MOVIE REVIEW: "BREAKING DAWN"

I went to the movies to see Breaking Dawn Part 1 tonight with two of my guy friends who just happen to be engaged to one another. "We're actually paying for Prop 8 by going to this movie," one of them joked as we laughed, slowly realizing that that's what we said at the last one, too. Woops.

Chad went into the theater to get seats and Patrick and I stood in a twenty minute line for some popcorn. I looked around while we waited and was not surprised to find that we were completely surrounded by teenage and middle-aged women. We finally got through the line and made our way to the theater's entrance, where the guy ripping tickets mistook Patrick for my boyfriend.

"Enjoy your movie!" he said to me sweetly, then gave Patrick a knowing look and whispered something to the effect of, "I know, man. I know." Unable to help ourselves, I chirped excitedly, "Come on, honey!" and Patrick rolled his eyes, groaning, "I can't believe you dragged me to this."

We found our seats and soon enough, the burly theater employee who mistook Patrick for a straight man was making an announcement that the show was sold out and we'd need to all scoot in and make room for anyone who might be coming in at the last minute. The air hummed with the buzz of excited girls. The lights went down and several people applauded. The previews began, and this time it was us who found ourselves giggly and excited: if it was anything like its predecessors, this film promised to accidentally give us several good laughs.

Boy, did it deliver.

I will say this: Breaking Dawn seemed better to me than the other Twilight films. I mostly enjoyed it. Kristen Stewart seems to finally be getting the hang of this whole acting thing, and for the first time, I found Robert Pattinson to be kind of more than just mildly attractive. Hooray for them.

But I'll also say this: I laughed in parts that weren't supposed to be funny. That shouldn't happen. You don't see me cracking up in battle scenes of The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Because I'm not supposed to be laughing. And so the directors and the people who do the music and the special effects and the actors do something to make sure I'm not going to laugh. They do their jobs. 

If a pack of wolves can speak to each other telepathically, I'm pretty sure they don't do it in voices from Transformers. Because that would be silly. But it happens in Breaking Dawn. 

And you absolutely can't just throw an ending scene like that into a film A.A. (that's After Avatar, if you're wondering) and think that I'm not going to notice and be offended. That's plagiarism, people.

I'm still pissed off that we'd let someone who was supposed to be our heroine just up and get married, then knocked up at 18 and not say anything about it. Most of the issues I had with this movie stem directly from issues I have with the books, so I promise to get back on my high horse very soon and start posting weekly. There's so much to say, and watching this film has motivated me to pick up where I left off. In such a timely fashion.

So even though I did find myself ever so curiously enjoying this film much more than I thought I would ever enjoy something from the Twilight franchise, I'm still definitely on Team Get The Hell Out. 

BEHIND ALREADY

So, I wanted to post once a week, but that's not going to happen. I haven't even picked up Twilight since my last post, but can you blame me? Today I have fun pictures.

It's good to know that there are indeed female characters out there whom we can respect.

BELLA SWAN, ANNOYING

One of the most simple of issues that I have with Twilight is the absolute dislike that I have for Bella, its narrator and protagonist. There is much more to this, though, because I have disliked plenty of fictional characters in my time. In Atonement, for example, Briony Tallis makes my skin crawl with disgust, but I absolutely understand and respect why her character is there. Obviously, I don't like Scar in Disney's The Lion King or the Joker, but again, they are crucial to the plot of their respective stories. I feel that I cannot respect the ways in which Stephenie Meyer has employed this character of Bella--she is sad and pathetic and, as I am learning on this third time through the text, she's actually a mean girl.

Her negativity irks me, and I think it's alarming that as a female reader, I'm supposed to want and feel as though I may easily put myself in the shoes of this "plain Jane" and understand her. I don't and I won't.

I thought I'd share some passages from the first chapter of Twilight that I just couldn't help but mark. These are Bella's thoughts as she enters a new school where she knows no one. This is supposed to be many students' first impression of her. You tell me if this is how you act when you're trying to make friends.

On entering the building: "I can do this, I lied to myself feebly" (14).
On receiving attention from a teacher: "...of course I flushed tomato red. But at least he sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class" (15).
On getting directions from a friendly boy: "He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type" "I smiled tentatively" "Definitely over-helpful" "I sighed...A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm" "Eric walked me right to the door, though it was clearly marked" (16-17).
On having to introduce herself to the class: "I stammered, blushed, and tripped over my own boots on the way to my seat" (17).
On seeing a pretty girl in the cafeteria: "She had a beautiful figure...the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room" (18).
On learning that she must take PE: "Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth" (26).

And that's just Chapter One. This is our heroine, ladies. The belle of the ball. We're supposed to not just like this girl, but connect with her, in some way, on a personal level. We're supposed to understand her and see ourselves in her. Someone, please tell me how this is done. Until then, I'll be reading and underlining.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

More than five years ago Twilight, the first volume of a four-book series, was published and when it hit stands, what it meant to be a 14 year-old girl changed. With the first part of the final movie coming out this November, I am finding it harder and harder to hold my tounge. We live in a culture full of books, movies and music where women are still objectified, where good men are viewed as boring, where drama and heartache and emotional abuse are invited and welcome into the lives and relationships of the characters we grow to love. We are a product of what we read and watch, but we aren't stupid. It's time for us to acknowledge what's out there and challenge it.

I came across these books when I was in college, and as a 20 year-old reader, I had already experienced what it was like to be in a good relationship versus a bad relationship. As an English major who was spending her days reading William Wordsworth, Charlotte Brontë, and Tim O'Brien, I also knew that Stephenie Meyer was a poor writer. But still, I found myself getting sucked in. My roommates and I read the "saga" simultaneously, often times late into the night. We'd finish a chapter and run across the apartment, demanding page numbers from each other or wondering excitedly, "Did you just read that?" The characters are simple, and while I find protagonist Bella Swan nothing short of pathetic and irritating, I understand how an insecure pre-teen might find it easy to put herself in Bella's shoes. And with a "heroine" like Bella, who literally throws herself off of a cliff after being broken up with and stranded in the woods by the man she loves, I must say that aiming these books and their characters at an impressionable young audience is both irresponsible and disrespectful.

We are taught and learn from a young age not only to enjoy, but to seek out drama--often times even mistaking it for passion. This is wrong. In Meyer's defense, it's not just Twilight: Something in our culture teaches us that constantly fighting with your significant other while simultaneously not being able to live without them is not only cool, but important. We've got The Notebook, where Noah and Allie are supposed to be soul mates but can't manage to make it five minutes without Noah screaming and Allie punching him, we have Lady Gaga in a sexy costume claiming that "when it comes to love, if it's not rough it isn't fun," and we have ridiculous songs like last year's Love the Way You Lie, which asks its listener, "you ever love somebody so much, you could barely breathe when you with 'em?" Because that's love, people. There are so many more examples to add to this list, and I hope to do that, but for now, these are the ones that have disturbed me the most.

So let's get to it.