My Apologies to the Twihards in my Life

[wlotus]

I've just discovered a reason to never, ever watch or read any of the Twilight stuff. My sister-in-law, a Twihard to the core, just informed me that in the Twilight series, vampires do not melt and die in sunlight. Instead, they sparkle.

Vampires that sparkle? Really? The author rewrote generations of vampire lore to make her overly-emo vampires sparkle???? Besides the glut of emo-ness--I was subjected to bits and pieces of the second movie when T brought home a bootleg copy sometime last year and played it while I was in the room ignoring it for all I was worth--how on earth am I supposed to take a sparkly vampire seriously?!? There are no words for how appalled I am.

Comments

[tapati.livejournal.com]

Haha, I get it. But they do manage to make the vampires that do snack on humans pretty scary.

I wouldn't say sparkle, but rather in the book they gleam like diamonds, an almost blinding kind of thing.

The reason I am lukewarm about the series is the ridiculous codependency of Bella and Edward. But the vampire and werewolf mythology is interesting.

[deborahloi.livejournal.com]

I must agree. I've been avoiding Twilight because like any self respecting grownup, I loathe all things emo and teenagey. No I have a truly legitimate reason to hate it. Sparkly vampiers, indeed!

Sentences I Never Thought I'd Write

[sandokai.livejournal.com]

What does that even mean? Do they actually glitter when they're emo???

[musesing.livejournal.com]

I suppose since I haven't actually read or seen any of them I shouldn't judge but that does sound pretty ridiculous!

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

can't stand what I've seen/heard of these vampires, either

[lilrongal.livejournal.com]

LMFAO!!

I read and enjoyed Twilight, and I like the movies, but for the "guilty-pleasure" they are. No way do I take them seriously. It's like McDonald's for my mind.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I usually avoid anything the masses are enthused about, though sometimes I get pleasantly surprised. The Harry Potter books were a pleasant surprise; though I couldn't get into the movies much, I liked the books a LOT and bought all of them. (I will admit, though, that I was inspired to read them only after they were vehemently renounced by many members of the evangelical Christian church I used to attend. I have more than a little of the rebel in me.) So I held my nose and tried to give the Twilight movie a fair chance when T brought it home. Ugh...I couldn't make it past the first five minutes before the snark started pouring out of me like a river.

Re: Sentences I Never Thought I'd Write

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

They "shine like diamonds" when the sunlight hits their skin.

In contrast, vampire lore over the ages has them melting in agony when the sunlight hits their skin.

The author of the books and the screenwriters made the characters emo. Their personalities switch between being utterly flat and being emotional over little or nothing. It's maddening.

I like that!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

McDonalds from time to time can be quite yummy. :-)

[purlypuss.livejournal.com]

The Sparklevamp! I love the movies because I love emo fantasies (but the books were too horribly written to read: I got angry that such drivel got published when I know struggling authors with actual skillz and talent).

The thing is, after watching the two Sparklevamp movies, I have found that vampires for me are ruined forever. They're advertising a bunch of much more bloody series about predatory vampires (one of them written or based on a Stephen King book? or something?) on Korean tv, and it's just... not scary to me. At all. It's just completely transplanted the horror and fear (and thus the thrill, I suppose) of vampires altogether.

[greenminions.livejournal.com]

for some reason the thought of watching a bootleg copy of that movie makes me giggle.

[verucas-chaos.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! My friend hopas_haunt (you'd like her) hates the sparkly vampire stuff.

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

Oy. I may have said it before, but I still can't figure out how Edward has been going to high school for what, 100 years and he STILL hasn't passed Algebra III/Trig?

Homeboy ain't the sparkliest crayon in the box, that's all I'm sayin'

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

It's worse than that. The books are appallingly regressive and patriarchal.

[acoustics1220.livejournal.com]

I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE FOR STATING THIS OBVIOUS FACT. And goodness, how such tripe got to be so popular? It's CRACK. Not even good crack, but bAd cRaCk. :(

I listened to maybe a 1/4th of the first book on audiotape and had to turn it off because it made me cringe and laugh at it's cheesiness and awful writing.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

You're hurting me.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!!!!!!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I tried to give the movie a chance, but I just couldn't handle the bad acting. Maybe some other time.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL!!! So dumb!
I say these kids should watch Nosferatu (the original vampire flick)if they really want to see some glamourous vampire action!
Mimi

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

Because I try to read stuff my bandar log read, I gave Twiight the ol' college try. I really did. I think I got about a chapter and a half in before mumbling, "blerp-blech," and going to wash my hands.

I actually have a real concern about the "Twilight" series, which comes from smplmn. He *has* read the books, all four of them, and he says that Edward's actions toward Bella are the kind of emotional manipulation you might see from an abuser. He's not best pleased with Jacob, either, but he actually sat down with Middlest and explained what Edward was doing and why it wasn't romantic but problematic.

That's actually my real objection to a lot of romances. They're mind-candy, and I don't expect great literature, but an awful lot of very dysfunctional behavior, including rape, gets normalized with the "romantic" tag , when it should get the "run the other way" tag.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I'm glad he was able to explain to Middlest why and how Edward's behavior is problematic.

I used to read a lot of romances, and my romantic fantasies were based on what I read. When I actively put myself back on the dating scene a couple of years ago I realized that a lot of what I was fantasizing about would NOT work in an adult relationship...not because it was naive, but because it was manipulative or it required me to act like an adult-sized infant. Young people are growing up seeing these things in movies and in books and hearing them in songs, and they internalize those messages as "normal". More adults need to question it and point out to the young people in our lives why it is problematic.