Twilight: beyond the hype

I didn’t really know anything about this novel turned movie until about a month or two ago, turns out that this girl I went out with once was a big fan. As curious as I was about this girl I really liked, I was more curious about this “Twilight” thing that she seemed to know inside out.

I did a little research and found out that it was actually a novel revolving around teenage love with vampires thrown in the mix (I didn’t even feel right while typing that). I didn’t bother to delve deeper into the entire thing since the initial concept really threw me off. What bothered me more is that while scanning this girl’s multiply page, I saw her header image which was a twilight banner that also stated “Whoever says they don’t have an imaginary boyfriend has clearly never read Twilight.” From that point on, I was thinking “Holy crap, what’s this book really about?”

Reading that sentence made me read a blog entry of this girl I mentioned earlier. An entry that I assume was about love lost, desperation, and heartbreak. I can only assume as much since the blog entry’s title is roughly translated as “Even the heart grows tired”; Only the title remained as the rest of the entry’s contents were deleted. Left with nothing else to read but the comments, I scanned through some messages and read a post by this girl (that I liked) basically saying that she’ll probably get over her breakup and that she’ll meet her “Edward Cullen” sooner or later. I didn’t know she just went through a failed relationship but at that point I was thinking, “Man, this Edward guy must be something else”.

Fast-forward to this week and my roommate actually bought a copy of the novel. We talked about the book a number of times while he was reading it, he even managed to give me a brief backgrounder on the story and what he thought of the characters and of the writing in-general. One of the first points he stressed was that clearly, the book is aimed towards teenage girls and young women as the book is written from the female protagonist’s point of view. Second, the male protagonist, a vampire named Edward Cullen, is presented as perfect in a Jesus Christ kind of way in that he even glitters (By now I’m thinking, a vampire that glitters? WTF?). This vision of beauty shows how shallow the characters are throughout the story. Finally, he said the book is incredibly cheesy and that events are over dramatic, exaggerated, and are POORLY written. By this 3 points I’ve already decided that I won’t bother reading even a single chapter of the novel. I did read a plot summary in Wikipedia and and I’d say that It doesn’t really warrant the hype it is receiving.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about the story aside from the fact that it gives teenage girls a completely perfect yet forever fictional guy to obsess over. Shades of teenage lust is evident in several encounters between Bella and Edward but the book just teases and teases to the point that it makes me want the characters to grow up and just do it. I think the book is using the Vampire bite as a metaphor for sex. It’s kind of stupid and childish really. The book presents Edward as the definition of perfect – winning the hearts and minds of teenage girls everywhere to the point that girls can have the tendency to touch themselves at the very thought of him. And that I think is the main attraction of the novel, it takes advantage of teenage girls’ desire of meeting a perfect guy that completely sweeps them of their feet. Yes, it’s been done before, but not in the extremely corny and shallow way that Twilight does. As for the vampire elements, let’s just say that if vampires did exist i real life, they’d probably be nothing like Edward Cullen. A glittering vampire? Come on.

As for the movie, I’m pretty sure rabid fangirls will pack the theaters to see it. Some will want to see it just to find out what the hype is all about. Story wise, the book has already failed so I don’t see anything in the movie that can possibly change that. I just hope it doesn’t suck as much as the novel does.

Finally, the soundtrack; Paramore’s new song “Decode” is the lead single. It’s Still a far cry from the pretty good stuff they produced in their first album, “All we know is falling“. I’ll give it props though since it has Muse and Linkin Park – two bands that I like (For some reason, Muse’s song Super Massive Black Hole actually makes me think about Vampires). Although I’d prefer to see LP have nothing to do with the Twilight franchise. I read a funny post at the neogaf.com forums about Paramore’s singer liking Twilight because SHE IS a teenage girl.

Anyway, I guess this wraps up my take on the entire Twilight thing. One last word though…vampires don’t exist.