes is ultimately platonic.
What irks me is best expressed in this comment (courtesy of user P.G.O.A.T.):
My main issue is with argument number 2. Yes, these men are in their "prime" but it's not as if being super ripped equals being the best example of health. And men DO have body issues just like women. Men DO suffer from eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorders. I know some of them. What can we say about them in relation to us holding men that look a certain way up on a pedestal?
"And presumably no unhealthy starvation or surgical enhancements were involved." Really? Because male athletes do and eat crazy things to stay in shape, so I'm not so sure this is something we can so easily presume. A boy from my hometown died of a heart attack after running around in plastic bags trying to make weight for wrestling.
I want this user's genetic material to pass on to my offspring. She's absolutely right! I did a little research on Jezebel.com after reading this article, and found:
Other media outlets realize that we're living in "the era of the buffed actor," in which "rippling biceps [and] six-pack abs [are] now the rule, not the exception, in Hollywood."
American Apparel is introducing mannequins with 27-inch waists, and yet still, an impressive musculature. As a guy who still can't find jeans in his size (I have a 30/31-inch waist, so with most pants I buy, the waist is too big, or the length too short), I'm glad they're making pants for my body type, but still: TWENTY-SEVEN INCHES? To this, brilliant Jezebel reader sadieclam responded:
In my anatomy class, we had a 40 minute discussion about who has it worse in puberty, boys or girls.
The immediate outcry was "GIRLS."
As the class majority, we began ticking off all the things that we have to go through (bringing us back briefly to the age old 'kicked-in-the-nuts' vs. 'period cramps' debate). One girl said, "We're given unrealistic expectations for our bodies."
To which a boy replied, "And we aren't?"
And he's perfectly right. Men are 'supposed' to be big and buff, at least traditionally. Skinny mannequins are a trend in-line with the waif-hipster boy look (notice the hep, ironic, Slingblade haircuts). So maybe "body-shame and lowered self confidence: Now for everyone. " was always for everyone, its just more okay to talk about it with women.
The same goes for eating disorders. For all the manorexia jokes and documentaries ("I'm A Boy Anorexic" from BBC is time worthy and touching), men have eating disorders, too. I could go off on a long tangent about how eating disorders doesn't just mean something that makes you skinnier, because compulsive eating is as much a disorder as bulimia, but that's not the point.
The point is as far as I can see, there is no mainstream dialogue about the rehabilitation of male body images.
This dissatisfaction affects boys too, and starts in their tween years. (That's nothing. For me, it started around six.)
Now, take that, Jezebel writers. Your ogling male soccer players is just as much of a double standard, albeit in a slightly different way, of straight men ogling female actresses and models.
This is more an expansion of what was said above, but I've been collecting issues of Men's Health for two years now, and it seems that the magazine glorifies one body type above all others. These are the slogans used on the covers to do so:
"LOSE YOUR GUT!" (Chris Pine, Mark Wahlberg, Gerard Butler, Lance Armstrong, Eric Bana, Matthew McConaughey, Jamie Foxx, & Carl Edwards covers)
"SIX-PACK ABS" (Jason Statham, Adrien Brody, Taylor Lautner, Derek Jeter, Aaron Eckhart, & David Wright covers)
"FLAT-BELLY" (Jason Bateman, Ewan McGregor, Cam Gigandet, Matthew Fox, John Krasinski, & Brady Quinn covers)
"IN SHAPE" (Josh Duhamel, Ryan Reynolds, David Beckham, Mike Vogel, James Marsden, Taylor Kitsch, Dane Cook, & Hugh Jackman covers)
"HARD ABS" (LeBron James & Josh Holloway covers)
"FIGHT FAT" (Eric Dane cover)
"ROCK SOLID" (Dwayne Johnson cover)
"LEAN AND SOLID" (Ben Roethlisberger cover)
It's pretty obvious what body type this magazine values above all others, and it operates under the guise that, each month, it's going to have something new to say. Tsk, tsk. I tell you, reading this magazine, I often feel worse about myself afterward.
. Yup, that's right; I kind of enjoyed it. See, director David Slade did what Catherine Hardwicke attempted and what Chris Weitz utterly failed to do - he made a film that was cinematographically superb, reasonably well-acted, delightfully tense and action-packed, and (surprisingly) multi-layered.
But because I hate Twilight, I will focus on the negatives first. First, here's a list of quotes concerning the Bella/Edward relationship that I disliked. With my commentary in italics.
BELLA. No, it's coercion.
[Who in the hell is this Bella, and how did a Mary-Sue get some sort of intelligence all of a sudden?]
[Listen to this woman. Don't marry just because you want sexings. Demand them upfront, or get out.]
BELLA. By lying to me?!
[Oh, PLEASE. You've been dead 109 years. YOU'LL WANT TO HAVE SEX BY NOW.]
And now some concerning the Bella/Jacob relationship:
BELLA. Don't be such a guy.
[Uh-huh.]
[Hmm. I seem to remember a similar slogan the U.S. government used in the '70's concerning the Native Americans. Oh, what was it…oh, right! "Better dead than pregnant." The U.S. promptly brutally sterilized thousands upon thousands of Native women, often without consent. Thank you, Jacob, for promoting such an ideal.]
[She is woman. Learn to hear her roar.]
[Oh, okay, just like YOU DIDN'T ASK HER PERMISSION BEFORE YOU MADE OUT WITH HER AND SHE THREW YOU OFF.]
[I'm glad to see that you consider the woman you love and whose daughter you'll imprint on to have such a strong will of her own.]
