Why Summit? Why?! April 27, 2010

Fug via TresSugar

Apparently they’ve released a replica of Bella’s engagement ring. It’s available in faux version for $35 and a version with real diamonds for $1,979.

I blushingly admit that I’ve amassed a not inconsiderable amount of Twilight related merch. I may or may not frequently sport purple ruffled sweats from Aerie or a cadet blue B.B. Dakota jacket.  So, clearly I have no problem with people who want to have fun with movie memorabilia. If you have lots of disposable income and truly want a Cullen engagement ring, more power to you.

My main issue is the design of this ring. It is HIDEOUS. As some commenters have noted, it looks like a bug’s eye.

Wasn’t this supposed to be Edward’s mother’s ring? If you consider Edward died at 17 in 1918 and the typical short time window between marriage and first child at the time, his parents were probably married in the late 1890s. Shouldn’t the ring be Victorian style jewelry? This doesn’t look anything like what should have been around in Victorian America.

I mean, for cripes sake! Look how flipping gorgeous these Victorian rings are!

Why, Summit?! Why did you make the movie ring the fugliest ring ever? Are you just trying to piss off Twilight fans?

UPDATE:

So, here’s the description of the ring from the book:

“The face was a long oval, set with slanting rows of glittering round stones. The band was gold — delicate and narrow. The gold made a fragile web around the diamonds.”

So, I suppose the movie ring somewhat matches the book description. But it is still hideous. So there.

UPDATE2:

Other suggestions for Bella’s ring

I like the first one better, but I think the second one matches the description more. Either one is preferable to the monster we’re promised in June.

Update3:

Oddly, the artist rendering is by the same company that is producing the replicas. The final products don’t seem to match the drawing very well. The inset “web” is more delicate and there’s scalloped edging in the drawing that are nowhere in evidence on the real rings.

Unfortunately, the fug replica rings are officially authorized by Stephenie Meyer herself. Maybe she authorized the drawing and not the rings? I don’t know.

Yikes. I mean, you can’t argue with the author. If that’s what she says the ring looks like, that’s what it looks like. I’m not keen on the canon description, the presumably approved prototype rendering, or the final authorized replicas.

I’m going to go cry in the corner now.

Somewhere in the world, someone is writing the shortest alternate universe Twilight fan fiction ever which says something to the effect that Elizabeth Masen’s ring was lovely and understated with a single stone and delicate Art Nouveau scroll work on the band.

Failbooking Twilight Style March 23, 2010

[Buffy says "Now this is not going to be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content."]

I came across this a while back and thought I should add it to the growing pile of Twi-snark.

see more funny facebook stuff!

What does happen when Bella has the painters and decorators in?

EDIT: I guess SMeyer had to think up an answer to the menstruation question.

“Several girls wanted to know if Edward would have a more difficult time being around Bella when she’s having her period.  Answer: Yes, a little bit, but he would never say anything about it–much too much of a gentleman.  And Bella would be way to embarrassed to ask.  (It’s not the same as a cut, though.  It’s sort of “dead” blood, if you get my meaning).” – Stephenie Meyer, Personal Correspondance #2, Twilight Lexicon

A New Dawn part 10: “A Moon…A Girl…Romance!” by James A. Owen March 22, 2010

[Part of a series discussing the essays in A New Dawn edited by Ellen Hopkins. These posts may contain spoilers about all four Twilight novels and Midnight Sun.]

Eerily similar, no?

Although romances make up over half of all book sales, James Owen couldn’t find a single friend or colleague willing to admit that they read them. They actually became offended when he suggested that not only do they read romances, but they read them frequently.

How does he know this? Because they’re all Twilight fans. Owen’s main thesis is that Twilight, when boiled down to its essentials, is really an old-fashioned romance novel.

According to Owen, the only reason the Twilight Saga is considered a Young Adult book is because a Young Adult publisher was the first to like it and pick it up. He argues that due to the characters’ ages alone, Romeo and Juliet would probably be published under this banner today. The label doesn’t define the book – just the publisher.

Twilight actually bridges several worlds, including horror, fantasy, and, of course, romance. How well it performs each genre varies. Clearly Meyer’s monsters are not quite up to snuff for horror. “[T]he anomaly of Stephen King’s classic Carrie aside – I’m unable to think of a horror book deserving of the name in which the denouement takes place at the prom,” Owen remarks. Fantasy is, in his opinion, also not the essential point of the Twilight Saga. Sure vampires and werewolves are interesting literary devices, but they’re mostly window dressing. The real focus of the books is the characters and how they interact. The main action of the novel involves a girl meeting a boy and trying to make it work against all odds. It’s a romance.

