Stumbled onto Twilight as an adult

 

I have teased this post a bunch. This was meant to be posted a few weeks ago, but reality got in the way, crappy super hero movies got in the way, it was just not possible. I want to make it clear from the get go; I do not propose that as an adolescent one is unable to understand that the Twilight saga is as ridiculous as they come. A toddler would most likely object to shimmery vampires and oversized furry werewolfies. But there are some things I either do not remember, or had not realised. These are not just hilariously bad movies, they promote incredibly sexist and, ultimately, dangerous views to a very susceptible group of people, teenagers. I am definitely not equipped to discuss this to a deep and meaningful extent, but I can enjoy myself by pointing out details I wished I had picked up on at a younger age. Then again, as I have already established, there is a good chance I had, but do not regard this of myself. I was probably too busy pointing out how much better the Harry Potter saga was. Which, in retrospect, hardly needed advocating.

I will shamefully admit to having voluntary read three out of the four books and having watched (and now, rewatched for the purposes of this blog) four out of five movies. Therefore, in the odd chance that the fourth book and fifth movie are masterpieces, I apologise for all the rage that will follow in this post. However, I have a hunch that I can safely bet on my comments extending to the whole saga. Let me be the first to say it on this blog; the movies are better than the books. And that says a lot. Because the movies are terrible. I cannot forget reading the phrase ‘Looking at him, she forgot how to breathe’, which only worked the one way because the other guy was a vampire and, I assume, didn’t need to breathe. I mean, it is a nice sentiment; I can tell the author felt very proud that she came up with this larger-than-life declaration of love and infatuation. And I can tell because she included it every three pages. I am not exaggerating enough. Bella forgot how to breathe so frequently, that I still worry she had some sort of neurological lesion in her medulla. Most book adaptations leave the fans upset because they compromise character moments for the sake of plot. That is why Ron Weasley ended up being a punchline in the movies and Lupin became nothing more than an extra for the Marauder’s Guild. In this case, however, this is the main reason I have the audacity to claim that the movies are better than the books. They didn’t sacrifice any literate character development from the original text; there wasn’t any! Just a few worrisome respiratory malfunctions. Granted the movies do not compliment the books, as was the case in the Lord of the rings franchise. It might seem that I am trying hard to lose my few, sporadic readers, but even hard-core fans should be able to admit that while Tolkien was a master world builder, character development was not his strong suit. But then, a talented cast and director filled that void for the big screen. The Twilight crew focused on abs and gloomy aesthetics instead.

Now that I have gotten all of that out of my chest, let me get back to my main, newly found concern for this franchise. Actually let me back up and attempt to defend the inclusion of my previous paragraph. I think it is important to comment on the books to explain my focus on this sexist depiction of a love story. Because, I agree, it is hilarious to have actors change into CGI wolves to have a mental conversation, when they could have easily verbalised it out as humans. And, I assume, a lot more costly. But this is not what this post is about. Nor is the acting, not even the plot. Not the fact that the plot frequently moves forward with the power of Google; so long espionage and action films, we can watch actors Google stuff now. You know what? Not even the fact that an adult main character ‘imprints’ on a baby and essentially awaits her adulthood for some sexy time. Sexism is what is up for discussion. Raw, conservative sexism disguised as love and respect.

It was very clear to me as an adolescent that Bella was not a strong female character. Some, as in I, would argue that she didn’t even have a character. This is not just because the writing was bad, I mean it definitely was, but the author has said that her goal was to make her main, female character a white canvas so that every girl could relate to her. She has tooted her own horn by saying she made Kristen Stewart wear brown contact lenses to look more common. Because nothing is more determinant to a character than eye colour. And because that is as far as a little girl’s ability to relate goes; eye colour. This was a sci-fi franchise with a female lead, and all it was, essentially, was a love story and said lead had no interests, passions or idiosyncrasies other than a boy. That is what the author deemed relatable. And rest assured you can relate to all girls at once by just redacting characteristics because all girls are the same, seeing that they are girls. No need for studious Hermione, feisty Ginny, quirky Luna; just have Bella and have everyone love and admire her for no apparent reason. If you think about it, the only reason Bella is a main character is, I think her blood? I know there is a special thing about its smell that makes her irresistible to Edward and his vampire powers do not apply to her. And then for some reason she is the most important person that all must protect and serve. And she is absolutely fine with it; there is literally a scene where she is picked up like a baby and carried atop a mountain by a topless Jacob so her scent can be disguised. Twice. Fuck self-sacrifice, that girl doesn’t even do her own walking.

