Twilight

I've intended to write this post for months. I had to read Twilight for my university course. We're studying the literary evolution of the Vampire - starting at Dracula, and working our way through Anne Rice's stuff, up to Twilight.

Now, I'll admit I read it with some prejudice. I'm of the opinion that the world hasn't seen a decent vampire since Spike was neutered (with the exception of the vampires in Being Human, who are actually quite impressive), and from what I'd heard about this Cullen chap, I was expecting the book to be a massive bag of dribble. Well, I was right.

There's a lot I could say about Meyer, and feminism, and how one has clearly never heard of the other. I could rant for pages about the useless sack of emo that is Edward Cullen, but to be honest, others have done so already, and better than I ever could.

The film, however, was better. Bella does actually seem to have a personality (let's not get into that "is zero a number" debate again), and I can even, dare I say it, see the appeal of Patterson. Pattinson? Him, anyway, the sack of emo. Not his looks, because he's not that attractive (no matter what the legions of horny teenagers and women who think like teenagers might say), but Patterson (Pattinson?) as a person. Y'see, I watched the DVD commentary (again, I'll stress that this is for university). I'd forgotten that he's English. He was Cedric Diggory long before he was Edward Cullen. And on top of that, he has a sense of humour, and seems genuinely embarrassed about the role. Here follows an extract from Empire magazine's October issue:

"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."

You've gotta love that.

Oh, also, you remember the Very Secret Diaries of Cassandra Claire? The LotR parodies that had me in stitches way back when? if you never read them, the link's in my "Interesting thing of the day" link list to the left. Well, the Twilight lolfans (that's what they're called) have made so many parodies that I can't possibly link to them all, so instead just check out this lady's blog. She seems to be spearheading the operation, and more power to her.