As a feminist and a sex positive person I probably should DESPISE Twilight, but I don't. I read the book (and only the first one so far) because it takes place near here and I saw the movie because the previews made it look way better than the book . . . I felt compelled by curiosity, local interest, a desire to know more about a pop culture phenom, and because I TOTALLY WANTED TO.



The book? Meh. It was entertaining, mildly annoying from a local's perspective, and mind-boggling since I wouldn't have STOOD for so many pages of overt chastity when I was a tween reader myself in the eighties. A sign of the conservative times, I guess; I am DAMN glad I grew up with Judy Blume's Ralph-named penises and totally taboo rape scenes in Flowers in the Attic.

The movie? LOVED IT. I mean, I seriously fucking LOVED it. The previews drew me in because it looked dark and funny (there wasn't a trace of self-aware humor in the book, so that was an improvement already) and I wanted to see the flying scenes. It was just an all-around great movie-theater movie -- pretty, entertaining, moody . . . familiar.

Here's the deal about Twilight: no matter how loathsome it may be from a political point of view, that movie (and the book for other people) delivers exactly what a lot of young women crave and feel romantically. It's extremely exciting and beautiful and "sexy" in a vague, inexplicit, totally hysterically emotional way. Beautiful boy looks at beautiful girl and they are CONNECTED, locked together . . . anticipating . . . SOMETHING totally INTENSE!!!!

You can criticize that all you want, but when you do, you're trashing the (natural) fantasies of lots and lots of young woman. When I watched that movie I really didn't care what the implications were, I cared that it DELIVERED visions of something deeply desired by girls. After you finally kiss? Something very exciting happens, kind of like exploding into a flying spell into the sky!! Yeah, it's fucking stupid, but that overwrought anticipation of something that gobbles you up entirely and transcends the mundane is part of most young women's hormonal pre-teen/teenage experience. What's next isn't sex, it's MAGIC!!

I had orgasms and the anticipation of sex on the brain a lot as a young woman and I *probably* wouldn't have liked that movie as much then as I do now (my generation's Twilight was Legend, which I thought was a enchanting for two minutes then a total fucking bore except for when Tim Curry as the devilish dark beasty was going to do whatever dirty things he was going to do to Mia Sara), but I still had to celebrate it for being pure fore-fore-foreplay and girly fantasy with pretty menacing shadows.

In general I'm becoming less and less tolerant of myself and other people making fun of what women want or theorizing that the politically incorrect, unempowering things women want are *entirely* constructed for us artificially. There is nothing fake about girls wanting to fly around on the back of a strong beautiful sparkly vampire boy's back or to be a vampire and run-really-really-fast/fly themselves (I haven't read the rest of the books so I don't know if she eventually gets there or not, but clearly there are OTHER female characters who do).

I don't know why it should make people cringe that girls want to immerse themselves in the fantasy of being in tragic love with such a creature or that the public version of this particular popular story is g-rated (except for the violence, of course -- this IS America, after all). Personally? I watch a lot of porn but there were scenes in this movie that were five billion times more agonizingly erotic than anything XXX rated ever could hope to be. It was a brilliant fucking tease, and there's nothing hotter than having no release. I don't give a fuck about the stammering heroine and her shortcomings; she's a blank slate and nobody else cares much about her either because it's a fucking FANTASY. Do girls really need a fucking role model in every single fantasy they have or are they entitled to be thrilled and entertained and suspend contact with reality just like everyone else? I also *almost* don't care about the scariness of fantasizing about a creepy stalker boyfriend who sneaks into your room at night and stares at you while you sleep; yes, it's totally gross and weird and dangerous. But a lot of us have had that same exact unrealistic fantasy and it made us feel good (in more ways than one). That? It's human nature. And I'm sick of women being shamed and cautioned into censoring their own fantasies because we're apparently too stupid to distinguish between fantasy and reality. IT'S A STORY ABOUT VAMPIRES. Can we tell reality and consequences to fuck off for a little while?

If anyone wants to post relevant links like feminist critiques of Twilight, etc. feel free. I honestly have clicked off of just about all of them without giving them the time they probably deserve simply because I'm not in the mood for dissecting it, but I totally understand if other people are (and that my "arguments" are ill-informed and based totally on suspicions and raw emotion). One of the good ones I clicked off of made interesting observations regarding the popularity of abstinence-only sex "education" and Twilight. I don't know why I'm just not in the mood to care a whole lot this time around (I was certainly pissed enough about The Girl with a Pearl Earring that I almost walked out of the theatre) unless it's as I said above; that girls deserve to have their desires spoken to and to enjoy their daydreamy fantasies regardless of how unrealistic and bizarre and dangerous they might be. So yeah -- *I'm* not very interested in getting into a discussion about it in comments, but I totally understand why others might be so more info and other people's perspectives and discussions are still welcome.

Labels: books, gender issues, movies, Pacific Northwest, pop culture

posted by Trixie at 3/07/2009 08:35:00 PM -