Owen makes a great point about why we’re so resistant to admit that we’re reading romance novels. The term has become so narrowly defined that all we can think of is cheesy Fabio men named Dirk clutching some swooning ninny while her heaving bosom tumbles from her ripped bodice. It’s a pretty suffocating genre label.

In my personal experience, adult genre labels are getting narrower and narrower all the time. When you do find something that combines several different genres, it’s difficult to explain to someone else what kind of book it is that you’re reading. Is it a mystery if there’s romance? Is it a fantasy if it’s about catching a thief? Giving book recommendations labels is a loaded proposition.

Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling’s Harry potter series has transformed the Young Adult label into something much more flexible. Young Adult books are allowed to dabble in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance – whatever!

As readers, we’re looking for wonder and excitement – things Owen notes were part of the romance movement and its literature in the first place. The publishers in the adult section are taking themselves so seriously, their books have lost a lot of their hypnotic powers. It’s no wonder that some of the most wildly popular books among both teens and adults right now are Young Adult novels.

[Aside on the New Moon book cover: I recently heard someone call Bella's pose (head and hand against man's chest/shoulder/neck, depending on respective height) "dialing in Tokyo." The phrase tickled me so much I just wanted to pass it along.]

March Madness: BYU March 18, 2010

Today BYU beat Florida in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

I, of course, was eagerly refreshing my gametrackers and counting down the hours minutes seconds to my own game when I saw this headline:

Cougars’ recover in ‘Nick’ of time

*screeching tires sound*

The Brigham Young University mascot is a cougar?

Seriously?

Were they the cougars before Twilight?

Was there some kind of prophecy at the BYU mascot meeting?

Can’t think about this too much…gotta get back to the GAME!!!!

Edward Cullen, the 108 Year Old Virgin March 16, 2010

If I am truly honest with myself, I must admit that I like Twi-snark even better than Twilight itself. The best snark comes from Twilighters, Twitards – Whatever you want to call those of us who know and love the series best. Some of it is pretty crude. In the words of Buffy, “we’re talking violence, strong language, adult content.” But really, I just can’t help myself. I love me some Twitarded, TwiSoup, Twilight Stonified, and Lady Bits Wolf Tattoos.

Even RPatz gets in some Twi-snark:

“When you read the book,” says Pattinson, … “it’s like, ‘Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.’ I mean, every line is liked that. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn’t do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin so he’s obviously got some issues there.” – Robert Pattinson, Empire Magazine 10/2008

So how could I be so late to the “Growing Up Cullen” party? Where has this tasty Twi-snark been all my Twilife?!!!!1!eleventy!!1

Ever wonder what Edward was up to all those years before he met Bella?

At one point Edward tells Bella that he is super musical and educated, because he had so much free time on his hands.

I, for one, snorked at that particular passage. You mean his whole family was having hawt vampire sex and he was…doing Latin flashcards? Uh…huh.

saint_renegade and oxymoronassoc, two livejournal users, have taken this skepticism and pushed it to a new level. To borrow a phrase from Faith, the dark slayer, something in Edward’s bottle definitely needed uncorking.

Behold Edward Cullen, the 108 year old Virgin:

oxymoronassoc: rosalie would totally be extra loud to annoy edward too
oxymoronassoc: esp if he was doing something delicate like building a boat in a bottle
saint_renegade: YOU KNOW HE HAS
oxymoronassoc: FUCK YOU ROSALIE THIS WAS THE FIFTH TIME
oxymoronassoc: and then he’d sulk around the house
oxymoronassoc: muttering darkly about his boat

and also

oxymoronassoc: and esme would be like WHY DON’T YOU GO TRY OUT THAT NEW POTTERY WHEEL I BOUGHT?
saint_renegade: and that’s how they have like 80 bowls they’ll never use
oxymoronassoc: all lumpy and badly glazed
saint_renegade: I’M PERFECTING MY ART!!!!!
saint_renegade: WHAT ARE YOU DOING BESIDES BEING FILTHY?
oxymoronassoc: emmett will use them one day when he and jasper are pretending aliens are invading in the backyard and karate chop them to bits
oxymoronassoc: and edward will flip his shit
oxymoronassoc: NO RESPECT
oxymoronassoc: NO RESPECT!!!!
oxymoronassoc: THAT WAS ART!
oxymoronassoc: ART!!!

