Vampires: I think I'm over it.
When I was younger, vampires were scary as fuck. From pre-Biblical Lilith to Nosferatu to Dracula (the big bad daddy of all vampires)... vampires were romantic, perhaps, but chill-inducing. I went through my "Vampires are Awesome" stage just like everyone else I know, right around the end of High School. I wore black lipstick and a lot of crushed velvet, and I read Anne Rice.
Underworld and From Dusk 'til Dawn, Buffy Summers and Blade, all of these have a hint of the terrifying hiding behind the humor. Sharp teeth and blood behind that gorgeous smile.
And then came Twilight.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love vampire movies. I love them when they're good and I love them when they're great... I even love them when they're awful.
Case in point: I saw Van Helsing in the theatre. Twice.
But Twilight, you guys, Twilight makes me want to cry. And not in the "Oh, poor Bella and Edward, why don't they ever just get it together, they're soooooo meant to beeeeeee..." crying. Like, it makes me weep for children in this generation who will grow up thinking that THIS is what a vampire movie is supposed to be. It makes me weep for the genre in general, that this is what one of our best monsters has been reduced to. The pasty emo fantasy of a bedheaded high school virgin. Twilight, y'all, makes me a little homicidal.
Here are my reasons:
1. A 100+ year old man shouldn't have anything to say to a 16 year old girl. Nobody who had been roaming around the earth for that long, who had any sense in his head, would want to have a conversation with, let alone fall in love with, a 16 year old girl in the United States in this generation. Have you tried to carry on a conversation with an ACTUAL 16 year old girl in the last 30 years? No! And you know why not? They are shrill and giggly and full of celebrity gossip and horrible grammar and eating disorders. Fuck that noise.
2. The reason that vampires don't go in the sun is not because it will kill them, or even hurt them, but because they SPARKLE??!!! Ok, seriously, let me just take a moment, once again, to grieve the mythos. The idea that the sun doesn't hurt vampires, that it simply makes them prettier, is like shitting all over anyone who has ever written, acted in, or loved the idea of vampires.
This is how I felt when they remade Dawn of the Dead back in 2004, and suddenly zombies could run. Fucking zombies aren't supposed to fucking run! The whole point of zombies, the legend and the story and whatnot of fucking zombies, is that they are dead and slow and stupid. What makes them scary as fuck, what has always made them scary as fuck, is not that they can outrun you, but that they are epidemic. It doesn't matter how fast you run, it doesn't matter where you hide, eventually, everyone will be a zombie. Even if you are the last man standing, you're still gonna die. That's fucking terrifying.
No matter the monster, I am a fucking purist. The first time I saw From Dusk Til Dawn, I had to stop it halfway through and go sit outside and tear apart all the bullshit that made it (while brilliant) a shitty vampire movie, because Tarantino basically made a zombie/vampire hybrid monster with some other shit thrown in just to be crazy. And not that Salma Hayek wasn't incredibly damn hot in that movie...
...but that wasn't exactly the point, now, was it?
So when Stephanie Meyer wrote her stupid books that they turned into stupid movies, about vampires who fucking sparkle in the fucking sunlight, it killed a little piece of my soul.
I imagine Stephanie Meyer (the author of these atrocities masquerading as literature/movies) as a middle school girl writing in her journal: "I love boys. Oh, and sparkly things. Oooooh, what if BOYS WERE SPARKLY?!" And, scene.
Fuck you, Stephanie Meyer, and the sparkly horse you rode in on.
This is the kind of crap that makes me want to claw the eyes out of every last one of her readers.
So...
Last night, after several years of deliberation and hemming and hawing, I finally started watching True Blood. I watched 6 episodes in one night, which is not unusual for me. I go through whole seasons of television shows in a day or two, and entire series' in as little as a week. I know that the critics have raved up and down about this show, and everyone I know thinks it's brilliant, but I can't help feeling like I'm watching a slightly more elegant version of Twilight.
It has some of the same plot points that disturb me about Twilight: again with a 100+ year old man falling in love with a girl who, to him, is the intellectual equivalent of a preschooler. And yes, in this case, she's 25, not 16, but a peppy virgin who still lives with her grandmother (until she is killed, of course) is not a vast improvement on her brooding Twilight counterpart.
We'll see where this goes. The subplots are at least intriguing enough to keep me watching for the rest of Season 1, and it's cult status among the LGBT community are enough to keep me around for a little while. Also, Anna Paquin is far and away a better actress than Kristin Stewart.
Not to mention easier on the eyes.
