The Saddest Part About Twilight's Popularity

Is that it never actually had to happen. To elaborate, 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 film, this would mean a flaunting of either CGI creations or actors in extensive makeup appliances. In Twilight, however, this means a handful of young male actors, bronze-skinned and as Andrew Sun would say, beautifully sculpted curvaceous body of an angel (although I'm not sure if he was talking about Taylor Lautner or Taylor Swift, really, it's hard to tell with that guy), standing around looking aloof and mean. Response?

"lulfgt", "vampires don't sparkle, if you sparkle in the sunlight, you're a crappy fanfic character; if you burn up and die a slow, agonizing death in the sunlight, you're a vampire", "what the hell, vegetarian vampires? aren't you still killing animals? what part of that is vegetarian?", and "werewolves turn into human-like beasts, not actual wolves, dammit"

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. Of course, we all know exactly why this happens: 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 the entertainment industry has been doing to its female characters since the first Greek scupltor stepped back from his marble magnum opus of a rendition of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Sexuality(/LOVE), took a good hard look (I accidentally a whole triple entendre) and said "Maybe those could be a little bigger".

And you know what? If we even tried to attack the point, we'd probably disprove our OWN 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!" "Her 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 looking hot!" "JEDI PRINCESS SLAVEGIRL PRISONERS!"

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 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 shoot-em-up; Twilight offers younger female genre fans a world that, however shabbily-constructed, speaks to their perspective, experiences and fantasies (yes) in a way that almost nothing else on the radar does.

Now, am I saying that all this context somehow justifies Twilight? Hell, no! In a way, I think it makes it worse. Stephanie Meyer is giving salted meat (HI AUSTIN) 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.