Subscribe"When you read the book," says Pattinson, looking appropriately pallid and interesting even without makeup, "it's like, 'Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.' I mean, every line is like that. He's the most ridiculous person who's so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn't do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that's how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he's a 108-year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."And an interview with E! Online:
Pattinson: Well, I mean, I think people -- there's a thing about the books where, uh, when I was reading them, I, ugh, I didn't know how to read it from, you know, teenage g-- or any woman's perspective, I guess. I don't really know why they like it. But what I thought was weird about it, the, what, the reaction I had with it was ... umm.... When I read it, it seemed like (grimaces) I was convinced that ... Stephenie was ... convinced that she was Bella, and uh, and you, it wasn't, it was like it was a book that wasn't supposed to be published, like reading her ... her sort of sexual fantasy about some -- especially when she says that it was based on a dream, and it's like, "Oh, then I had a dream about this really sexy guy" and she just writes this book about it, and there's some things about Edward that are just so specific that it's like, I was just convinced that, that this woman is mad, she's completely mad, and she's in love with her own fictional creation and I -- sometimes you, like, feel uncomfortable reading this thing, and I think a lot of people feel the same way, that it's kind of voyeuristic, ah, and it creates this sick pleasure in a lot of ways. But then it kind of introduces a lot of the, the action elements and it's very honest and really really honest and that's kind of what's weird about it.(Both links via Cleolinda's heroic devotion to chronicling the madness.)
Subconsciously, my mind was saying "GET TO THE FUCKING ALREADY!" and once my conscious mind figured that out, I was like "This book was written by a Mormon. There will be no fucking." And then, admittedly, I was a little annoyed. I almost wanted to write the sex scenes myself.-- If I could review "Twilight" (the book) in three letters, they would be "WTF"
Every time SMeyers would write about Edward, I would just boggle. She was drawing from everything we Mormons were taught about Good Ol' Joe - he was handsome, shockingly so, he could draw you in with just his presence, let alone when he spoke, down to his freaking nose and hair color. HI THERE CREEPY AUTHOR WANTING TO BONE YOUR PROPHET. (I have no problem with bible slash, etc. Just... I don't think she knows she's doing it.) [...]There's a whole lot more (book two, book three, book four), and it's quite an entertaining read both on its own as a Twilight rant/synopsis and if you want the perspective of how a (former?) Mormon views the whole Twilight thing (Spoiler: IT"S ALL ABOUT Mormonism), but... Yeah, I can't hear anything about the books OR Meyer without immediately thinking "Stephenie Meyer had a sex dream about Joseph Smith and millions off of it." So there's that.
She is delicious, delicious meat to him, but he will hold back because she is the one, and although he doesn't understand it, he has waited almost 100 years for her. They were meant to be. Just like how Mormons believe they picked their spouses and families in the "pre-existence."
Edward is pure white (and delightsome. See: Book of Mormon's drumbeat that perfect, righteous people are white, or will be PERFECTED IN HEAVEN and made white. No, really. Six times it says that in particular.) and is hard as marble and smart as a crack on the cheek and cold as a bag of frozen peas. And when he steps into the sun, he DAZZLES! Without jazz hands!
Edward also doesn't believe in open mouth kissing, swearing, chewing tobacco, drinking caffeine, and enjoys time with his family. HE IS THE PERFECT MORMON BOY.[...]
Perfection = a constant drum beat in the Mormon church. You aren't supposed to try to be perfect, you are supposed to be perfect. Your family is the key to this, your family is the key to everything. Your happiness and most importantly, your backstage pass to get into the Penthouse Suite of Heaven where you live forever. Hey, what does that sound like? (One apostate can keep the whole family from heaven!)
Everyone in Edward's family is: you guessed it, perfect. They all look like they stepped out of a catalog. [...]
