Okay, first off--I'm majorly procrastinating on a major screenwriting assignment.  I may be a little rage-like due to the fact that I'm stressed, but enough with the disclaimer.  I do mean everything I type below.


My screenwriting professor is OBSESSED with Twilight, has been all semester.  He constantly brings it up, tears it apart, praises it again.  So I thought I would get in with the hip cool kids and watch it, partly inspired by him and partly inspired by, well, a South Park episode, but anyway...

What is this crap?  The vampires SPARKLE LIKE DIAMONDS?  That's why they don't go out during the day?  I know the writer had to come up with something that would keep them in high school so she could have her sexual awakening premise with a teenage girl, but really.

Anyway, I mean it is a good story.  Teenage girl is saved by vampire.  She's hot, but doesn't quite fit in.  He's dark, brooding, obsessed with her for unknown reasons.  Her relationship with him gets her in all kinds of crazy trouble.  She's from a broken home so naturally parents don't stand in the way of a love affair.  We also attempt to teach abstinence by emphasizing that if things get too hot and heavy he'll turn evil and try to eat her.  Hmm.... this sounds mighty fucking familiar.



Am I the only person that remembers the 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  Girls, this has been done before AND much, much better.

Here's the deal: writers need to teach girls that they should be able to save themselves.  Get rid of all this powerful man to the rescue crap and throw girls a bone.  The women in Twilight don't have the opportunity to kick the crap out of someone, even the vamps.  The women vamps run around spreading Ella's scent around or having visions.  Even at that they fail.  They don't actually play a hand in physically protecting her.

Ella runs around praying that her lover will come save her life, which he does, multiple times (even from getting raped, because we know if she loses that V-card she's sunk).  She is such a passive character when it comes to taking control of her own wants and desires.  She doesn't even DARE to kiss him until he finally kisses her.  I know the vampires have super powers and she doesn't, but she's entirely helpless.

At least Buffy kicked butt like very few characters before her.  She was in charge of her life and her relationships, at least until the writers decided to pull her apart.  She needed saving, but there was also mutually beneficial relationships with those who saved her.  She didn't need "protecting" every moment, she was able to do it herself.  She showed teenage girls to go after what you want and to save your own ass doing it.

Why this makes me angry is, teenage girls/boys are extremely impressionable.  You can throw in feminist jargon all you want.  Okay, that's a start.  But face it, you're going to have girls daydreaming about having a mysterious vampire saving them.  He's protecting them.  They are passively waiting around for something to happen.  The writers are aware of this, they try to counter it by having Ella spew some crap to her friend about asking a boy to the prom and being a strong woman.  This is just covering their tracks.  If they were actually interested in presenting a feminist film aimed at young girls they would have made Ella have some sort of superhero powers so she could do SOMETHING in the film other than be saved and driven around to places.

That said, I thought the Native American aspect to the film was interesting. 

I just realized we are a half an hour from 4/20.

I don't really enjoy the stuff (because I wouldn't dare inhale).  However, there are some strong arguments in favor of it.  I guess I just don't think it's that harmful in the long run.  Alcohol seems to do a lot more damage more often.