It's pretty easy to see why the Twilight movie series, including the current installment, New Moon, is so popular to the point that it is a bona fide phenomenon. It's obviously not because the premise is so exciting and original, nor is it because it is, artistically, anything approaching a cinematic tour de force. It's because it deals with a subject matter in a way that can only be described as pure escapist, romantic fantasy, and does so unabashedly.
This is a different kind of vampire flick. It comes closest to Lost Boys than to any other, but only on the barest of surface resemblances. Twilight's Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, is Dracula wearing a promise ring. He has never, nor presumably will he ever, consummate his desire for Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), but he will protect her from any other vampire, even those among his own clan, who might lust after her, such as when one of his vampire clan almost jumps her veins when she, accidentally cutting herself, flashes a bit of blood.
After this, he abandons her, breaking up with her on the grounds that, in some strange way, this is the only way he can protect her. He goes off to Italy, whereupon Bella is promptly threatened by the vengeful vampiress who wants revenge for the death of her undead lover, killed by Edward (in defense of Bella, of course) at the end of the first Twilight movie.
Since Edward is now away, Bella must turn to the mysterious brooding werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), setting up what is meant to be the ultimate romantic triangle, only we already know how that will end up. Bella loves her werewolf friend, but evidently more in the way one would love a loyal dog. Soon enough, Edward will return, and the two will be together again, and you'll have to wait until June of 2010 to see where it goes from there.
On the other hand, since the movie series has been faithful to the novels-to a fault, I dare say-it's really no big mystery.
The series has been condemned from many different perspectives, ranging from the Vatican to Miley Cyrus, and almost every movie critic in the world. In the case of Miley, who has described devotion to the franchise as a cult, it would seem to obviously be a case of sour grapes. But is the Pope's condemnation much different? His Vatican spokesman have described the film as "a moral vacuum with a deviant message", yet the movies, like the books on which they are based, seems to promote much the same values, at least insofar as concerning sexual morality, that the Pope seems to find laudable. In fact, Stephanie Meiers, who wrote the novels on which the movies are based, is a devout Mormon, and while she claims she has not written these books from a Mormon perspective, she readily admits she was influenced by her values, which she describes as life-affirming and positive, with an emphasis on light, as opposed to darkness.
True, the characters are, at least technically speaking, supernatural monsters, but they are for the most part not your father's vampires and werewolves. This is not Dracula, or Barnabas Collins, nor even is it Keifer Sutherlan from Lost Boys.
And herein is really my problem with the series. I don't begrudge the romantic fantasies of the young girls and some boys, along with an unexpectedly high number of middle-aged moms. Like I said, it's pure romantic escapist fantasy.
My main problem, in fact my only problem with it, is it represents an evolution of the vampire story in a way that is far removed from the original premise. That in itself would not be so bad, but where it gets to be troublesome is in the way it dominates the market. These things take on a life of their own, and much like the vampires they portray (or rather in this case unlike them) they suck the oxygen out of the air, and the very life-force out of any other possibilities.
Dracula, the original vampire, was never conceived as a romantic hero. He was a violent, blood-thirsty beast who presented the thinnest surface veneers of civilization. He was a predator of the most cruel, heinous variety. He was perhaps one of the oldest recurring characters in cinema to be described as "the villain you love to hate". Only, as is often the case with such descriptions, movie-makers caught on to the reality that nobody really hated Dracula. He spawned countless imitators over the years, many of them progressively watered down and romanticized.
Thus you had Barnabas Collins of Dark Shadows, who more than any other character is a perfect representative of the evolution of the vampire myth. When first introduced in the ABC sixties soap which had been struggling in the ratings, he was a cruel, savage, and yet strangely charming beast bent on murder and revenge, yet over the course of months, he was revealed to be haunted by a lost love, which inspired his vampiric curse from the wiles of a hateful, jealous witch. He soon became a tragic anti-hero, engaging in two different time traveling escapades in order to save the haunted Collins family from first one unsavory supernatural menace after another. Once he realized he had always loved the witch after all, the curse was over-and the series folded.
Now, there have been rumors the Dark Shadows saga might get a reworking, with Johnny Depp playing the role of Barnabas Collins.
In the meantime, lost is the original premise of the predatory monster who steals blood, lives, and souls in order to maintain an existence of ephemeral immortality. Maybe it's easy to see why the Pope finds the Twilight premise so disturbing after all. Evil takes a holiday in these films, in the sense that there are no clearly defined boundaries. A vampire of Twilight is not necessarily a villain. He has the same free will as any normal human. The supernatural aspects are mere window dressing for the selling of what is in reality a simple romantic saga.
Quentin Tarantino lost out early on the opportunity to strike a gold mine beyond his wildest dreams at the time he directed his 1996 film, From Dusk Till Dawn. In it, George Clooney spent the entirety of the second half of the movie fighting a Mexican strip-club full of vicious vampires that were coincidentally closer to the spirit of the original vampire premise than the vast majority of other film offerings either before then or since. Clooney's character destroyed all the vampires in the film, and managed to do so without ever being afflicted with the curse himself. Had Tarantino used his head, he might have originated a franchise that might still be on-going to this day. After all, the magic of computer generated graphics can probably do wonders for the appearance of an aging sex symbol.
And that is really what this all boils down to-sex appeal. It's so obvious it's almost embarrassing to have to remind people that there's some very serious sexual repression and maybe even rape fantasy going on here with a lot of vampire fans. I feel I might even be insulting the reader's intelligence by pointing this out, but really, I would be remiss if I did not give some lip service to the idea that women, and men, are taken by the idea of the strong and noble but savage predator taking total control of a person's very essence, controlling his victim utterly while ushering her, or him, into a state of ecstasy that is so obviously tinged with sexual overtones.
After all, how can one be blamed for such a passionate encounter when it is beyond your control? Women want to be controlled by such a creature, while men want to be that creature. That is the obvious appeal and origin of the evolution of the vampire myth.
Now we have the next step, a vampire who is willing to wait. One might ask, what's the point? Well, a vampire, theoretically immortal, can wait as long as he wants. A year would be like a day, or maybe even a second. Why not wait?
Well, the fact that he doesn't really have to says it all. Edward Cullen can have Bella any time he wants her. He knows that, and she knows that, but he chooses to wait, because he can do that too. She loves him from her heart, and her love for him is real, not coerced.
And that's just the thing that's guaranteed, at the hands of the right actor (with just the right looks, of course) to send millions of teenage girls (and middle-aged moms) into an escapist fantasy land that has probably moistened millions of panties over the last weekend, and will probably moisten millions of more in the months ahead.
And you can bet your bazookas there will be many millions of young teenage Goth boys playing the role of the angst-ridden teen vampire, or werewolf, with varying degrees of success, with young girls of all ages.
One fairly disturbing story relates how a Twilight fan was bitten on the neck, following repeated verbal abuse, by a middle-aged patron who sat behind her. I say fairly disturbing, because the story is, on the face of it, laughable, especially since the teeth marks she insisted the alleged predator inflicted on her seem to have vanished by the time she reported the incident. Was her story entirely made up? Was it just exaggerated? Was she really accosted in the way she describes? We may never know for sure, but I have my doubts.
One thing I don't doubt for a second is the potential here for mass hysteria that approaches anything the Beatles or Elvis ever dished out, and with the third highest opening of any movie (behind only Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight) it shows no sign of abating anytime soon.
(Putting on Asshole Hat)
Guys, make the most of this phenomenon. A good rule of thumb for things like this is, if you go about it the right way, you won't have to wait too long.
