Twilight. Twilight twilight twilight twilight. Ever just say something to where it really no longer carries any meaning? They’ve done that to us nowadays, what with brand names. Seriously, you could crow “Pepsi” til you’re blue in the face and the question remains: what the hell does it mean? And Twilight is indeed a brand name now, which is a shame because I love the evocative “time of the day word”, which has now been soiled by smug “wittier-than thou” douches who just singlehandedly invented double entendre and puns everytime I utter the word. May you all choke on your tired word, swollen egos and then bloat and die, you presumptuous fucks. Welcome readers, to In Defense of Twilight, now presented in mostly unedited, stream of consciousness fuck-nutters form for your mwt-studios.com enjoyment. [Editor’s Note: Everytime you type that URL, my power grows.] (Writer’s Note: No problem-o, Chief)

Twilight is a teen romance novel series written by Stephanie Meyer. It involves a re-vamp of vampires (see what I did there?), one of which falls in love with an “inferior” (insert proxy for whatever racial/sexual/genderific conflict you choose), Bella. That description was for you, Milo Redenborough, crouching in the damp corner of your Nuclear Fallout bunker in Schenectady, NY with earplugs and blinders.

Ever notice how it’s the Anti-Twilight people that keep bringing Twilight up? The only time I hear about people who are more hardcore fans of Twilight than the haters hating it are from said haters talking about what they’ve “seen”/”heard”/”hearsay-ed”, and it’s to make it seem like said “anti-fans” are fighting against something real, instead of flogging the proverbial dead horse. So why do the “anti-fans” keep bringing it up? It’s because people are so terrified of rejection that they cling to things culture has deemed “shitty”. This explains the new “anti-fandom” culture that exists with things such as Jersey Shore (side note: if you’re watching Jersey Shore because you want to feel superior to people that “actually” watch Jersey Shore, guess what? You’re their target demographic!) If you earnestly hate something, you would be better off ignoring it. It’s the people that make fun of Sarah Palin (or whatever talking head/trend is popular to hate) that are keeping her in the headlines. You pick it up and say “oh god, who keeps making that woman so damn famous?” YOU DID, FUCKNUTS! The magazine doesn’t care who appears on it, as long as it sells. Enjoy your facebook groups hating her, but at least admit it as a guilty pleasure, much like I am a huge fan of Duran Duran (note: only the albums “Rio” and “Seven and the Ragged Tiger”, the rest is pap). Hungry like the wolf, baby. Twilight has werewolves in it. *BAM!* Segue!

“B-b-b-b-but, The Twilight book series is nothing more than vapid, wish-fulfillment escapist fantasy!” Escapist fantasy? Isn’t that just a condescending term for “fiction”, more namely “fiction books that I don’t like”? Name calling really strengthens your argument, If we didn’t want escapism, we’d pick up books about piss-bored blokes staving off ennui and vague feelings of un-fulfillment. Much like beavers building houses out of spices: Damned waste of everyone’s thyme.

“It promotes unhealthy relationships!” I just watched a (spectacular) performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last weekend. In that play, a relationship is based on unwilling application of a mind-altering chemical so that one person submits to the unrequited/stalker-ish whims of the other. In the same play, the faerie’s relationship is held together by a chess-mastering bastard changing his wife (Stepford Dryads?) to bend to his will. If you have trouble parsing fantasy from reality… don’t read it! Let people who can enjoy something enjoy it! This is much like the argument with the legalization of marijuana in a roundabout way.

“The vampires are so stupid!” Wanna know what? At least it’s fuckin’ tryin’. “High” Fantasy is mostly an inept group of social shut-ins with undying hard-ons for history textbook writer JRR Tolkien (seriously, how many of you have read the books cover to cover?) [Editor's Note: Pistols at dawn.]Twilight’s vampires are different; not hyper-violent or hyper-sexualized like most of Bram Stoker’s thrall. Legends and myths are supposed progress and evolve over time; it was the beauty of the oral tradition and the beauty of creative thought. Even if you think Twilight’s absolute dreck, accept it as an evolutionary mutation and nothing more and just move on… uh oh, not angry enough. Need to curse more, be cool with the kids. Just move on… uh… dammit.