It just gets better and better… or worse and worse, depending upon how you look at it.

I found it on my lunch break and almost peed my pants. At WORK.

EDIT:

OME, there’s more!

Here!!1

Here!!!!!!111!!

Here!!!!!!!!!1!1!!!

and Here!!!!!!!111111!!!!1

A New Dawn part 7: “As Time Goes By” by K. A. Nuzum March 16, 2010

[Part of a series discussing the essays in A New Dawn edited by Ellen Hopkins. These posts may contain spoilers about all four Twilight novels and Midnight Sun.]

What separates humans from monsters seems so obvious that it’s hard to put into words. Nuzum starts with a basic outline of what seems to help us decide what constitutes a monster:

1) Monsters look different from humans.

2) They live outside the normal bounds of society, because they can’t or wont bow to human cultural norms.

3) They live in a “different time zone” than humans.

Wait, what? What time zone is that, exactly? Nuzum separates humans into “Historic Time,” while monsters belong instead to “Mythic Time.” Historic time is progressive and ever-changing. We each keep moving along our own personal time line, making choices about which way it will turn. “One of the ironies of our existence,” says Nuzum, “is that living means always moving closer to death.” Mythic time, on the other hand is circular, eternal, and repetitive as a hamster wheel. Existing in this circuitous existence, a monster will “experience an eternal compulsion to commit and recommit the creation act that transformed them into monsters.”

We place a high value on life’s milestones, specifically because in a progressive timeline “they can’t be repeated or relived.” Edward knows this. He’s had time while repeating high school over and over to ponder the fact that he missed out on a number of important adult milestones like getting a career, getting married, having children – the list goes on and on. He cares enough about Bella to want her to have all of the things he missed out on – even if she insists she doesn’t want them. Witness him dragging her to prom, the ill-fated birthday party in New Moon, and his marriage ultimatum… He’s big on the human coming of age moments, because, as a monster in Mythic time, he will never have them himself.

Nuzum agrees with Edward. Historical time is very important. The accident at the aforementioned birthday party illustrated the dangers of mixing beings from Historic Time with those from Mythic time. Historic time is extremely sensitive to the choices we make and “there’s no such thing as a “do over.”" The suspense we feel when we consider Bella’s choice between Historic time and Mythic time stems from this value we place on life due to our own firm residence in Historic time. Nuzum argues that the Cullen’s vampirism is represented as a last resort, when the only choice is to transform or die. Meyer repeats this choice for us with Bella’s transformation. Nuzum believes that this is necessary in order to quiet reader qualms about Bella turning her back on human life in Historic time and entering Mythic time as a monster. Even monster life is better than death…right? Right?

I’m not so sure that I agree with Nuzum’s assumption that we were all ambivalent about Bella leaving behind the human world. I’m guessing by the end of Twilight a large number of people were thinking exactly what I was thinking:

"Oh, just bite her already!"

Maybe this links back to Steiber’s argument that Meyer’s vampires have inverted the vampire legend. In Twilight, the vampires aren’t the monsters – we are. Our imperfections and vulnerability to the hands of time have us more scared than blood drinkers or shape shifters. Nuzum insists that the passage of time is actually an integral part of our character formation, because “it is our experience in time the defines us as individuals, that gives meaning and uniqueness to each of our lives.” This is undoubtably true, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary as heck.

Twilight and Transvestite Comedians? March 15, 2010

The little nudge in the last post about vampiric imagery in Jesus’ Last Supper speech made me think of this bit by Eddie Izzard.

Around 1:30 Jesus is telling God (as portrayed by James Mason as portrayed by Eddie Izzard) about his work setting up the new religion:

“And then I did the last supper, and I gave them some wine and I said, drink this wine – it is my blood.”

“You said what?” exclaims God.

“I said, drink this wine it is my blood. I was trying to make it a ceremony,” explains Jesus.

“But that’s vampirism! Vampiric thing, drink my blood. You’ve got Pagan things right there on day one of the new religion!”

“Oh, sorry,” says Jesus, sheepishly.

“Why didn’t you say, drink this wine it is a Merlot?” suggests God.

“Oh, yeah.”

A New Dawn part 6: “Tall, Dark, and…Thirsty?” by Ellen Steiber March 14, 2010

[Part of a series discussing the essays in A New Dawn edited by Ellen Hopkins. These posts may contain spoilers about all four Twilight novels.]