I think this was something I had picked up on as a teenager. This next bit, I am ashamed to say, I think I had not. The depicted relationship is so toxic that the movie’s age rating worries me. And this is where I will make an assumption, one that I stand by, that the middle aged woman who fantasized about a teenage vampire sweeping her off her feet is a conservative, misogynistic author.

The second book/movie begins with some accident that endangers Bella’s life, sending her vampire suitor into a spiral of guilt and motivating him to leave the town in order to protect her. Bella spends the rest of the movie missing him and seeking adrenaline rushes, which cause visions of her ex-boyfriend. Let’s ignore her insignificant life without a boyfriend and fast forward to the end of the movie, where Edward says he left and tried to kill himself because Bella didn’t put up enough of a fight for him to stay. That is the epitome of emotional manipulation! According to Edward, Bella needs to assert her love for him even more than risking lung failure every three pages by pretty-pleasing him not to leave her. After all, what is love if not imposing your decision to commit suicide onto another person?

Let’s move along to the movie number three. This is where American conservativism really come into play. Abstinence. Bella is pretty-pleasing Edward, this time, to have sex with her, seeing that she is a hormonal 18 year and not a baby he imprinted on, and Edward refuses until she marries him. Because he is romantic, and old-fashioned and respectful. Because sex before marriage is disrespectful to a woman. Edward has had sex before and is not married, but he cannot impose that shame on pure Bella. I will counter-argue that Edward had a tiny pickle and wanted to make sure she would stay with him regardless. Granted, she wants to become a vampire and live with him forever; marriage hardly sounds like a significant commitment when divorces are an option and death is not. But this is still a forced wedding; she doesn’t want to marry that young and he makes marriage the clause to giving her what she wants; eternal life and an orgasm. An eternal orgasm, if you will.

Let’s finish up with movie number four. Unfortunately, I have yet to see the fifth one, I hope it wouldn’t have given me anything to add to this because I don’t think I could take it. This is where the franchise does not hold back. It has made a conscious decision to promote violence within a couple and the high-point of emotional manipulation. Bella has agreed to marry Edward and is still begging him to have sex with her as a human, in a very PG manner, almost intentionally leaving space in the pop-culture space-time continuum for an S&M spinoff to occur in a couple of years. Edward refuses, as his super-hard, super-intense vampire sex might be too much for her. Talk about a sex-deprived author. Eventually he gives in, and the next scene is Bella waking up in bruises and the honeymoon suite in ruin. And no, this is not the S&M spinoff I was referring to; these conservative-friendly characters are not into S&M at all. Edward just can’t help himself beating up his partner during sex. He is heart-broken and Bella has to comfort him. The focus of the narrative is poor Edward that has to live with himself for beating up his wife, because of his unfortunate nature. These are literal, visual scenes in a movie primarily targeted to teenagers. Bella is chasing him around the room trying to make him feel better, assuring him that she doesn’t mind (once again, not specifically enjoys) the beating she has to endure for a bit of downstairs action. She will put up with sexual violence because she loves him and he loves her and she understands that he can’t control himself. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I think ’50 Shades of Grey’ actually fixed Twilight. It took this clearly demented aspect of their relationship and made it a conscious, kinky adventure. I’ll take it; that is actually much, much better!

This is hilarious to watch but scary to think about. Since the very first movie Bella’s boyfriend disregards her boundaries, ignores her wants and imposes his own clauses, all because he loves her, knows better and wishes to protect her. If this is not the sexist agenda that was employed to restrict and control women years before these books were written, I don’t know what is. And the given excuse is that Edward is a hundred-year-old vampire. As if that is not creepy enough as it is. The only character I like in this saga of misinstruction to young girls, possibly beginning their romantic lives is Bella’s dad. He is made into a bit of a joke, but is the only one with half-decent reactions; he even tries to give Bella a sex-talk and talk her out of a premature wedding.

I am well-aware how outdated this post is and how it might seem that I got unnecessarily frustrated with these movies, but I remember how much of a phenomenon they were. I remember that a lot of these details were foregone in the name of romance and how a lot of us were either ‘Team Jacob’ or ‘Team Edward’. I haven’t discussed Jacob as much but he was equally controlling, manipulative and toxic. Even if a tiny bit of that sexism becomes normalised to young, suggestible minds, I think that is problematic. That is what pissed me off. And now, I can sufficiently justify spending over six hours watching these movies below my age-range as ‘research’. Research and my love for cringe-worthiness.

