Twilight According to a Confused Nerd

"Even despite the fact that I have lived for a hundred years and

experienced a century worth of art and literature and history.

I mean I have seen parts of the world a girl from the backwoods

of Washington State couldn't even dream of, but sure I still love

you, even though all you want to do is talk about is what 

happened on Gossip Girls last night."

 

I'm usually not one to discriminate against anything, but I just don't get people's fascination with Twilight (and by people I mean women.) The hype rises to a fever pitch tomorrow as the final installment of the movie series, Breaking Dawn: Part II, is released in theaters. I have never read the books, I have only seen the first movie (under duress and because my date was attractive,) and I have heard bits and pieces throughout the years. So with that said I present to you a summary of the Twilight series as I understand it, (Spoiler: It's about statutory rape):

Somewhere near Seattle (Starbucks and Vampires on every corner) an angsty girl named Bella, who possesses a unique ability to only ever convey one facial expression, meets an attractive boy. The boy ignores her so, of course, she falls for him like how my dog falls for that trick when she thinks I threw the ball, but it's still in my hand. Meanwhile her friend, the equally attractive (yet oddly unnoticed) Native American boy, Fredrick (close enough), pines for her in secret. Also I think Freddie Prinze Jr. falls in love with him, cuts his hair, and transforms him into the prom queen... or am I thinking of something else... Anyway back to the emotionless whiny Bella. She finds out that the really pale guy, Edward, is actually a vampire that sparkles like a drunken Elton John, (which is really ridiculous. Everyone knows that vampires burn-up when they touch direct sunlight, and it is because of that weakness I am not living in a vampire dominated penal colony by now. If in fact, you take away that fatal weakness and replace it with the ability to become a shiny object, as lame and shaming of a weakness as that is, you no longer have a valid excuse for why vampires are not currently enslaving the human race, like how we enslaved cows after the War of 1812. In fact, the war between humans and vampire would be even quicker because humans would be too busy laughing their asses off to actually pick up their weapons and fight. Really this book should have been about a sparkling vampire who works as a guard at one of the many human cattle farms, and inadvertently falls for one of the breeder-girls... Now that would be 50 Shades of Awesome.)

So as our story continues, we learn that Bella does not do the sensible thing and slay the hell out of her angsty-brooding emo crush, instead she falls for old Eddy even more. At this point in the story you would assume she is just asking to be killed and drained of her life's blood by her new boyfriend, but instead, he falls for her too, and they start dating. This of course, is completely against her father's wishes, as he is an old school, nose-to-the-grind stone New York detective who is against dancing, and the vampire is forced to win the Bella's heart by teaching her to let go of her inhibitions and dance like she has never danced before... also I think at one point he teachers her to shape clay on one of those spinning wheel-things or something... I'm sure I'm thinking of the right movie... (Secondly, their relationship is completely against the law, and I'm not talking about some obscure 18th century discrimination law about dating the undead. I am talking about the very real laws set down by the United Stated government against statutory rape. The girl is 16 years old, for Dracula's sake, and though the vampire looks the same age Eddy is very much not 16. He is literally hundreds of years older than Bella. I mean they make a point in the story of saying how many times he freaking graduated from high school. Laws against statutory rape were established to protect young and innocent children from being taken advantage of by adults who have more life experience and knowledge of the world, because older people, like Eddy, can totally use that adult knowledge to manipulate younger people into... oh I don't know... falling in love with them... uh... having sex with them... or turning them into vampires.)

For the love of God, put on a damn
shirt. It's freakin raining out... also
I have a crippling inferiority complex. 

Now going back to the Fredrick, our Native America friend, he subsequently learns that he can turn into a really bad CGI wolf... which is kind of cool until said wolf tries to hump your leg... which I think he does frequently to Bella. This transformation leads to some kind of sexual tension between the three of them now, (or as much sexual tension as can exist between a wolf, a vampire, and a girl who can't express normal human emotions in any way.) Also Eddy and Bella have some kind of weird on-again off-again relationship going on, which makes them a less interesting version of Ross and Rachael (and really I thought Ross and Rachael were pretty uninteresting to begin with.) It also makes them exactly like every other teenage couple that ever existed, but some more things also happen. At some point Bad Vampires show-up, (because apparently Eddy and his kind are the Good Vampires,) and there are a few half-enthusiastic fight scenes (you know cause that will pull in the 18-35 male demographic,) people die, people live, people wish they were dead (mostly the audience), and it pretty much drags on like that for several movies. (Personally, I think I am routing for the Bad Vampires, because even though they sparkle they at least do something other then whine and look like they spend every moment in their room listening to Good Charlotte over and over again... Personally, if I was a vampire I think I'd just buy a pig farm and milk them for blood. then at night I would totally put on a costume and run around a nearby city as a dark and brooding anti-hero that fights for justice... I could be The Darkish Knight.)

From this point forward things get weird... like "zombie cats dancing the can-can" weird, toward the end of the story Snape kills Dumbledore... and I mean that as a euphemism for the fact that Bella and Eddy totally do it. At some point he also turns her from a girl who is incapable of facial expression to a vampire who is incapable of facial expression. So, happily ever after? No, because then they have a demon child, (I'm going to call her Gorgon) who is half human/half vampire. Apparently that means this thing has the ability to talk in full sentences almost from day one of her birth, also Gorgon is capable of walking, lifting tractors off of old men in Kansas, tormenting your sleeping dreams, and generally freaking everyone the frak out. You know that dancing baby meme on the Internet... well she killed that child and now wears his ears on a necklace... Wait there is more... Fredrick, the werewolf, falls in love with baby Gorgon. (Now if you didn't quite believe me that this was a story about statutory rape, I don't think I can make it any clearer than that.) Also the trailer for the newest movie seems to indicate there is some kind of heroic end-battle, but ultimately I don't care. Once you go demon-child on a story all other details tend to become irrelevant.

The End...

So what is the moral of this story?... No really I'm asking. That was not a rhetorical question, because as far as I can figure there is no good moral of this story. For girls the moral seems to be, "Hey ladies, you know that dark brooding guy in class who refuses to talk to you and treats you like you don't exist. It's okay, because I'm sure he's not a drug dealer, he's just a vampire. The more you love him, regardless of how many times he pushes you away or endangers your life, it will be okay. He'll totally love you back and not at all take advantage of you in a windowless van with a secret camera recording it all, or anything like that. As long as you believe him, and absolutely refuse to take any or all action to help yourself, he will always come to your rescue and transform you into something as dark and horrible as he is... Also your children will be the spawn of Satan." Whereas for guys the moral is a bit more straightforward, "Hey guys, give up now, because even if you are a ripped Native America warrior that can transform himself into a wolf, and who is a genuinely nice guy that cares about that girl you are pining for, you will never be able to compete with Edward Cullen and the expectations he has now established her mind." (Side Moral: If you happen to be a hundred year old vampire who looks sixteen, go back to high school and totally trick sixteen year old girls into having sex with you.)