"twatlight"

So it is an ungodly breed of hot day here in the Phil. It is so gross. I made the mistake of wearing my gorge new jeans to work, only to emerge from air conditioning into a sauna of sweat and horror. I then had to walk home, which isn't a big deal since I live right nearby, but even those few minutes were interminable, since it felt like I was crawling through lava. It sucked. So I'm not tryna leave my house any more today except to get takeout from Sahara Grill (their chicken shish taouk platter is godly), and what do I do when I'm in my house? Cruise the interwebs like a fucking loser.

However, I read this fucked up article today about how Twilight is ruining marriages and taking over the minds of suburban housewives, and then my friend Amanda posted this awesome Entertainment Weekly article through ONTD about HP being better than Twilight (which, well, DUH). But this all got me thinking about Twilight again, which sadly, is something that I actually think about from time to time. But not in a creepy fucking "I wish I had an Edward of my own to emotionally abuse me" sort of way.


also, this.

I'll put this out there: I read all four books. Sometimes I'll pick one up for mindless reading and then promptly put it down again when I realize I could literally just read Courtney Love's Twitter feed and get more value from it. I even bought Breaking Dawn when it came out after reading books one through three. When I tell people Twilight makes me want to kick babies, but that I read all the books, I get the same reaction: "Then why did you read the books? Don't you secretly like it or something, you fucking weirdo?" No. The answer is no, jerk.

I finished the series for two reasons. First, I finish things that I start. Unless I really hate it or can't get into it at all, I finish books, because I have a compulsive need to see where the story goes. One notable exception is I did not finish "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk (and do not even get me STARTED on Palahniuk. I hate that fucker. If I have to sit through another creative writing class and listen to every overpierced, green-haired, Pittsburgh-poseur hipster say that their favorite author is Palahniuk because he is "so transcendent" I will kill myself. "Fight Club" was good, but he mostly writes the same thing a million times. End rant).

Even though I suspected five pages into the first book that I would probably hate Twilight, I was, I have to admit, a little bit curious. Though I much would have preferred her to take a creepy predator-prey angle with Edward and Bella rather than OMGZOURLUVISSOTRU, once I made it into New Moon (my favorite installment since it hardly has any Edward in it), I got a little more interested in Jacob and the wolves, who seemed decent. Too bad Meyer took that interest, turned Jacob into a total dick in Eclipse, and then pooped out a turd, smeared it on some paper, and called it Breaking Dawn.

BREAKING DAWN WAS A DISASTER. Almost everyone knows this (except maybe her). It includes a vampire Caesarian, as Cleolinda might put it (I am, like her, an LOLfan who is fascinated by the shittiness of Twilight, and I love her recaps), pedophilia, pro-lifeism, yadda-yadda-yaddaing over the hot messy vampire sex that I waited for for THREE BOOKS (thankfully I later got into True Blood which has all the vampire monkey sex I could ever ask for), pillow-biting, an 18 year old newly-wed pregnant girl drinking a blood Slurpee, a huge leadup to an awesome vampire battle THAT NEVER HAPPENED because everyone sat down and talked about their feelings instead, and a creepy fast-growing vampire baby named Renesmee. That book fucking blew.

I wrote a paper on Twilight for an English class, actually - we had to write one paper as a bad critic and one as a good critic, and my bad critic loved Twilight and my good one was wise to the fact that it's about a messed up abusive relationship between a controlling 100-year old virgin and a complete doormat. But I really need to know - why do people flock to these books like fucking crazy?! Why does anyone in their right mind think this is a phenom to rival the greatness that is Harry Potter? And why have poor Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson not assumed new identities, grabbed some fake mustaches, and absconded to Iceland to avoid filming the last installments of those shit-tastic movies?

In my opinion, Twilight's popularity has a lot to do with what some would call "the erotics of abstinence." Though I fail to see what eroticism can be found in abstinence, which is based on the same "just say no" mentality peddled by DARE (because sex and drugs are, as we all know, the same thing, and are both gateways to an early death and a descent into hell), people have proposed that Bella and Edward laying in a meadow staring at each other for approximately 6 hours and NOT having sex is, somehow, sexy. And, to be fair, I do think that the "safeness" of Edward, since he actively pressures Bella into NOT consummating their relationship, appeals to a lot of girls of the younger set, who, to some extent, fear sex. It's the Twilight Moms that I understand less, but for older women, I guess it's just pure escapism. Bella is, after all, a widely acknowledged wish-fulfillment character, an empty shell who welcomes readers to step right into her shoes.

Twilight is just another manifestation of our need for girls to stay pure, and our need for safe relationships, "dream guys" (whether or not they're abusive), and wish-fulfillment fantasies. I think people who are thinking about reading Twilight should just save some time and frustration and go buy some Harry Potter books. Because instead of sparkling like pussies and getting everything they want with no caveats, like the Twilight characters, Harry and his friends have badass wands, lose their friends and family, make sacrifices, wage war, fight, and win through sheer force of will and love. Leave Twilight to the angsty 12-year-old girls who have never had a real relationship, please. They'll learn one day that having a guy watch you sleep is not a sign of a healthy bond..... I hope.