Stumbled onto another DC hit and miss

 

My Twilight post is never going to happen, is it? At this rate, I am probably going to post it when Edward Cullen betrays his vampire friends for the Bat team. Waiting for the post to be somewhat relevant is actually not a bad idea. I won’t do it, but I feel satisfied with my notice of such an opportunity. The last reason for postponing my Twilight post was current events, Greek and American insults to democracy. This time round it was, once again, DC. A strictly American insult to its viewers. Wonder Woman 1984 was released on HBO+ because of the pandemic, making it a whole lot easier for us who were not willing to risk a ticket expense for another DC movie to watch it illegally. It is the one good thing Covid has done for me. Because rest assured I would have been very upset to have spent money for this movie.

I don’t even know if it’s worth spending that much time describing what a disappointment Wonder Woman 1984 was. It was definitely more worth singing all of Hamilton with my friends while watching it (New Year resolutions not going so well). George Orwell worked hard to make that year a landmark and DC worked even harder to ruin it. First of all, it is yet another prequel which doesn’t really clear up the ‘current’ story; ‘current’ being the events of Batman v Superman and Justice League. We still get no justification as to why Wonder Woman is not famous after WW1, or during the whole Doomsday situation. Also, we have all gone along with the ridiculous reasoning behind Superman’s secret identity, achieved with a pair of glasses, but they are not even making that minimal effort for Diana Prince. I guess the shiny ensemble is too distracting and no one looks at her face. And these two comments are the least annoying plot holes in the script.

Scratch that, there was no plot. There were a bunch of introductory sequences and a whole lot of 80s nostalgia, surely triggered by the success of Stanger Things when the script was first written all those years ago. There is not plot to discuss, it was pure idiocy; the resolution was once again corny and ridiculous and further proof that Zack Snyder is working through some childhood trauma and instructed Patti Jenkins to direct the superhero version of ‘You can’t always get what you want’. Why am I assuming this is once again Snyder’s fault? Because the credits suggest he was more involved with this movie, and so does the outcome.

Let’s ignore the plot; what the fuck happened with the graphics? I am not pretending to have the visual solution to riding lightning like a badass, but I would leave it out of the script if I were to do it like they did in the 80s. Oh, I see what they did there. No, that doesn’t work. And what about the villains? I am not sure what happened to them in the end; did Cheetara renounce her wish? Did Mando go to jail? Is his kid a boy scout and is that why he was randomly running out of the woods? Is Wonder Woman a sex offender after using a man’s body without his consent? I will admit, my biggest complaint revolves around the misuse of Pedro Pascal. I am working through a major, MAJOR crush on Pedro Pascal (hence the full name at every opportunity) and that movie almost did the trick. He is at such a good point in his career; did he really read the script and think ‘this is the way’?

Apparently it was worth spending at least some time describing what a disappointment Wonder Woman 1984 was, because I did. Who knew. This is much bigger than this movie, though. This actually made me revisit Wonder Woman (2017) and realise that that movie was not that good either. They built up this sweet coming of age story with Diana realising that War wasn’t an entity, but the worst part of human nature, and then knocked it down with bad CGI. And made Professor Lupin a fiery, villainous monster. He is and always will be a furry, loveable monster. Wonder Woman was simply better than Batman v Superman and we all got confused, it seems. That was four years ago, Justice League happened in the meantime. We are currently all wondering; what is happening with DC? I must confess, after my essay on why I hate Snyder and how I am sure that the Snyder cut will be a self-righteous joke, I got a bit worried. Snyder is doing more reshoots after all, with the benefit of multiple feedback sessions that other people simply do not get on multimillion projects. Let me remind you that the Snyder cut will be the third draft of the Justice Leauge movie; two drafts more than I got for my Master’s dissertation. But I am once again assured that the DCEU has no idea what they are doing. Please, for your own sake, can you just badly imitate Marvel? That will produce much more satisfying movies. You have tried it your way, kudos for that, and it simply doesn’t work. Shazam worked; bring in whoever made that! Make Zachary Levi play Superman now that Henry Cavill is out, give the producers a small budget, drop the gritty life lessons and you’ve got yourself a movie!

