Tuesday 7 September 2010

Vampires weren't SMeyer's bigger mistake

This is my first incursion on Twilight related matters. This is something I've been thinking for a long, long time.

Why do these young girls love Twilight so much? Nothing about it was original, not even their beloved "hero", Edward. (Better thinking, the ridiculous sparkling, dazzling, razzle dazzle thing is all Meyer) I'm not going to talk about how Bella is an empty shell. I'm all Edward now.

Who's Edward Cullen? He's a 100 year old vampire, who doesn't want to lose his human side. He's a regular vampire who makes philosophical questionings, who cares about people, he doesn't want to kill them, he thinks that's disgusting, repulsive. Oh! He's rich and he's gorgeously handsome like... like... what were the words? Ah! A Destroying Archangel! Isn't he perfect? Isn't he original? HELL NO!

The vampire who wants to deny his condition is an old issue in the vampy related literature. The biggest and the best example is Louie. Louis Pointe du Lac, was "created" (in a non vampiric way) by Anne Rice. He is rich, gourgeously handsome and from the moment he realizes how disgusting his eternal condition is, he decides not to feed on human blood. He starts drinking rat blood and he even gets to the ridiculous point of drinking a poodle's blood. But remember, he never sparkled, AND at some point of his life, Louis saw that he could no longer deny his own nature, so the rat thing had to stop.

Do you want another exemple? Michael from "The Lost Boys" He's a teenager attracked by a girl and decides to join a biker gang to "make an impression". He eventually finds out that the gang leaders are vampires. They start his "vampire trainning" but he can't do his final test which is, killing a person. The movie is all 80's trash but it's one of my fave 80's teenage movies. Whatever, Michael didn't want to exchange his humanity  for the eternity.

SMeyer isn't all that vampiric mithology killer. Even the lack of sex isn't original. According to Anne Rice's stories, vampires are extremely sensual and sexualized creatures. They feel an inexplicable desire and attraction to other vampires or humans with no discrimination of race and gender. They just feel it. And they get plesure from the seduction game they play with their victims and from the bite itself. Vampires' sexual organs are not functional. (Apparently in SMeyer world only female vampires have non funtional sexual organs. I wonder why such a sexist POV) 

Cutting the crap, is not mithology killing. Anne Rice did that. SMeyer problem is that she takes all those vampire stories and turn into a ridiculous thing. She wrote a book about a girl who refuses to grow up, not in a Peter Pan way, she wants to run away from her resposabilities (including her child). And I'm not going to start on that project of love story.

Edward was the first sensitive, thoughtful vampire. Bullshit! The "I don't wanna be a killer" thing is an old, old issue in vampire literature. Of course these kind of POV was brought by women and almost all we write, at least a bit (and not only women do this) come from our own lives. JK Rowling created HP world in a very difficult moment. Anne Rice wrote the Vampire Chronicles after loosing her mother and her five year old daughter (very interesting when you think about Claudia, the child vampire Lestat created. Who died -twice- without the change of growing old). Stephannie Meyer squeezed Twilight out from a wet dream. How do we expect that to be good?!

Hey! At least they sparkle! She had to be original in some point.

p.s. I'm totally ignoring the new vampire stuff. True Blood, Vampire Diaries, House of Night and hundreads (I mean it) of other vampire teenage stuff. I have tortured myself enough. 



HELL YEAH!

2 comentários:

Mira said...

Interesting article, Mariana!

I've been trying to figure out what's so annoying about "Twilight", and the fact it's completely unoriginal is not the worst thing about it. Sure, it helps, but the main reason I despise "Twilight" is Meyer's blatant lack of talent for writing AND storytelling. Nobody asks her to have a perfect style (Rowling doesn't have a great style either), but she just can't think of a good story. Her plots are either non-existent or weak (to say the least). It is evident she never though about any of it, EXCEPT love scenes and descriptions of Edward (which proves the whole "saga" was in fact a glorified fanfiction and a wet dream). And she didn't even manage to write good/realistic/interesting love scenes and descriptions.

And I am sorry to talk trash about her as a person, but she didn't present herself as particularly intelligent or a person who reads a lot of books. She also managed to put a shame on women, female authors, housewives and Mormons, among other things.

If somebody told me author of "Twilight" was, in fact, a 13 year old girl, I'd believe it in a sec.

Shalet Jimmy said...

I have Twilight series. But I never felt like reading or watching it.