She goes back trying to convince Edward to dry hump her, which seriously: that would bruise. He's marble, remember? Edward isfeya gentleman and will not do anything unseemly, so they snuggle for like, eight pages or some shit. SMeyers is a total cock block, and I'll tell you something else: the fact that it is always EDWARD (the righteous white male priesthood holder) that controls the situation is so steeped in the church, I can't even begin. The male needs to be in charge and set the tone, because ladies are either unable to be turned on because of how holy they are, or need the strong, but firm and loving hand of their priesthood holder to guide them. BLECH.
But the idea that the Cullen wealth holds no appeal to Bella, when it is Bella herself who draws so much attention to it in her first-person narration, just doesn’t stand. When, at the end of the fourth book, she finally admits a little pleasure in the jaw-dropping, head-turning spectacle that this wealth allows her to become, it feels like she is finally admitting what she’s felt and wanted all along—a pleasure that anyone, most especially a teenage girl, would feel:He took the calf-length ivory trench coat I’d worn to disguise the fact that I was wearing Alice’s idea of appropriate attire, and gasped quietly at my oyster satin cocktail gown. I still wasn’t used to being beautiful to everyone rather than just Edward. The maitre d’ stuttered half-formed compliments as he backed unsteadily from the room.Of course, the idea here is that it’s (spoiler alert) Bella’s newly enhanced physical beauty that stuns the man (she’s become a vampire at this point, and vampires are more beautiful in order to attract their prey, i.e. humans), but Meyer/Bella lingers on the clothes—the things money can buy.
Bella’s compulsive observation of the Cullens’ beauty and their beautiful things does not come to seem a metaphor for spiritual superiority but a conflation of material wealth, physical beauty, and moral elevation.
Are Twilight fans really going to sci-fi conventions and stuff? I mean, it seems to me from the women that I've known or seen at cons or in comic book stores or whatever would have no interest in Twilight.Yes and no. Apparently they're going to the ones of Comic-Con proportions and people are getting thoroughly bent over it. And don't even get the indie kids started on the soundtrack! Talk about a your-favorite-not-so-underground-band-just-sold-out-to-Twihards debacle, golly.
Wordless, intensely emotional and undeniably sexual – this is the state in which teenage girls are understood to connect with music, and with those performing it. It is all in their bodies: they do not intellectualise; their opinions are instinctive rather than considered. Without rational judgement or the ability to articulate it, a teenage girl will always be a fan, never a critic.Though I think she's being optimistic in saying that only teenage girls are figured this way; as far as I can tell, it doesn't stop when women grow older.
I don't think so. I posted two different sources that criticized an "invasion" of hormone-driven Twilight readers into fandoms. One of them started from the premise that women are like unicorns in the fandom, the other started from the premise that women threatened the market for "Big Idea" science fiction.Well, who cares about fandom? I'm sure these guys would like more women to be going to cons and stuff, but isn't it entirely possible that people who aren't put off by the retrograde social attitudes also don't like the fact that it's crap. A lot of these guys love "buffy" and stuff. Anyway I don't exactly follow fandom, but was there a similar complaint about all the women who loved Harry potter (which was also written by a woman)? My impression is no, although there might a small minority of complainers.
that the author is so worried about. (And yes, I assume his gender is male. Sue me. ) He basically labels everything he dislikes as "feminine". Any Star Trek other than the original? Feminine and PC.Of course, the original Star Trek was all about being "PC".
Meyer's commitment to satisfying that need hasn't gone unrewarded. In the first quarter of 2009, Twilight novels composed 16 percent of all book sales -- four out of every 25 books sold were part of the series. The final installment, Breaking Dawn, sold 1.3 million copies on the day of its release in August 2008.That's an aside in this article.
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HE TURNS INTO A WOLF BECAUSE OF HIS NATIVES AMERICAN CURSE BUT IT IS ALSO A BLESSING
ALSO HE CUTS HIS HAIR BUT I THINK HE LOOKS GOOD BOTH WAYS
GO TEAM JACOB!~!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Greg Nog at 9:31 AM on November 18, 2009 [13 favorites]