This essay was one of my favorites of the lot. It started with a fun overview of vampire mythology, literature, and movies and some of the social constructs our changing vampires have reflected over the years. Unsurprisingly, when Steiber begins interpreting Meyer’s vampires as part of that continuing tradition she’s more than a little disappointed in how they stack up. As a traditional vampire novel, Twilight kind of sucks (lame pun intended). [Maybe because they're a different kind of blood drinker? The "drink this wine it is my body" kind of blood drinker?... Ahem...] She then finds something even more creepy than blood-drinking monsters lurking beneath the vampiric veneer.

Steiber places the origins of our current crop of vampires in the Balkan “Vampire Epidemic” of the 1730′s. The legends and old wives tales found their way to Britain and were popularized by two works in particular. The first was John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (I got my hot little hands on it for free right here). Published in 1819, Polidori’s tale of the vampire Lord Ruthven is said to be a product of the same ghost story session that spawned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The darkly magnetic Ruthven, Steiber tells us, was even based upon another of the session’s participants, the bad boy, rock star poet Lord Byron.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) amped up the sexual tension. What with his trio of sexy lady vampire roommates and taste for young innocent women, Dracula was clearly a metaphor for the specter of sexuality in the repressed Victorian Era. “He’s a perfect example of the exotic, inscrutable stranger whom good girls really should avoid,” says Steiber. In 1931, Dracula became immortalized on the silver screen by the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi. His portrayal was so arresting that it has held up for 80 years as the prototypical vampire. Ask anyone to do a vampire imitation and I’m betting it will owe quite a bit to Lugosi’s Dracula.

Over the years vampires have become even more tied to sexuality and romance. Steiber points out the advantages to a vampire as a romantic lead. A vampire is powerful and magnetic, making him immediately appealing to other characters and readers alike. The vampire has also become something of a sympathetic loner, making them emotionally vulnerable in ways that can be exploited for a number of plot devices, particularly a romance.

After setting up the source material for our modern vampires, Steiber decides that Meyer has actually inverted numerous traditional elements of the vampire. Edward is not a dark parasite destroying the life and virtue of his innocent victim. Quite the reverse, Edward is a paragon of Victorian morality, safeguarding his beloved’s virtue – even when she begs not only to become a monster, but to jump his bones as well. Even Bella’s transformation into a vampire is an inversion of the classic story line. Bella does not become a fallen monster, instead her transformation saves her life and enables her to raise her child.

If the vampires in Meyer’s universe aren’t about sexuality and destruction of innocence, then what on earth are they about?

“What I’ve come to see about vampires, though, is that they change with the time and culture they appear in. They’re mirrors of our fears and desires. Early bloodsucking vampires were all about the hold that the dead had on the living…The stories of psychic vampires told of people who fed on other’s energy, drawing their strength from weakening those around them… Even Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been interpreted as a reflection of fears of its time: of foreign influence threatening british society, of our animal nature threatening to overwhelm our reason, and of illicit and irresistible sexual compulsion threatening marriage…Meyer’s vampires – or more accurately Bella’s obsession with Edward seems to mirror our current terror of aging, our own deep fear that without flawless physical beauty, we’ll never truly be worth loving.”

The prevalence of the beauty as virtue has a major impact on the young women of today. Especially now that we live in an age of rhinoplasty for sixteen year olds and Photoshop features for personal digital cameras. Steiber is rightfully concerned that Twilight seems to whole-heartedly endorse this philosophy and export it to the millions of teen girls who read it.

“She’s taken our warped attitude toward age and made it even more extreme, and because Bella is so easy to identify with, I can’t help but feel uneasy with this. Life is change. What Bella’s so eagerly signing up for is everlasting stasis.”

Ellen Steiber‘s essay really surprised me. I thought I was in for a bit of historical info, but she really shifted my perspective on Edward’s sparkling, marble pecs and gave me another interpretation about the underlying meaning of Twilight. Her assertion that we have abandoned our disgust of the monstrous, parasitic vampires of the past in order to focus our loathing on humanity has given me plenty of tasty food for thought. Her bio at the end of the essay says that she’s also written for a book called Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series. Sounds delicious… *Adds to Amazon wishlist*

First Nations Representation and the Twilight Franchise March 13, 2010

I thought I’d follow up my last post with some miscellaneous links/notes regarding the tumultuous relationship between the Twilight franchise and the Native American community. It’s not a topic that I’m particularly adept at discussing, but here are some of the issues and sources I’ve found interesting:

Interesting how the Native characters in Twilight are always mostly naked while Edward and his family are very buttoned up. Are non-white bodies more accepted as sexual objects? Discuss...