I have not tried to hide my love for the MCU. It would be useless if I did. Even their worst of films are adequate. If not adequate, ahem Thor: The Dark World, ahem, they bring in awesome New Zealanders to fix them. But, I swear I am still rooting for DC to catch up. My favourite superhero of all time is Batman after all (yes, I am that basic), and we have new one coming up and I would love it if it were decent. Please keep Snyder away from him. Pretty please.

Stumbled onto a series halt

 I never thought this day would come. Τhe past few years I have implemented a regime for maximum series-watching efficiency, comprised of one drama series and one comedy series running at the same time. It is a good regime, because sometimes you need a good plot to motivate you and other times you need no special motivation because comedy series are awesome. I rarely watch drama series more than once, because their whole point is either said plot or emotional scarring. And we rarely need a reprise of either. Comedies, as you may have gathered, I rewatch constantly, so much so that I have to actively limit myself to one rewatch per year. Otherwise, I wouldn’t watch anything new; I would be perfectly content mouthing Dr Cox’s rants for eight seasons straight (season 9 doesn’t count). I have so many series lined up to catch up on; Euphoria, the Queen’s Gambit, Newsroom, Broadchurch etc. I even considered giving Girls another try; an unsuccessful attempt to watch Lena Dunham for more than three minutes without wanting to punch her in the face. I feel like such a disgrace to feminists for even saying that. Nothing seems to get me interested and even worse, the last thing that got me interested was Bridgerton. I really am a disgrace to feminists. I have started watching movies instead and rewatching the Twilight saga (an upcoming post on that) just because I cannot take the commitment of a whole new series.

I think there are a couple of reasons I can identify for this unexpected indifference to series. First of all, I am being a bit overdramatic and misleading. The truth is that despite having already watched Frasier, my one permitted rewatch of the year, I have semi begun rewatching Scrubs. The above reference to Dr Cox’s rants might have been a tip off. So I am watching a series. I simply have not yet indulged in a drama series because, well, isn’t life dramatic enough? I don’t want to hear about anyone’s misfortunes if it isn’t followed by a punchline. Scrubs is not a commitment because technically I am not watching it. Technically, I sporadically click on random episodes when I need something to play for 20 minutes. Practically, though, I am through the first two seasons. Watched at a random order. It is also not a commitment because I do not need to pay attention all the time; I already know everything. And I mean everything. I know how many syllables Dr Cox’s elongated words consist of. I had been avoiding Scrubs because it being based in a hospital and famously featuring an episode about how easily transmittable diseases are, I thought it hit a little too close to home. However, once again, the goofiness has won me over and I have given in to this fantasy-filled hospital tale. I really hope that is not how they treat Covid patients in real hospitals.

The other reason I have not yet committed to a series is the return of late night. Their commentary on current events is an additional 30 minutes to an hour per day that I spend on YouTube keeping up to date with the current season of USA. A reasonable person might wonder; why spend so much time listening to comedians discuss another country’s news? Because they do it so well. Because Seth Meyers looks like he is having the time of his life, Colbert has such a talented team of writers and Conan is such a showman that he could recite the periodic board and it would still be hilarious. Plus the material is funny to begin with; ridiculous, but ridiculous is funny. And funny is just so much harder to let go of. That is why Jimmy Fallon’s show is so easy to let go off. That was unnecessary.

The last reason I am choosing movies over series is the pressure of the Oscars. Nominations are not out yet but they should be soon and due to Covid we will all be behind on our lists. We all have these lists, right? We all plan to stay awake for the ceremony, create Oscar pools with our friends and yell ‘The MCU has changed cinema, deal with it’ to Martin Scorcese, right? I am basically being proactive here, making sure that there is space for me to watch all the top contenders, once we know which ones they are, and therefore continue to falsely predict the awards (see last year’s predictions). It is all done in the name of this blog. Although I am, in this way sabotaging myself for the Emmy’s. How do people live balanced, social lives with all this screentime to cover? I won’t take any criticism for my love of anything streamable; I am saving lives as we speak! Imaging if I enjoyed spiting on people instead. Be grateful.

I am just in a bit of a slump. I will eventually watch His Dark Materials now that I have decided to give up on the books (see 2021 New Year’s resolution. Wow, this post almost needs an appendix) and enjoy the beautiful sight of James McAvoy. I just need to get to a mindset where watching series won’t be a burden. In the time being, I am covering gaps in my pop culture upbringing by watching The Social Network, Django Unchained and random Indiana Jones movies. All great so far. And I have one more thing to get off my chest. I might have rewatched a lot of the MCU this year. But as they are films they don’t count. I might have also since the writing of this post (which was postponed) watched another season of Scrubs. I can now sing all of the ‘My Musical’ episode. Everything DOES come down to poo.

