Cool it, Meyer fans. I'm actually speaking up for the craze this time.I have this issue with snobbery. I like to consider myself a recovering elitist. This applies to those situations outside of human relations. I was once a music snob. I was a movie snob. That's toned down, some. But the literary snob in me is still floating there on the surface. It's a bit expected, though. Being an English Lit major, it's a an occupational hazard. And thus I was thrust into a program that often had me forgetting one half of arts and entertainment: the ENTERTAINMENT!
Whether happily or begrudgingly fed literary classics and expected to discuss and research and analyze ad nauseum, I've been trained to look for that which is hidden, things not expressed by the definitions of the parts (the words) but those hidden beneath the text in the author's subconscious. I look for things everywhere, even when it's not there. But not every dog-eared paperback tossed on to the floor from my bed has to be an in-depth study. It doesn't have to be an artistic work designed to push boundaries and ask questions and force the reader to question one's own set of morals and the life he has led. Sometimes it just has to give us a magnificent mental picture, one so vivid and so lively that there is almost no question as to what the writer wants you to see. And sometimes it just has to fit into a pattern that has been proven repeatedly to provoke a captive audience and draw us fiercely into the story that we become emotionally involved with the lives of characters who now exist in the minds of millions of strangers. There is significant artistic merit in both of those abilities.
The latter is what Meyer's books are. This is what the Twilight series was meant to do. One thing cannot be argued, no matter how unskilled of a writer she is or how trite -- or sometimes, bogus -- her ideas may be. If Meyer is anything she is a woman with a decent understanding of what young women generally want in a fantasy. Beyond that, she knew how to present this idea in a package so pretty and inviting that her influence has reaches none of us were expecting. True, this is a collection of novels that were quite obviously written in very little time, with not much thought and almost no research. More, it did scream "debut novel by an inexperienced and unlearned writer". It is brainless, effortless reading and that cannot be argued. But only the pretentious and the image-conscious are afflicted with the problem of demanding constant, elevated, cerebral stimulation. And pretentious and image-conscious are not anywhere on my list of attractive traits. Rather, I tend to believe that it's the person most secure with himself that is able to let go and accept stimuli with an open mind. Even intelligent people enjoy brainless entertainment. Sometimes it's exactly what the intellectual needs.
I have many criticisms of the books and subsequent movies, some of which are directly related to its commercially formed content and fancy packaging. The first being in that such a pretty package, it's lost all sense of reality. While it could be argued that the point of fantasy is to be an escape from reality, the fact is that in every work of fiction -- fantasy or reality-based-- the author's aim is to show a sense of humanity. That's the one part that connects the reader to the plot. All of our favorite fantasy characters, good or evil, represent some connection. Meyer's characters didn't do that for me. Their alleged love for each other was overridden by a sense of biological need devoid of actual chemistry or an attraction that makes any sort of sense. It had me questioning how deep this love would be had Edward not been a vampire and had Bella's blood not been so enticing. There was little explanation in the way of why her blood was so smelly or the fact that Edward could not read her mind, emphasizing that sense of an uncontrollable lust. Perhaps this carnal attraction was a metaphor for the emotional desire that becomes a physical need in our idea of real-life love. But her emphasis seemed misdirected and not very artistically expressed. Thus that has become my only real criticism for the works as a whole. My bottom line is that Meyer is not a skilled writer. She is, however, skilled at understanding the young female mind and that is the crux of these works.
Another criticism is the Edward and Jacob love among the female population. Going back to the target audience, I understand immediately why teenage girls developed wild crushes on these characters. Then these crushes took over an older female population and that had me a bit confused. Except, really, it's not that strange. All I need to do is catch some movies from the 90's starring Christian Slater or Stephen Dorff and I am instantly that teenage girl, semi-giddy of the men who were to be the loves of my life. It's more than a flashback. Those crushes were arguably more intense than any recent attraction to Jason Statham and Gerard Butler. And that girl is still in me somewhere. There is a part of me still attracted to Jordan Catalano (I have my own issues with strange attraction, shut up.) Besides, there is the simple fact that men seem to be above reproach when it concerns younger-than-average objects of attraction. Why shouldn't an older woman understand that draw of a young, mysterious man if for no other reason than Edward and Jacob seem to try a whole lot harder than the average grown man? Let's face it, while men love to laugh at our silly childish fantasies, the reality is that the average man could stand to learn a thing or two from Edward Cullen. As if male fantasies aren't just as silly and eye-roll worthy.
Among all of that, there seems to be one source of disfavor among the anti-Twilightians and that has to do with the theory of vampire folklore canon. This is actually the one part of the harsh criticism of Meyers' novels that I disagree with vehemently. The vampire purists are claiming that Meyers raped the image of vampires with Edward's sparkly skin and ability to love a human beyond blood-lust. They call into question how a vampire would be able to deny his own nature as what should be a predatory creature. They are disturbed with the way Meyer has changed the genre. And I say that these self-proclaimed vampire purists know very, very little about the mythos.
Vampires, as we know them, have not been around for very long. This alleged canon is barely a couple centuries old. Garlic, mirrors, graves, the ability to shapeshift into an animal, the aversion to sun, superhuman strength, all of it is a recent occurrence in a world with tales and legends that are often thousands of years old. While it is true that vampire-like creatures have existed for ages, they were hardly anything like any of the vampire characters we've seen in movies or read in books. With 19th century writers such as John Polidori and Bram Stoker, a new creature was born, one that most people associate with the notion of vampire.
So the question remains: If Stoker and Polidori and their contemporaries could change the idea of vampires, from the those that existed for centuries before, and create this brand new character that we now recognize, why can't Meyer do the same? Where do we draw the line as far as how mythos is changed? Why are there limits?
And really, are sparkly vampires that much sillier than an aristocratic Dracula? I think not.
There is, however, one thing I'd like the fans to consider when dealing with those of us who are not fans. Just keep in mind, while more mature fans probably resent being lumped into the same category as little girls with curfews and Algebra homework, we don't always like being associated with the rest of the people who dislike Twilight. Not everyone is cut from the same cloth of forced non-conformity in an attempt to be interesting. While it's pretty lame to jump on a bandwagon of trend and popularity, it's equally as lame to join the ranks of critics just because something is popular. I know that. I'm fully capable of having reasons to dislike any work of art based on my own experiences and thoughts.
So while I'll never be one willing to spend a single cent on the series or anything that comes from it, and I have no problems admitting that had I a daughter, I'd probably shield her from the Twilight mania if only to save myself from the residual exposure, and though I know that I went into reading the books and watching the movie with a full helping of skepticism, I am not above understanding the hype. I don't agree, per se. But I get it. I'd just rather return to sender after having got it.
And here I wait for a modern vampire story and movie I can actually get behind that didn't come from a comic book (Blade was truly awesome). I really appreciate the legend behind vampires and the legends that were its predecesor. I just wish that someone would put it all together in something I appreciate so I can move beyond German expressionism and find that connection I mentioned before. Because there ain't a damn person in any of my social circles that wouldn't look at me strangely as I weep and sob over an almost century-old silent film.
F.W. Murnau has some explaining to do.
Now that's what I call a vampire. 
No comments:
Post a Comment