This post from Racialicious dissects some of the racial stereotypes in Meyer’s depiction of the Quileutes. The sections on exoticism and sexualization of non-whites and equating Indigenous Peoples with the animalistic are particularly interesting. It’s something I’d like to return to in the future, but I feel like my competence with the subject matter is too limited at the moment. I welcome links and book/article recommendations on similar topics.

***

I'm so glad I'm not a child celebrity. The interwebz has only limited amounts of my youthful exploits, thank goodness.

Questions have been raised about Taylor Lautner’s Native American status. Whether he has Native ancestors or not, it’s clear that he was not raised in any Native American tradition. A serious scandal surrounds Tinsel Korey (aka Harsha Patel?), who plays Emily Young in New Moon and Eclipse. That these issues haven’t been widely discussed seems kind of odd. The Twilight franchise has a rabid fan base demanding up to date info nownownow. You’d think news outlets would be hopping all over it. Unfortunately, it may be ignored simply because it’s a First Nations issue. Non-Native American readers are probably more interested in Lautner’s abs than whether he or Korey are authentic representatives of Native populations.

I’m torn on whether or not it’s necessary for actors to be actual members of specific groups in order to play one in a movie. Their job is to pretend and convince us to willingly suspend disbelief for a few hours. Demanding utter authenticity from your actors, especially when they’re playing vampires and werewolves, kind of defeats the point of acting and verges on silly.

However, the history of casting is littered with offensively slipshod and/or racist representations, from replacing non-white characters with whites (whites are clearly the neutral, non-ethnic race, donchaknow? /sarcasm) to employing a tiny handful of Indian and Arab actors and using them interchangeably – as if the vast array of ethnic mixtures from North Africa, the Middle East, and South Central Asia were all the same.

***

Here’s a post from an amazing blog that explores Indigenous peoples in children’s literature. The author, Debbie Reese, offers her own critical perspectives on the Twilight saga, but I especially appreciated this post on actual Quileutes willing to share the true traditions of the tribe.

***

Ahem problematic heritage hijacking. Ahem.

Meyer’s appropriation of Quileute name, land, and tradition is really a very sensitive issue. She has personally gained quite a bit from the association. The fallout, as indicated in the above links, is mixed for the actual Quileute people. Will Twilight tourism pump some money into the economically depressed reservation? Do the Quileute even want the attention in the first place if all they get is a bunch of tittering teens interrupting their talks on deeply-held spiritual beliefs with questions about whether they have any brothers and are any of them werewolves?

***

Again, this is all fairly new to me, so I don’t have an official stance on any of these topics other than to say that I would love to learn more about each of them.

Sorry in Advance March 12, 2010

The Quileute Wolf Pack Tattoo from New Moon

I understand that movies based on novels require a certain amount of sacrifices to artistic license and format.

I think the insertion of the wolf pack tattoo in the New Moon movie was mainly there to serve as an indicator of association, since the effects and shots needed to make the pack look bigger, buffer, and taller than everyone else would have been time consuming and costly.

At first I kind of liked the tattoo. I even briefly considered getting a t-shirt with the tattoo screen print. It seemed like a low key way to display my Twitardation. It also feels like something of a tradition, as I used to have a t-shirt with an Angelus tattoo on the back in honor of my beloved Angel from BtvS.

Unfortunately, the more I looked at the design, the more I realized it looked less like a wolf and more like…something else. Something that can euphemistically be referred to as “lady bits” or “vajayjay.” Scroll up and look again. I’m not crazy. It totally does.

So now, all I see when I see the wolf tattoo is bunch of dudes with lady bits on their arm. I said sorry in advance, but I’m going to say sorry again.

EDIT! 3/12/10 9:26

Now that I think about it, the wolf/vajayjay tattoo reminds me of a paradox of lycanthropy that’s been bugging me for a while. Werewolves as monsters are generally gendered male, because they’re hairy, muscular, angry, out of control, and dominant. But they’re controlled by the moon (not the Quileute pack, obviously, but SMeyer says they’re shifters, not werewolves). Moon cycles are kind of a girl thing, no? It’s weird that a “male” monster phase could basically be thought of as the worst PMS ever.

Just a bit of something to think about…