:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: @ the inside of panties. :stongue:
Domesticated
Domesticated
Here's a sentence I never could've guessed I'd be writing: A publicity photo of a shirtless Taylor Lautner convinced me to read the entire "Twilight" saga.
I should probably elaborate on that, huh?
A few months back, Summit Entertainment's publicity machine made a big deal out of its first group shots of the "New Moon" werewolves. In any other genre film, this would mean a "money shot" either of CGI creations or actors in extensive makeup appliances. In "Twilight," however, this means a handful of young male actors, uniformly bronze-skinned (Twilight's werewolves are all Native Americans) and model-buff, standing around aloof and shirtless. Just as uniform as their look was the reaction of male movie-geeks, including yours truly:
"Heh! This looks like gay porn!"
Now, for those of you who don't speak "guy" fluently, "looks like gay porn" is sexually-insecure-straight-male for "I immediately recognize that this depiction of the masculine figure is intended to be arousing, and said recognition makes me uncomfortable." Thus, having caught myself in a less-uncharacteristic-than-I'd-like-it-to-be moment of Tucker Max behavior, I found myself faced with a question: "Is this what women have been trying to tell me all this time?"
Let me first explain: There's no getting around the fact that these visions of the Twilight werewolves are patently ridiculous, even more so when you consider the pretzel-logic behind their existence: In "Twilight," werewolves are humans who flash-morph into truck-sized canines, so they go about shirtless and in sweatpants so they can quick-strip and avoid having to constantly buy new clothes. The question, of course, as to WHY this magical-transformation can't simply also explain the vanishing/reappearing of clothing (it makes just as much sense as several hundred extra pounds of muscle and bone appearing out of nowhere after all) need not be asked, as it is likely rather obvious: The "Twilight" engine runs on (heterosexual) female lust, and having it work this way allows author Stephanie Meyer an in-plot excuse to send a whole team of tanned, toned boys galloping near-naked through the woods. It's fetishism and objectification; nothing more, nothing less.
In other words, the same thing that the rest of "genre fiction" (read: science-fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) has been doing to its female characters since the first cro-magnon stepped back from his cave-painting and, after a moment's consideration, concluded, "Yeah, those could stand to be bigger."
It was dawning on me, then, that myself and every other male geek currently rolling our eyes at the laughably-obvious, pandering sexual-objectification of these "Playgirl werewolves" had at many times throughout our geek-existence been confronted (or, at least, needled) by our she-geek female compatriots about the laughably-obvious, pandering sexual-objectification of...well, damn near every depiction of the female form in geek culture.
And you know what? If we even tried to defend the point, we probably fell back on explanations and excuses every bit as shaky and transparent as "Twilight"'s nonsense about its wolf men's limited wardrobe budget: "In this future, spacesuit-polymers can be skin-tight and sufficiently-protective!" "Power Girl's costume has what amounts to a cleavage-window because she's still deciding on a logo!" "Female ninjas probably would use their sexuality as a weapon!" "Women in medieval-fantasy don't need to armor anything but their nipples and crotch, cause their fighting-styles rely on flexibility! Especially the Elven Wenches!"
Long story short, this moment of clarity (or, at least, objectivity) got me to thinking that maybe I ought to try and actually read through the saga from this same perspective, i.e. "is this really that much worse than similarly silly franchises aimed more at, well, me?" Answer: Yes, yes it is. No amount of perspective or extra effort on my part (or anyone's part) can turn Stephanie Meyer into a better writer or help her creations rise above the level of the absolute worst kind of genre-fiction - something discovered too late by directors Katherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz and soon-enough David Slade. (But this isn't the place to dwell on that - you want a thorough-savaging of the franchise itself, go watch the review.)
I bring these three disparate threads together - "Twilight" being awful yet massively popular, "Twilight's" sexual-objectification of its male characters and the rest of geek-culture's sexual-objectification of women - because I've come to regard them as interconnected: Female-targeted fetish-objects like the Twi-wolves (I'm blanking as to whether or not they had an official group-name) look preposterous to the mainstream (read: male) geek audience because the amount of geek-culture material actually aimed at a female audience is scandalously small, and that's why crap like "Twilight" is able to become so popular - nature abhors a vacuum.
