We’re watching Twilight right now with Nalo Hopkinson. I asked her what lessons we should take away from the movie. She pointed at the screen with sagely authority and said simply, “Don’t!”
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5 Comments(+Add)
Haha… I watched that last Friday. We were playing a drinking game. Any time a person verbally calls out something in the movie, whether it’s something stupid, bad acting, bad plot point, something that is the opposite of what would happen in a vampire story that isn’t shit, then that person has to drink. Oddly, it’s very effective. Because no one can resist it, no sensible person can stop trashing it, once those floodgates have opening.
On the other hand, you get drunk really really fast.
Girl: “You’re… beautiful”
Vampire guy: “This is the skin of a killer!”
Audience: “It’s the disco ball of death!”
Everybody drinks.
opening -> opened.
Fuck, ever since I overdosed on sprayglue fumes while trying to make muppets last week, my spelling has gone all to hell.
Lol!
Though I imagine her “Don’t” dealt with the writing/plotting quality and wasn’t a “don’t write a wildly popular series that gets turned into a wildly popular movie and nets you millions of dollars”… cause that part would be nice, of course
I watched the movie. I would have choked on the ludicrous plot had it not been so thin.
There was something to be learned about understanding a target audience. It makes sense to make such a direct parallel between something tween girls are curious about (sex) and something they understand (food).
Now, do we want to pander to tween girls? Maybe not. Many of us understand when we’re having our strings pulled and don’t like it. To me, that’s the don’t: don’t patronize your audience. And don’t do it at the expense of decent storytelling. But do give them what thy want. As a high school teacher, I can assure you that, for many, the Twilight movie was exactly what they wanted!
I’m studiously avoiding the entire franchise. It’s my friends in their thirties and forties squeeing over it (and True Blood) that have my mind made up. Make mine Buffy if it’s gonna be sexy vampires.