Twilight Dream
I have a Dream, that one day vampires and humans will live together….
Oooookaaaayyyy. Twilight. Saw it on the same day I happened to visit the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Site when I was down Atlanta way, so that’s what’s gettin’ mashed today. I don’t care that one of them isn’t a movie, but rather a National Park Service historic site. Bite me.
Speaking of biting me, there’s this movie called Twilight. It’s based on the first of four incredibly bad books by the same name. It’s a Romeo and Juliet kind of forbidden love story where Romeo happens to be a vampire. Okay. Not original, but we can work with this, right?
Oh, no. Stephanie Mayer (the author of the books) apparently decided that the traditional vampire lore simply would not do for her saga. No, her vampires can walk around in daylight, and can easily choose to drink animal blood over human blood (which makes them “vegetarians”. Get it?). They appear in mirrors, they don’t need coffins, and they seem just fine with crosses/holy water/garlic, etc. Their one “curse” is that should they be exposed to direct sunlight, they…glitter. Yeah, I said glitter. They sparkle! That’s it! That’s their big, bad secret! OMG, ponies! No tortured existence, no angst at being forever severed from divine grace and the hope of redemption. Nope, they simply sparkle away.
The director of the movie does her best to turn this pulp of unreadable shite into a decent movie, and to her credit, she almost gets there.
So, Mary Sue Bella Swan moves to a small, cloudy town in Washington State and immediately catches the intense gaze of Edward Cullen, a hair-gelled vampire attending her local high school, along with his vampire “siblings.” Oh, yeah, the vampires in this story go under cover as high school students. Because, like, isn’t high school the best? Don’t you just want it to go on forever? Jesus.
Anyway, Edward thinks Bella’s pretty and nice-smelling, so he begins to stalk her. Literally. He follows her in his fancy car and sneaks into her bedroom at night to watch her sleep. If you’re thinking this is creeptastic, you are clearly not a high-school-goth-in-training, because Bella is charmed and delighted by his actions. In fact, Edward is the ideal high-school crush. He’s blandly courteous (due to his “old-fashioned” upbringing), he’s rich (a century’s worth of investments), and he’s supernaturally committed to not sleeping with Bella (since he’s afraid he’ll accidentally impregnate bite her in the heat of the moment). So he’s dangerous while simultaneously being completely safe. How… junior year.
We get to watch the development of their relationship over the next hour (Stay away from me, human girl! But I like you! But I’m dead and pale! But I’m pale too! Bite me, please! But the curse of glitter! But…kissing!) It’s about that deep.
If I seem to be ragging on the awfulness of the main story, it’s because it detracts so much from potential goodness of the peripheral characters and storylines. While I was watching the movie, it occurred to me that this really should have been a TV series. So many of the supporting characters, such as Bella’s policeman father and her high school friends, are surprisingly well-drawn and lively. Even the vampire family has some good chemistry and nascent fish-out-of-water humor going on, like when they cook a meal for Bella, using the Food Network as a guide (“But do you think she likes Italian?” “Duh, her name is Bella.”) I assume that the actors did this on their own, since Meyer’s book certainly wouldn’t have been a good source for depth. The high school kids are particularly promising. Instead of the easy caricatures of the Nerd, the Geek, the Jock, and the Princess, we get a clique of middling-level popular AV-club-type kids who appear to be realistically quirky and interesting. I wish the movie had been about them. Watching them deal with relationship issues like teen sex and eternal life would have been fun. Alas, we must get back to Bella and Edward.
The fly in the ointment of BelEdward’s G-rated lurv is that Bella catches the attention of a non-“vegetarian” vampire during a vampire baseball game. (Do not ask. Just don’t.) James the Bad Vamp does drink human blood, and he decides that a Bella-sized snack is just the ticket. But Edward and his vampire “family” move hell and high water to keep Bella safe – did I mention that his family adores her instantly and has no qualms with the whole human/vamp love story? Go Mary Sue. You sure charmed them.
James is a good tracker though, so despite their efforts he eventually corners Bella and starts smacking her around. Tenderizing the meat, I guess. Then Edward jumps in to save the day and engages James in the single good scene in the entire movie: a vampire fight. Thank Jeebus. Vampires are awesome fighters! Why the hell wasn’t the whole movie like this? Action? Fire? Blood? Crazy-ass hallucinations? Hell, yeah.
And then it’s over. Bella is safe. Again, yet, still. B to the O-Ring.
The movie ends with Bella and Edward going to prom. Ah, high school romance.
What I saw six hours before this mess was the Martin Luther King Jr Historic site. It’s located in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, and it contains King’s birthplace, his church, a big ol’ exhibit hall, and his grave. The main exhibit was an examination of his early life, his beginnings as a minister, and the quest for civil rights that culminated (for King) outside hotel room 307. It’s both restrained and heart-rending, with well-chosen video clips of interviews and news stories, as well as tons of quotes from King’s speeches. Obama obviously studied King’s rhetorical style. I hope that the site will get an update now that America has elected Obama, which is a fairly significant step in the march for full equality.
But as we walked around the site, run by the National Park Service, it became clear that like in so many other areas of American life, the black man got shafted here too. The buildings other than the main hall are run down. The exhibits look incredibly dated and in sore need of reinterpretation. One wall, for example, had a timeline for Coretta Scott King that stops at 1992, never mind the fact that she lived until 2006, and is interred on this site next to her husband. Hello? A little behind, NPS? Budget cuts are hell, I know, but we’re talking about Coretta Scott King here.
Datedness aside, it’s worth a visit if you happen to be in Atlanta. It’s free, just like all the NPS historic sites (which probably explains the visible wear and tear). And the work of King should not be forgotten. It’s a rarely mentioned fact that the march King was planning on attending when he was assassinated was not a march for racial equality, per se, but a march against poverty. King had decided that poverty, and the tools used to keep the poor from exercising their full citizenship, was the true the enemy he had to fight. Racism and segregation, while evils in themselves, were only facets of a larger evil which touches every race.
As the recession looms, perhaps we will reconsider the scourge of poverty, as well as the inequality inherent in our current political and economic systems. Or perhaps we will be distracted by the inevitable sequel in the Glitter Vamp saga of suckitude.