* * *
In a related vein, I reapplied the logic and information that kar3ning used in her brilliant post last year to the Twilight series, but particularly to Eclipse where possible:
You may be in an emotionally abusive relationship if your partner:
I think the constant "If you were smart, you'd stay away from me" from the first film applies here…
Well, he does break her truck to prevent her from going to the reservation to see Jacob.
Again, the truck-breaking thing.
Uh, yeah.
Or drive by herself, or go to school…
Mm-hmm.
"I won't have sex with you at all unless you marry me first."
Uh-huh.
You may be in a physically abusive relationship if your partner has ever:
Yeah, like her car. (Though this really does apply more to Jacob, with his wrench-throwing.)
As kar3ning said, "Does tossing her through a glass table count?"
Like in the middle of a forest?
See first film.
Again, see first film.
There was that time she woke up, covered in bruises.
You may be in a sexually abusive relationship if your partner:
No sex till marriage? Even though he admitted he's old-fashioned?
His name starts with a J and rhymes with Schmaycub.
Again, the no sex till marriage thing.
If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions you may be in an abusive relationship; please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) or your local domestic violence center to talk with someone about it.
* * *
Now, for the positives. Here's a brief list of the things that worked.
While we're talking about vampires, I recently realized one minor, irritating problem that permeates True Blood: no one ever uses a cell phone. Half the problems in season two of the show could have been solved in half the time if characters just talked to each other long-distance once in a while. Bill and Sookie could've stopped Maryann, Sookie could've learned where Jason had disappeared to, Tara could've gotten confirmation from Sookie before opening up Sookie's house, etc. It kind of seems like the writers have been stalling, and I don't like that much.
The original article: http://jezebel.com/5572097/why-shameless-objectification-can-be-a-good-thing
An excerpt:
When we drool over soccer players' bodies, are those of us who critique the objectification of women's bodies being hypocrites? No. And here's why.
Mostly, our #shamelessobjectification posts celebrating soccer players' bodies - the abdominals, the thighs, the man-love, the thighs - are being met in the spirit in which they are intended: a fun, randy way to participate (one of many) in the global collective experience that is the World Cup. But there have been some understandable concerns with which I've got to disagree. Here's the gist:
"If the World Cup featured women, and Gawker were to post Breast Moments as a way to laud legitimate feats of athleticism, we'd be pissed about the objectification. This is not any different."
Yeah, we'd be pissed about it. But it's not the same. Here's why:
1) Context matters.
2) These guys are healthy and at the peak of fitness.
3) At the World Cup and elsewhere, ogling knows no borders.
4) They're having fun doing what they love.
5) Women also like to look.
[…]
One reader wrote about watching a match at the gym: "The men routinely spend their time ogling (and yes I do mean ogling, they make no bones about it) women in the fitness magazines. However these same men were distinctly uncomfortable and put out that we women were cheering and enjoying the Greek footballers taking off their shirts. Double standards? I think so." I do too.
My response:
Objectification: degradation to the status of a mere object. The term doesn't fully apply here, at least not in what the Jezebel bloggers say about the soccer players in the World Cup. Their treatment of these male athletes is ultimately platonic.
What irks me is best expressed in this comment (courtesy of user P.G.O.A.T.):
My main issue is with argument number 2. Yes, these men are in their "prime" but it's not as if being super ripped equals being the best example of health. And men DO have body issues just like women. Men DO suffer from eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorders. I know some of them. What can we say about them in relation to us holding men that look a certain way up on a pedestal?
"And presumably no unhealthy starvation or surgical enhancements were involved." Really? Because male athletes do and eat crazy things to stay in shape, so I'm not so sure this is something we can so easily presume. A boy from my hometown died of a heart attack after running around in plastic bags trying to make weight for wrestling.
I want this user's genetic material to pass on to my offspring. She's absolutely right! I did a little research on Jezebel.com after reading this article, and found:
In my anatomy class, we had a 40 minute discussion about who has it worse in puberty, boys or girls.
The immediate outcry was "GIRLS."
As the class majority, we began ticking off all the things that we have to go through (bringing us back briefly to the age old 'kicked-in-the-nuts' vs. 'period cramps' debate). One girl said, "We're given unrealistic expectations for our bodies."
To which a boy replied, "And we aren't?"
And he's perfectly right. Men are 'supposed' to be big and buff, at least traditionally. Skinny mannequins are a trend in-line with the waif-hipster boy look (notice the hep, ironic, Slingblade haircuts). So maybe "body-shame and lowered self confidence: Now for everyone. " was always for everyone, its just more okay to talk about it with women.
The same goes for eating disorders. For all the manorexia jokes and documentaries ("I'm A Boy Anorexic" from BBC is time worthy and touching), men have eating disorders, too. I could go off on a long tangent about how eating disorders doesn't just mean something that makes you skinnier, because compulsive eating is as much a disorder as bulimia, but that's not the point.
The point is as far as I can see, there is no mainstream dialogue about the rehabilitation of male body images.
Now, take that, Jezebel writers. Your ogling male soccer players is just as much of a double standard, albeit in a slightly different way, of straight men ogling female actresses and models.
This is more an expansion of what was said above, but I've been collecting issues of Men's Health for two years now, and it seems that the magazine glorifies one body type above all others. These are the slogans used on the covers to do so:
It's pretty obvious what body type this magazine values above all others, and it operates under the guise that, each month, it's going to have something new to say. Tsk, tsk. I tell you, reading this magazine, I often feel worse about myself afterward.