In Defense of (attacking) Twilight

Danielle Maestretti from the Utne Reader has a rather provocative blog post up (not that kind of provocative, get your mind out of the gutter I likely put it in with my last post), titled "Critics Pick on Twilight Fans Because They're Girls." Yowza. Reading past the inflammatory title gets you a little insight into her position, which isn't a defense of the movies-turned-books so much as it is a report of an observation by Sady Doyle from the American Prospect that when describing the "Twi-Hards," most critics (an overwhelming sausage fest if there ever was one) take to maligning the "screeching" girlies, deploying massive stereotypes of teen girls as empty-headed and prone to squealing. Her point is that male stupid-movies like Die Hard don't get the same treatment, they usually receive (as she says) shrugs and not derision. Well, as a certain afro-haired actor once quipped, "Allow me to retort."

Do I agree that the by-and-large totally male-dominated critic landscape has teed off on Twilight? Hell yes! It's a pinata and we're passing out bats. Am I at all concerned that a franchise geared towards women is receiving this kind of bashing? Hell yes! That's why for the first film, I recruited a female to review it (she found it to be rather blah). Do I think that we should stop bashing the Twi-Hards, that we should downshift our derision from blatant to shruggery, and that we should rethink our choice of words? Maybe for some losers I haven't read, but for the most part...hell no.

As I see it there are three parts to this: (1) - The attack on the fans; (2) - The attack on the movies/books themselves; and (3) - The overall implications.

1.) As far as the fans go, there aren't a lot of polite, respectful ways to describe people who maul one another for a poster of Robert Pattenson. There aren't a lot of adjectives that don't sound particularly demeaning that can be used to describe the maniacal nature of a lot of these young ladies. They're freaks. They're idiots. By no means are all of them this way. I happen to know several intelligent young ladies who enjoy the series quite a bit. None of them have drawn blood to touch a poster of Pattenson. When deriding the fans, we critics are attacking the extremists. And they're batshit crazy. Period. I will mock the crazy cat lady who only leaves her home to watch soft-core teenage vampire porn. I will mock the lunatic 13-year-old who tears her own hair out because she wants to legally change her name to Bella. I will do it because it is lunacy of the highest degree. If we aren't able to target the fringe elements of society who lose their shit over things like this, we do them a disservice as well as ourselves: it's not okay to behave this way.

2.) The books are shit. The movies (I assume) are also shit. That's my opinion. It's what I'm paid to provide. In particular, this crap offends me because I happen to consider myself a man sympathetic to the feminist cause...and when I see books and movies that glorify males (vampires, werewolves...whatever, anything with a dong) as saviors, as the be-all-end-all of a woman's life, it pisses me off. Just like I loathe "Sex and the City" for its make-believe empowerment (um, the main character is a toy that her love interest plays with for fun), I loathe that the biggest female pop culture phenomenon in the last decade surrounds worshiping dudes. Hell, I saw a trailer for the film (which I assume at least borrowed elements from the book) in which Bella (ugh, even the name is insulting) acknowledges that the only way she can "be" with her vampire boy toy is BY KILLING HERSELF! For this and this alone I kind of want to back over Stephanie Meyers with a Humvee. Then you hire a talented female director, Catherine Hardwicke, to helm the first movie, give her a shit budget and a terrible script, and then FIRE HER when it becomes a smash hit. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It's just like "Sex and the City" to me. If you are smart enough to see it for what it is, I don't give a crap if you like it. I just loathe it because 70% or more of people who watch it are fooled into believing that it's empowering for them. This series is a feminist train wreck. Period.

3.) The very implication from Maestretti and Doyle that we dudes won't savage dude-movies because dudes like them is insane. Roger Ebert called people who liked Transformers 2 unevolved. I pretty much routinely tee off on fans of Paul Blart (mostly dudes), satirically celebrate The Expendables, and categorically deride any project that deserves it. I am an equal opportunity basher, and I can, will, and have tee off on dipshits of all gender who like crap. It's what I live for. Maestretti and Doyle, whose position I actually respect in principle, should do better to take on the gender inequity in movie reviewing and blogging, should take to demanding better entertainment for women, and should question why, WHY there aren't more women involved in the movie industry. It could be a damn daily column it makes so little sense. Me, I hold out hope for things like Sweet Valley High. Yeah, you read that right. A series of books for girls that is being adapted by Diablo Cody, who regardless of her dialogue "gets it" when it comes to young girls. Howsabout we stand behind her, find some talented people willing to back some promising projects, and at the same time accept that tearing down most full-on Twi-Hards and the insipid series itself is A-Ok and may even be done BECAUSE we believe in doing what's right by girls.

Thus concludes my rant.