It's been one day since the opening of "The Twilight Saga:
Eclipse" and
so far it's grossed around $70 million (though that's still less than "New Moon"). My question: "why?"
It certainly isn't for any literary or cinematic merit, but it
would be naïve to think that's ever the case. So it comes down to one painful
truth: women of all ages love the vampires.
As for guys, as far as I know, no heterosexual men get off on the
female vampires. Nor do I see any evidence of gay men having much interest in
the undead of either gender. It's the girls who are into it. Not just the
tweens, but the "Twilight" moms and women you'd
think had more sense and better things to think about, like Sen. Amy Klobuchar
(D-Minn.) in her questioning of Supreme Court Justice nominee Kagan.
Is it just the vampires? What about Taylor Lautner and the hot, shirtless boy werewolves? Surely
their appeal might be "eclipsing" that of cheese-faced hunk Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)? Mere puppy love, I'm thinking. There's a scene in "Eclipse"
in which Bella is scratching the ears of her lycanthropic stalker beau Jacob
(Lautner) in big bad wolf mode and he almost rolls on his back with delight. I expected him to
start marking his territory. No,
this is not an equal relationship nor one that will last. The werewolves might be a cuddly distraction, overgrown stuffed animals, but
vampire love is for keeps.
I can maybe see why the younger set is turned on. In part it
might be the allure of sexual titillation without the fear of consummation, the
same kind of thing that has inspired Beatlemania and the frightening effect of
idols from Frank Sinatra to Elvis to Michael Jackson and the latest boy bands.
They know that Edward might explode like a orgasmic bloodsucking lethal firecracker,
but they also know that in a series of books written by a Mormon housewife he
never will. The guy is, literally, a statue.
But that's not all that's driving the older set nuts. Maybe it's
the fact that Edward is a good provider - after all, he is offering eternal
life, beauty, wealth, even kids, all at the price of sucking the blood of a few
mountain lions. What sensible woman would not find him an appealing mate?
Maybe so, but vampires were sexy even
before the bowdlerized "Eclipse" version, when they were unapologetic evildoers
and malignant parasites, back in the days of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula." Nor were they good-looking. Even the grotesque spectre in F.W.
Murnau's "Nosferatu" (1922) had a way with
the babes.
And then the revenants just got
better looking through the ages. From Bela Legosi,
to Christopher Lee,
to Frank Langella,
and
even weird looking Gary Oldman
in Coppola's version of the story. Now every
vampire is a GQ cover boy.
But even the ugly ones are chick magnets.Could it be the vampire power that lures them in? It seemed to
work for Henry Kissinger.
Or maybe it's empowerment. One thing about "Twilight" that
doesn't get much attention is that Edward is Bella's ticket out of the dead end
of Forks, Washington, where she is virtually a desperate housewife tending to her dumbass
dad, who might as well be her deadbeat husband. She has no other prospects but
to fall in line with the rest of her non-vampire, dullard classmates, or get
married to lumpen, abusive Jacob and become a good squaw like the pack leader
Sam's docile, scar-faced wife Emily.
Or she can become an all-powerful vampire
herself. What to choose?
Could "Twilight" be a covert, subversive, feminist text?
That same theme of teenaged female empowerment injected fresh
blood into the vampire genre with Swedish director Tomas Alfredson's
"Let the Right One In" (2008),
which
gave the power to those who most need it - preadolescent and adolescent
schoolgirls tormented by peer pressure, bullying, gender role models, and
burgeoning hormones. So let's see how Matt Reeves's "Let Me In," the upcoming
Hollywood remake starring "Kick-Ass"'s
Chloe Moretz, scores when it opens on October 1.
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