So for now, I'll keep watching this pretty little blonde and her weird friends mess around with vampires in beautiful Louisiana bayous.
At the very least, I can take comfort knowing her boyfriend will never shine in the fucking sun like a recently bedazzled iPhone.
Underworld and From Dusk 'til Dawn, Buffy Summers and Blade, all of these have a hint of the terrifying hiding behind the humor. Sharp teeth and blood behind that gorgeous smile.
And then came Twilight.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love vampire movies. I love them when they're good and I love them when they're great... I even love them when they're awful.
Case in point: I saw Van Helsing in the theatre. Twice.
But Twilight, you guys, Twilight makes me want to cry. And not in the "Oh, poor Bella and Edward, why don't they ever just get it together, they're soooooo meant to beeeeeee..." crying. Like, it makes me weep for children in this generation who will grow up thinking that THIS is what a vampire movie is supposed to be. It makes me weep for the genre in general, that this is what one of our best monsters has been reduced to. The pasty emo fantasy of a bedheaded high school virgin. Twilight, y'all, makes me a little homicidal.
Here are my reasons:
1. A 100+ year old man shouldn't have anything to say to a 16 year old girl. Nobody who had been roaming around the earth for that long, who had any sense in his head, would want to have a conversation with, let alone fall in love with, a 16 year old girl in the United States in this generation. Have you tried to carry on a conversation with an ACTUAL 16 year old girl in the last 30 years? No! And you know why not? They are shrill and giggly and full of celebrity gossip and horrible grammar and eating disorders. Fuck that noise.
2. The reason that vampires don't go in the sun is not because it will kill them, or even hurt them, but because they SPARKLE??!!! Ok, seriously, let me just take a moment, once again, to grieve the mythos. The idea that the sun doesn't hurt vampires, that it simply makes them prettier, is like shitting all over anyone who has ever written, acted in, or loved the idea of vampires.
This is how I felt when they remade Dawn of the Dead back in 2004, and suddenly zombies could run. Fucking zombies aren't supposed to fucking run! The whole point of zombies, the legend and the story and whatnot of fucking zombies, is that they are dead and slow and stupid. What makes them scary as fuck, what has always made them scary as fuck, is not that they can outrun you, but that they are epidemic. It doesn't matter how fast you run, it doesn't matter where you hide, eventually, everyone will be a zombie. Even if you are the last man standing, you're still gonna die. That's fucking terrifying.
No matter the monster, I am a fucking purist. The first time I saw From Dusk Til Dawn, I had to stop it halfway through and go sit outside and tear apart all the bullshit that made it (while brilliant) a shitty vampire movie, because Tarantino basically made a zombie/vampire hybrid monster with some other shit thrown in just to be crazy. And not that Salma Hayek wasn't incredibly damn hot in that movie...
...but that wasn't exactly the point, now, was it?
So when Stephanie Meyer wrote her stupid books that they turned into stupid movies, about vampires who fucking sparkle in the fucking sunlight, it killed a little piece of my soul.
I imagine Stephanie Meyer (the author of these atrocities masquerading as literature/movies) as a middle school girl writing in her journal: "I love boys. Oh, and sparkly things. Oooooh, what if BOYS WERE SPARKLY?!" And, scene.
Fuck you, Stephanie Meyer, and the sparkly horse you rode in on.
This is the kind of crap that makes me want to claw the eyes out of every last one of her readers.
So...
Last night, after several years of deliberation and hemming and hawing, I finally started watching True Blood. I watched 6 episodes in one night, which is not unusual for me. I go through whole seasons of television shows in a day or two, and entire series' in as little as a week. I know that the critics have raved up and down about this show, and everyone I know thinks it's brilliant, but I can't help feeling like I'm watching a slightly more elegant version of Twilight.
It has some of the same plot points that disturb me about Twilight: again with a 100+ year old man falling in love with a girl who, to him, is the intellectual equivalent of a preschooler. And yes, in this case, she's 25, not 16, but a peppy virgin who still lives with her grandmother (until she is killed, of course) is not a vast improvement on her brooding Twilight counterpart.
We'll see where this goes. The subplots are at least intriguing enough to keep me watching for the rest of Season 1, and it's cult status among the LGBT community are enough to keep me around for a little while. Also, Anna Paquin is far and away a better actress than Kristin Stewart.
Not to mention easier on the eyes.
So for now, I'll keep watching this pretty little blonde and her weird friends mess around with vampires in beautiful Louisiana bayous.
At the very least, I can take comfort knowing her boyfriend will never shine in the fucking sun like a recently bedazzled iPhone.