It's the same principal by which Tyler Perry has made his ill-gotten fortune: Hollywood has done such a poor job in creating entertainment that appeals to the African-American middle class that almost any sufficiently well-marketed entry into the void was going to turn a profit. Just as Perry's terrible films (and plays, and TV shows) stake their claim by being the only game in town for black audiences looking to see their community onscreen in something other than a low-end comedy (looking at you, Martin Lawrence) or "gangsta" shoot-em-up; "Twilight" offers younger female genre fans a world that, however shabbily-constructed, speaks to their perspective, experiences and fantasies (romantic or otherwise) in a way that almost nothing else on the radar does.
Face it, the vast majority of sci-fi and fantasy fare - and I mean books, movies, videogames, comics, and so forth - are written by and for men and boys. That doesn't mean they don't have female fans - far from it - but do take note that it's a one-way street: The modern geek universe is littered with fellow travelers of the fairer sex who've found something to relate to in the ostensibly testosterone-dripping realms of the X-Men, or Star Wars with its instantly-erect laser swords and near-helpless slavegirl princesses; and the newer incarnations of quintessential boy-and-his-toys hero Dr. Who certainly have their lady admirers, but how often do you really hear about a female-targeted franchise crossing-over with men? (And no, "Buffy" doesn't count: "Hot high-school chicks wrestling with monsters" was aimed at guys to start with; that Joss Whedon is a good enough writer that his geek fetish-doll heroines were genuinely relatable to women doesn't change that fact.)
When it seems like nobody is paying attention to you, the slightest bit of attention paid by anyone can seem like a huge deal - come to think of it, it's often one of the first things however-unconsciously noted by real-life "Bella Swans" right before they wind up in abusive, co-dependent relationships with the first real-life "Edward Cullen" who shows something resembling interest.
Now, am I saying that all this context somehow justifies or minimizes the blight of "Twilight?" Hell, no! In a way, I think it makes it worse. Bad art is just bad art, but what Stephanie Meyer (and her publisher, and Summit) are doing amounts to selling tainted water to an audience that's dying of thirst in the desert. Plus, they're driving down the value of the genre even further by occupying it. Anyone trying to pitch a good female-centric supernatural romance franchise will inevitably have their work compared to "Twilight" and taken less seriously as a result.
So while it's all good and fun to bag on Meyer's crappy books and their goofier fangirls, just keep in mind how hard it is out there for the women of geekdom. Their own culture relegates them to the subgenre-ghetto, and the "Twilights" of the world grow fat and wealthy keeping them there.
coolestrl
LMFAO
leph555
yukii
quote:
Originally posted by coolestrl
LMFAO
i watched that mainly for the fake accent :stongue: so good.
Lebezniatnikov
Kind of related, but I laughed so hard while reading this:
quote:
From time to time, particularly when it is taking off for the rest of the day, The Awl offers its space to normal, everyday people with a perspective on national issues. Today, we’re pleased to once again present you with Walt Fruttinger, an Applebee’s franchisee who at this time has some thoughts about the kids today.
If you lick your index finger and hold it up to the winds of pop culture at the moment, you’re going to find a strong current of vampire blowing your way. Fanged creatures are all over the place right now, and most of them are “teenaged” creatures who are “hot” aimed at hordes of teenagers who are not. So, what do they have in common? Both groups are sullen and brooding. Only the thing is, the vampire ones are what every teenager wants to be: dangerous. And, as previously stated, the vampire ones are also much more attractive than, uh, the real thing.
My question is this: is being a normal teenager right now so goddamn tough that you need to rely on delving into a world of some fictional, fantastical, blood-drinking powers to assuage or come to terms with the pile that your real life is? I hope not. Now, I understand that puberty is a multi-tentacled typhoon, sprinkling a hail of zits on your face, while leaving behind a wake of stray, unwarranted boners in your shorts, and awkward social situations that make you want to vomit and kill someone(s). You have some responsibility, no power and very little money. If you’re a girl, you want to be feminine, but you don’t want every mouthbreathing clod to glom onto you, giving indelicate squeezes to your emerging boobs and asking if you’re turned on. And if you’re a boy, you spend 14 hours a day trying to get a gym sock pregnant. School sucks. No one understands anything about you, and your parents are either drunks or squares.
Still.
