Radar Redux

Last night I saw Twilight: New Moon at midnight in Hunt Valley. Should I be admitting this? Something about it seems shameful. But no! I will not cower under the disbelieving stares of judging adults, college co-eds on a high-horse, or literary buffs citing misogynist undertones to the text and backwards female thinking (read: Bella is willing to give up everything for Edward). Listen, I study Creative Writing in school. I love literature. I value writing and even more so, I value good writing, unique writing, writing which explores new areas of literary facility (Nabokov’s Pale Fire, for example).

The Twilight books are hardly that. The syntax is, overall, dreadful, the editing worse (or was there even an editor at all to cut out all of that repetitive drudge?). Author of the series, Stephanie Meyer, literally uses the same 4 words (‘dazzled’ ‘chiseled’ being two of these words) ad nauseum, to the point one wonders if she knows what a Thesaurus is. Some have even cited the Twilight franchise as ‘the death of good literature’. Ouch. Whatever. I get it. Through all of the terrible badness, I kept reading. I admit it! I even enjoyed it, thoroughly. Before I knew what was happening, I was calling the friend who lent me the first two books to test the water, screaming frantically into my cell phone like some junkie, “Please! The other two! This is sick.” And I meant sick in a perverted, unwell sort of way. Even at the time, I was aware of what was going on. I had to read the next book, and fast.

When discussing the idea of seeing the movie at midnight with friends, I argued on behalf of the outing. This summer, when I read all four books in a total of one and a half weeks (while working a 10-8 job, including commute, sans book – I get car sick), I had previously been struggling to get through Jonathan Safron-Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. My Twilight­ enabling friend, recognizing my vulnerability in the face of finish-the-book defeat, suggested I read something a bit lighter. But seeing the movie at midnight – that would be taking my fandom to the next level. And then I thought: why not buy into the madness? This is media MANIA we’re talking about, a frenzy, something arguably bigger than even Harry Potter – an animal that in its first installment, amassed $350 million dollars. That’s a lot of dollars.

I, for one, wanted to be a part of this craziness, to participate in it, to maybe make sense of it (not that I could). Anything that our culture buys into as much as it has bought into Twilight (and it’s boasted a lot of buying into) must have some cultural relevance, importance even. Even if that importance is just to wonder how in the hell this makes any sense.

Alas, the movie was just fine. It is campy and soap-opera-ey, sentimental and melancholy, overwrought and silly at times. After all, it is about a selfish 17 year old girl – Bella (Kristen Stewart) radiant in all her emo glory – just trying to find love, and in the process, just trying to hold onto everyone and anyone who shows they may care about her. I would argue that the second installment, New Moon, directed this time around by Chris Weitz of The Golden Compass, is an improvement on the last. The tone is a little darker, the contents a little less eye-rollingly sappy. Less “you are the reason for my living” and more screaming in the darkness. More battle scenes. More action and better pacing. Better soundtrack (God that soundtrack was good!).

I’d say: don’t knock it before you try it. You may just find yourself enjoying every minute of it, even if it’s to your utter disgust/horror/surprise. And what does it all mean? Well, that all of us are harboring hidden vampire fetishes, of course. But that’s for another day.

PS – Be sure to click all those hotlinks scattered throughout the article for further clarifications as to what exactly I’m talking about…