“It promotes Mormon ideals!” Every book has an agenda really, its own set of ideals it wants to cram down your throat. It’s just how willing you are as a reader to submit to them. What are these mysterious morals that it is corrupting the youth with? Not having sex before marriage? Are you honestly having so much difficulty getting laid where you blame your sexual inadequacies on a series of teen romance novels? Yes, I’m petty enough to insult my imaginary arguers by questioning their sexual prowess. Heh.

And it’s still getting kids to read. Call me a classicist, but books are important. People who wouldn’t have otherwise read books start with Twilight. So Twilight is a gateway book, much like the Harry Potter books were for around our generation. I liked the Harry Potter books yes, and both they and Twilight have gotten people to read more, but it seems most haters of Twilight adore the Harry Potter books. Black teapots and kettles of the selfsame color. Witness the healthy relationships, blatant wish fulfillment and escapism and Christian values in Harry Potter (he actually came back from the dead in the 7th book. (spoiler alert) If you didn’t think he was Jesus before that point…) and get off you high horse (for the discerning reader, that’s the second horse metaphor in the article. Next, I’m going to lead one to water and observe the results of my coercion to attempting to get it to drink).

I’ve heard this: “Yeah it gets kids to read, but…”

You know just acknowledging an argument doesn’t invalidate it, right?[ /digression]

“But they’re not real readers. They just read Twilight and that’s it.” First off, that’s a few more books than they would’ve read. As long as you agree that getting kids to read books is a good thing, this is a good thing. And again, the concept of the gateway thing; accessibility to aid acquisition of new fans to ensure the survival of a medium or genre. The general idea that Twilight readers aren’t “real” fans always comes off as the “I liked books before they were cool” sentiment and if you actually like books, an influx of fans of books won’t bother you. If it does, you’re not a fan of books, but rather a fan of “cool” things and you can feel free to move to the next thing that’s deemed cool. Let the fresh fans enjoy their book and let the jaded fans enjoy theirs. God knows I’m a bit of a hypocrite here what with my lapses into media elitism, but I’m tryin’ real hard to be the Shepherd there, readers.

Let me attempt to address the idea that it’s taking too much space in the collective unconscious and that history will deem Twilight a flash in the pan. If history will do so, why even bother crusading against it? Just wait it out and you’ll be proven right. If there’s one thing we can learn from history, it’s that we can try, but honestly have no clue what’s going to be acceptable and significant. The definition of significant is constantly changing with each generation. Wanna know what wasn’t accepted as high art and culture when it was released: The Canterbury Tales. It was a series of bawdy romances and heavy-handed, trope saturated tales.

And for the debate of whether the writing’s good or not, I’ll just hand it over to The Dude - Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. Certainly a good number of people think it’s what they want and the fact that this planet is packed to the gills with people means that you have the liberating choice to not have to associate with people that like Twilight books. When encountering these “untouchables”, there’s also a nigh-infinite number of things you could talk about: to borrow some ideas from REM, how about the weather? Or the government? If however, this Twilight Test is your sole judgment in the weighing of a person’s heart, you might be the asshole, Anubis.

Why even bring Twilight up now? The third movie Eclipse is coming out at the end of June and I don’t want to have to suffer a million cheap jokes about sparkly vampires choking the collective unconscious. Please fuck off and have a good summer.

-James

PS: Twilight is shite, a stygian pool of decay and isn’t tripe, but makes me yearn for aforementioned cow guts. Other name calling, bad words and things.

Wait a sec, it said unedited at the top… you want more don’tcha? Lessee what’s too hot for other places, risqué things…

Fuck.

Balls.

And just google a pair of boobies if you really want unrestricted content. (Harry the Helpful Hippo sez: *Hu-huh!* Remember to turn off safesearch, kids!)

5/5/2010
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