Ok, so, let me be clear, I am aware of Twilight, both books and movies, since I do not live in a cave on the moon. However, I have not read the books, nor seen the movies. The reasons for this are many, but mostly it is because I am "over" the whole vampire thing, and the Twilight series seems to be a sort of teen angst-y version of the vampire idea, which worked great back when it was called The Lost Boys. I have no intention of critiquing either the books or the movies, being unqualified to do so.


Now, these books and the movies inspire a whole hell of a lot of devotion/admiration/lust/whatever in a lot of young and not-so-young women and men alike. They also seem to inspire a hell of a lot of hatred. My question is…why? On the hatred, that is. The devotion is easy to understand, it is a fad like any other, something marketed well and hitting at the right time to appeal to the target audience. They like it, it sells a lot of books, tshirts, and assorted bric-a-brac. But why the hatred? I have heard people lambasting Stephanie Meyers as a bad writer. Ok, fine, you don't like her writing. I'll not mention that I tend to take with a truckload of salt the literary opinions of random self-appointed internet culturati. People warble that her characters are Mary Sue, that her treatment of vampires is highly non-traditional (sparking in daylight). Ok, fine.

So what?

None of this is much of a reason to get all freaked out and spew so much hatred for a harmless book/movie series. I have heard some haters say they don't like how the twilight fans (they call them, if you will excuse the term "twitards") "just go on and on about how great it is." Yeah, so? When have people who really like something not done this? How does someone liking a book or a movie affect you so negatively? My fiancé is of the opinion that a lot of the hatred comes from young men who are frustrated at all the girls their age being infatuated with Edward Cullen or that Jacob guy. I can see that, but really, why get upset at that? The damn girls are giving you a freakin' handbook on how to behave to get their attention. That aside, I have seen just as much hatred from women speaking of the series, so I am not sure how much the blue-balls factor is weighing in.

I think some of the hatred might be coming from the goth/vamp crowd, angry that the epitome of their chosen world view has been worked over into a teen coming-of-age story. You might want to research vampire myths around the world. Your idea of vampires, largely inspired by the vision of Anne Rice, is not all that true to most western lore about vampires, and is miles off of vampire myth in other parts of the globe.

In the end, Twilight is a fad. I don't use that word in a pejorative sense. It is something that is really huge right now, but will fade into the background eventually. If the series stands the test of time it will still not be as big as it is now – nothing ever is. If you like it, enjoy it while it lasts, if you don't…just ignore it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Pop Culture, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.