New Moon Review

This Twilight thing keeps on keepin' on. I have to say, as unhappy as I was with the books, I'm still a vampire geek, and must see the films. I'm invested. And I don't go into them thinking, "oh god, this crap is going to be torture." I don't even go into them too snarkily. But it was an interesting movie, for a number of reasons. For one thing, the special effects were better, and Bella's character got to experience a wider range of emotions.

This is the film where we figure out that Jacob is a werewolf, and that his werewolf pack hunts vampires. They are pretty bad at it, so far, but they are new. I thought it was bad form to show them in the trailer, because in the book, Jake's behavior and that of his friends was such a mystery, and when you found out (even though you totally knew because, hello, vampires always have werewolves hanging about), it was an emotional and exciting moment. Way to spoil it, movie.

Now, say you're a gal who just realized vampires exist, and that you're dating one. After he broke up with you, you were bummed, but you started to hang out with this other guy. And all of the sudden, this new guy tries to break it off with you. So you confront him and he turns into a werewolf. My first reaction would be something like, "Are you freaking serious??! You've got to be kidding me!" But nothing like that happens here. No snarky Buffy moments, even when they are sooo ripe for the picking. It was a bit sad. Some humor here and there would have been nice. Bella does have one joke, wherein she tells Edward that he's too old for her and it's "gross." Only one chuckle the whole movie!

I did love Dakota Fanning in this movie. She's in it for maybe 5 minutes, as one of the Volturi, and I absolutely loved her take on it. She has grown some since I last saw in her in anything, which works great for the role, since she's supposed to be an old vampire in a child's body. She's got kid face still, but with the makeup, she's freaky mature. Child vampires are always creepy, and are pretty much used in every epic vampire tale. Anne Rice of course created Claudia, and the Anita Blake books had a freaky girl-vamp named Nikolaos. I hope the next movie goes into the Dakota Fanning character more. Her ability to inflict pain with her thoughts is scary.

The other Volturi were....how can I put this. LAME. What is it about vampire movies that make vampire councils so out of time/place. I get that old vampires would have trouble adjusting to modern times, but I just can't imagine someone surviving very long if they look like these dudes. Someone's gonna figure it out, fools. Get a spray tan and watch some TV. Get yourself acclimated. Damn.


Vampire Mythology:
In this film we learn some things about Twilight vampire myth. We already know these vampires aren't sun-phobic, and they don't have fangs (which is such a huge thumbs down for me, btw). They don't need to be invited into your house. Garlic is a non-issue. Stephanie Meyer claims she never read any vampire books. It shows. Apparently, these vamps are very hard to kill. No stake through the heart. Edward complains that he couldn't kill himself if he wanted to. I think you can decapitate them, but it's tough to actually do it. Most things don't survive decapitation, so that makes sense.

The younger vamps have the hardest time being around blood. Jasper sees Bella's paper cut and goes apeshit, leading Edward to dramatically make everyone leave town and abandon Bella, which makes little sense, given that Jasper goes to high school, where presumably all kinds of scrapes, cuts, and menstruation are happening around him all the time. WTF movie?

They aren't very vampirey, other than that they are super fast and pale. Could we at least see how they eat? What they do for food? If they have such beautiful outfits on all the time, and they don't have fangs, and they need blood---what do they do? Drain animals/humans and store the blood in something sanitary? Sip from glasses?

Bella is, well, just like the books in that she has no personality. Her only concern is her boyfriend. And when she talks to him, we don't get the sense that she asks much of him. I'd be doing a big giant interview about what it's like to be a vampire, you know? And I'd sure as hell ask some more questions before deciding to become one. When he leaves her, she stops existing. She sits in her room, becomes deeply depressed, has hallucinations about Edward that only appear when she's doing something dangerous. She of course, tries to encounter danger so that these apparitions return. She is an incredibly weak female character, and in a movie that is mostly talk, she asks few questions and makes almost no demands. She gets sad, not angry. Does she have likes? Dislikes? Opinions on stuff? I read four huge giant books and I don't think I retained any of those things about her. This is sad, but it also makes a great deal of sense, if you think about it.

I get why teenage girls love this story, even though it makes me sad that they do. Most stories provide a function beyond entertainment. This one is no different. It says a lot about teen girls and the intensity of romance during adolescence.

Bella's absence of a personality, of things that make her an individual, make it very easy to identify with the character and think of yourself as her. There's no there there, so you can easily fill it with you. Bella is a girl who seems to think she's boring, not special, not important. Every teenager feels that way. Hell, I'm 32 and I feel that way most days! And lo and behold, this very boring, non-special girl is the object of a very special guy's attention. A guy who is very beautiful and has seen a lot of pretty ladies in his day. This guy is fascinated with her like she's the most unique thing in the universe. That's a fantasy we all have, to be thought of as irreplaceable, unbelievably precious and admired. Especially during the teen years, when you really don't know who you are yet. And this guy's attraction is not about sexual conquest.

Edward never makes sexual demands of her, and in fact, refuses her often. Imagine having a super chivalrous, protective, strong, gorgeous guy who likes you for-get this-you. Girls are so often expected to be enforcers of purity in this culture. If you "let" intimacy occur, you are the slut, he's the stud. It's something we learn very early. So even though girls have real sexual desire, it's all too often complicated by expectation (on the one hand) to be sexually available enough to be considered attractive to guys, and (on the other) not to be too sexually available so as to be respectable to everyone else. That's totally hellish for most girls. Here we have a guy who doesn't put her in the position of being the enforcer, of drawing that line. As an adult (and a feminist) it bothers me that he takes that choice away from her, but I can see how liberating it might feel for a girl to have a guy who voices her fears back to her of the dangers sex might bring to a young relationship. This is also why the film stays so dramatic and intense, and never goes into the sarcastic place that most teen films go. It's on the same emotional level as many teens, and to snark it up would be to undercut the sincerity of those feelings.

What its popularity says to me is that young girls need feminism, because this guy Edward is so popular because he doesn't exist. He can't exist in this world. He wouldn't be rewarded for existing, anyway. You'd pretty much have to go to high school a few times to do it with Edward's attitude (which, given that he's 109, is probably the case). And I don't even want him to exist. He makes choices for Bella because he feels he knows what's best, and she's too afraid of him leaving to make a peep about them.

Are these the choices young women have? Behind door number one, the guy who wants you for your body, fears perceptions of weakness by other men and thus shuns any kind of emotional intimacy. This is the guy who is most often presented as being "normal" in popular culture. A very rigid and unsatisfying definition of manhood, if you ask me. Behind door number two, the sensitive guy with feelings who loves you so much he's afraid to ruin you (in Edward's case, kill you) by sleeping with you. There is a place between overbearing chivalry and objectifying misogyny, you know. It would be cool if real people went to that place. I'd at least like my vampire romances to go there.