Stumbled onto 2021 (I had to)

 

Lovely. I am not entirely sure what we all expected to happen with this miniscule numerical change in our calendars, but granted it did not. Here’s hoping for a much better 2021, dare I say a good 2021, and thinking back on this era simply as the time that Zoom gave everyone unlimited time for meetings regardless of whether you are using the free version or not.

Well, week one has been eventful. Covid clearly had a couple of new year’s resolutions; making itself more transmissive (otherwise thought of as ‘communicative’), lethal (otherwise thought of as ‘effective’) and focused on preventing us from socialising (otherwise thought of as focused on ‘self-love, you know?’). This most likely means that official criteria for alcoholism will need to permanently exclude ‘Drinking alone at home and sobbing’. Is there any other way that’s legal, after all? Let’s all be grateful to our blackheads for providing sufficient entertainment when we need a break from our screens and eyebrow plucking for when you need to experience some pain just to feel alive. If case numbers following the holidays are any indication of how the next few weeks will go, I think I will continue to consider washing my hair a ritual and Netflix partying with my friends as a frantic social life. Friends, if you are reading this, I love our Netflix parties. Everyone else, check out Netflix parties; I feel that for its relevance in our day and age, it is not as popular as it should be.

The last paragraph might seem a little more passive aggressive than usual but, as I said, this week has been eventful. I try to steer off politics in this blog, but sometimes they affect our lives so much that it is difficult to refrain. Sometimes developments are so substantial and fast paced that they leave you with a clear feeling of emptiness. I am of course referring to Bridgerton being only eight episodes long! What the fuck, Netflix? We have all, for some reason, accepted that we will no longer get 24 episodes per season and opt for ten, as the English do, supposedly trading off quantity for quality. But do you mean to tell me that you thought Bridgeton’s quality was so substantial that it allowed for a further reduction to eight episodes? Seven, if we take into account that one episode was less about plot and more an homage to the porn industry. This is ‘The Crown’s doing! They feared the competition from this Jane Austen-esque adaptation of Gossip Girl, seeing as they didn’t have a mysterious Lady Featherington to narrate their own drama. Plus, they also lack of suspense as most of us know how things will end in ‘The Crown’; Charles and Di realise Camilla is a ridiculous name and live happily ever after, with perhaps few sorrows such as when their son, Harry, married a non-royal, Greek psychology student with shape-shifting superpowers and a very successful blog on pop culture.

Other less important news of the week regard the Greek government succumbing to the Church’s adolescent demands that lockdown be lifted, so that they can have their corona party as the lord would please. If anyone outside Greece is reading this, the government prohibited religious services to take place in order to avoid contamination, priests replied ‘Tell me about it, stud’ wearing a leather two piece, stumping on a cigarette bud and went ahead with their business as usual. Then, nothing else happened. A couple of police officers showed up, but only to get the priests’ blessing, like the good Christians they are. (Fun note: I wrote ‘policemen’ and Word suggested ‘police officers’ instead. Thank you Word.) We would have been more shocked by this inactiveness had that not been the day that Trump protesters stormed the Capitol in Washington wearing Viking costumes to overturn the election results with the power of ‘The Selfie’. I am wrongfully making light of a situation that resulted in five deaths and probably more as I am assuming did not help with the spread of the virus. Although I have to say, for the obviously brain-washed idiots that hope to overturn the election in hope of getting a chance to actually shoot bleach up their veins, a couple of them were actually  wearing masks. Interesting. I just want to say, here in Greece we undermined democracy, law and order long before America did. Well, hours, but still. Credit where credit is due.

I had a nice post written up about struggling to commit to any new series and binging movies instead. I don’t want to spoil anything, but ultimately I realised I was full of crap and spend way too much time watching stuff anyway. I had another one on Twilight, again spoiler alert, Twilight was full of crap too! But I couldn’t imagine posting either and not feeling out of touch, so I whipped this up, exposed my superficial understanding of news and politics and publicly admitted to watching all of Bridgerton in less than two days. Or had I not done that up to now? Did I have readers believe I casually watched it when I wanted to unwind from, I don’t know, ‘The Sopranos’? Anyway. Once again here’s to a better, healthier, more prolific 2021 and here is to less embarrassing posts than this one.