Thursday, July 15, 2010

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Bed...

Everybody's into the whole vampire thing. The craze, started by a book written by Stephanie Meyer, has been going on for about 5 years, and I just never understood it.

I mean, I was always attracted to The Bad Boy as avidly as is anyone with double-X chromosomes, but when the vampire with smoldering (golden) eyes & glittery body and his Native American enemy crashed onto and destroyed the literary scene, I was righteously disgusted. It was my duty as a former English lit. major to stand up for elevated prose, for goodness sake!

But before long, every Earth woman above the age of 2 had either read the first Twilight book or had it read to them by their panting mother, sister, Aunt, Grandmother, or babysitter, and I swiftly and firmly moved from disgust to anger.

Didn't these women know how silly they acted? Getting all swoony over a stupid vampire named Edward Cullen? I was embarrassed for them. And besides, c'mon! If you're looking for a hunk, check out that Malfoy kid from the last Harry Potter movie! He doesn't need any glitter, baby!

But I digress.

I finally decided I had no business judging something I had not seen, so I gave in & watched the first movie made of the series: Twilight. And I hated it. Loathed it. I thought it was the worst movie I'd seen in my life. Bad special effects, badly-acted characters, sketchy plot.

Then my dear, innocent, impressionable young daughter (oh, okay, she's 25) read Twilight and, although she disliked the movie as well, enjoyed the novel and convinced me to read it. I didn't loathe it as I did the movie, but I didn't much like it. You'd think that the author was a 12 year old girl rather than a religious mother of several young children. The drool almost seeps from her lengthy and repeated descriptions of how delicious and sexy and amazing and handsome and scary and dangerous Edward is. I think I even spit up into my mouth a few times.

So why, oh why, did I go to the last movie, Eclipse? I guess I really WANTED to like it. It was surprisingly unbad! However, my feelings about Edward have not changed. He might glitter. He might run fast. He might smolder. He might even look nice when he threateningly sneers at the Native American boy - who turns out to be (tick tick tick) A WEREWOLF....

but I, Patricia Underwood, now howlingly swear my allegiance to Jacob forevermore.