'Bout time somebody took the piss out of the whole Twilight fad...

Buffy vs. Twilight

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fdIXGgdnw&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

books and movies about vampires with no sex and violence are just bad art in my book. I find the twilight saga fascinating - sort of - as it's a mass cultural phenomenon that emerged from a set of novels written primarily for pre-teen/teen girls. As has been reported by some press the books get weirder and weirder as they go on. The forth book has Edward performing an emergency c-section on whatever her name is with his TEETH and the wolf-boy falling in love and imprinting on Bella and Edwards baby who has the mind of the adult out of the womb. So mormon child brides live on in author Stepanie Meyer's teen romances.

Still to be fair the was a quite a bit of overwrought sexual frustration built into buffy and angel's relationship on the early seasons. Traditionally horror films seem to recede in popularity when dems are in power. Twilight shows no sign of losing steam as the 3rd films - they are breaking it into two movies are now in production. Me I happy Inglorious Basterds came out on DVD today so I can what hot chicks, rednecks and bear jews form a united front and kick some nazi ass.

MIke a agree and was only being half serious. The mythology of vampirism and female sexuality is a powerful one going back to Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Stokers Dracula. I am first and foremost a huge fan of horror and particular of vampire fiction. Joss Whedon really broke new ground with Buffy the Vampire Slayer within the genre and for popular feminism. Whereas I think there is much in common between Meyer's recent novels and Rice's work a decade ago not the least of which is Rice is now a born again and Meyer is a devote Mormon. That Meyer is a terrible terrible writer who has written a "lord of the rings" 4 book epic that paints a one dimensional anti-erotic fantasy world depresses me. There is still very good work being done within the genre. Last years Let the Right One In is extraordinary novel by Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist and film as was this years genre bending director of Oldboy Chan-wook's Thirst. I do think the Twilight saga has introduced a whole new generation and to a certain extent gender to fantasy fiction nerdom. Twilight is the first time girls as a group are going nuts for a genre film and creating a whole, for lack of a better term, movement around it. This is this generation of girl's star wars. I am very curious where things go next.

It's interesting, I have still only seen the first, but the "emergency c-section" that Saoirse alluded to up above is actually part of a larger polemic against abortion. From what I have heard, that book centers around Edward impregnating Bella, and Bella refusing to have an abortion even though it will kill her to give birth to a vampire, she insists on "bearing his child."

The entire series smacks of the oppressive, and sexist culture of the Mormon ideology of Twilight's shitty, inarticulate writer.

**SPOILERS** Eric you are correct, Bella goes from never mentioning having a desire to have kids to becoming an over protective mother w.o any explanation or character development will to die for her kid. That she's marrying a vamp and the entire logic of the series is for her to b/c a vamp too is another overwrought plot point that comes and goes. This conflict like all others in twilight has a tv commercial attention span. once Edward's eat her placenta and Bella becomes a vamp everything falls into place and its a happy ending for all involved.

i too am guilty of analyzing the twilight saga w/o reading all of the books and seeing the films. This is something I truly hate when critics of culture do but here I am doing the same.

I am torn btwn discussion these bad films with bad politics and not move onto the "event" film of the year Avatar another bad movie with its John Walker Linden in Space/nobel savages plot that looks entertainingly bad. End the end of the day I don't Twilight's legacy will be its terrible plotting and stupid twist on vampires, instead it will be looked on fondly as a boy band or a harlequin romance completely disposable.

Avatar... you mentioned it. Can wait to dip into that one! Won't comment (again... "no investigation...") yet. But must say, the expectation is high at my house.

If this phenomenon has triggered something so powerful in female teens, perhaps a less dismal way of viewing it (and by extension, them) is that the romantic figure of the jealous, controlling, physically powerful protector is something inspired by the transitional pubescent female sexual imagination from the father to adult sexuality. This might explain the obsession with chastity at the start. Also, might what you perceive as an absence of character in her be viewed as a malleable, everygirl quality that appeals to an audience who feel that they themselves are in a transitional state of selfhood and personal identity. Something like that?

Saoirse:

"hot chicks"?

Are you serious about that or you only "half-serious"?

Chicks, as in baby chickens?, as in that comment sounds like the sexist jocks on frat row getting ready for the big game.

Would we joke around if the discourse involved derogatory racial overtones? What's the difference?

palante, Kyle.

Hi Kyle, That's a legit question and I stepped over a line on this board. that is inappropriate and wrong. Tarantino film operate on a level of exploitation genre arc types. I would go to town arguing that Shosanna Dreyfus is QT's most fully realized real female hero but she's still a survivor girl in a film of cartoon villians and heros (that again happen to be richly drawn). In my post I was implicitly giving a the nod to this. Two that is really how I talk and in the queer/feminist community I have spent much of my political and social life in talking about women, sex, sexism doesn't mean you don't stop talking about sex and sexuality. Twilight's all about gender roles and sexual relationships as are all vampire fiction. But that's context and I still knew I was being provocative on Kasama and unnecessarily so.

Saoirse:

Ok, I hear you. Thanks for explaining it.

Also, its great to hear you are family or at least an ally (?). One of the reasons why I broke with the old guard, that thing called the RCP, was because it was suffocating me. Their queer line was killing me.

Not any more (I actually left a while a go).

cheers, Kyle.

As if the price tag of major cinemas wasn't enough reason not to go see this, the Score Card above puts the nail in the coffin for me.

Oops...