When I was a teenager, there weren’t vampires (unless you count Lost Boys and that was a Corey-laden bag of crap), and there wasn’t texting, and there were not blogs and digital armies of friends ready to champion or bully your feeble ideas and jokes. If we wanted to revert to a fantasy world, there was a hill we climbed, a bonfire we lit, blackberry brandy we drank, and lots of ditchweed to smoke. There’s nothing like the isolated bubbling of water emanating from a three-foot bong, as smoke collects in its chamber, with your thumb on the carb and your other hand ready to yank the stem, knowing that very soon every single problem in your life will disappear, and your only care in the universe will be pursuing a still-warm bag of caramel corn from the stand at the mall. Now that’s magic! And no one needed to be bitten. All the of the answers to life’s mysteries resided in the Faces of Death video series and also in Black Sabbath records. Even some of the lyrics of Dennis DeYoung of STYX.
Here’s another thing. I was called “ButtFrutt” for most of my tenure in high school. So I know something about being an ostracized loser. I wrestled in the heavyweight class and someone soiled my uniform with a melted Zagnut candy bar in the crotch on a road trip. They put the chocolate bar right in the taint of the suit, and then put my gymbag on one of the bus’s heaters.
“Here, Walt. Your tights will be warm for the match.”
“Thanks, friend.”
So, upon its discovery, I was given Gregg Curtis’s 144-lb-class unitard, after he had hexed it, by losing his match (he was fond of holding up both of his hands and wincing in the direction of his opponent once the ref got things under way), and it was dripping with sweat, and me being 175-lb, and a bit too big for it, I promptly split the “ass” of the suit wide open when I went for a Greco hammerlock on my opponent. The scorekeeper was drinking a Rondo pop at the time and all I remember was seeing it shoot in long arcs from his nostrils. It was a terrible bus ride back to Bozeman, and not because I had to forfeit my match. Thank God there were no digital cameras or Facebook photo journals to capture the humiliation, although I was not 18 and so whomever posted an image like that could have been subject to child porn laws and I might have made a killing in a lawsuit. Fruttinger v. Board of Ed or something.
My point is, did I get home, cry, and then race out and see a vampire movie? Or bury myself in some book about some fangy ******s exacting some revenge for the existential pain experienced by getting hair on their privates? No. I took a giant pinch of Skoal chewing tobacco, pleasured myself, did four swatters of some ganja that a friend’s older brother had procured in Boulder, and then rode my ten speed over the arcade and put my quarters up on the Dig Dug machine and waited for someone to tell me where the keg party was.
It was along wait, because I didn’t have many friends, and the ones I did spread the ButtFrutt story like wildfire. And social gatherings consisted of people mooning me, or re-enacting my wrestling match, and kids from other schools drawing obscene pictures on bed sheets and holding them up at future wrestling matches. But still. I didn’t need a really intense vampire story. Kids were more into dragons then, I guess. And since there weren’t real fire-breathing dragons, of course, I quietly took it upon myself to capture a little bit of their power, when I later burned down a dozen horse barns in the area. And also a grocery store. And a florist’s shop. But a lot of that is ‘cause I was on drugs and listening to heavy metal. But I felt better. Don’t you see my point? I wasn’t some moody little ******.
"If you’re a girl, you want to be feminine, but you don’t want every mouthbreathing clod to glom onto you, giving indelicate squeezes to your emerging boobs and asking if you’re turned on. And if you’re a boy, you spend 14 hours a day trying to get a gym sock pregnant."
:stongue: :stongue:
leph555
He will never guess that it's my bleeding vagina!
Halcyon+On+On
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
Here's a sentence I never could've guessed I'd be writing: A publicity photo of a shirtless Taylor Lautner convinced me to read the entire "Twilight" saga.
...
So while it's all good and fun to bag on Meyer's crappy books and their goofier fangirls, just keep in mind how hard it is out there for the women of geekdom. Their own culture relegates them to the subgenre-ghetto, and the "Twilights" of the world grow fat and wealthy keeping them there.
Did you write this? Not even a single mention of Anne Rice?!
Halcyon+On+On
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Kind of related, but I laughed so hard while reading this:
Guy left out how much Dungeons & Dragons he played. :p
aNYthing
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Kind of related, but I laughed so hard while reading this:
"If you’re a boy, you spend 14 hours a day trying to get a gym sock pregnant."
:stongue: :stongue:
and then there's you - one of those who never grew out of ing the gym sock. Gotta be tough when even HIV Positive whores won't you and get a restraining order against you.
Halcyon+On+On
So you're saying his dick is too big for a gym sock? There's no going back now.
