Friday, November 20, 2009

A New Moon

For once, I agree with Roger Ebert.

The new Stephanie Meyer movie, New Moon, was officially released in theatres today, an event which has me thinking about the Twilight-mania that has swept our great nation. It seems like everyone has read or is reading the Twilight books. The premise is interesting enough. Who doesn't like vampires and romance? But no matter how much I hear about these novels and their theatrical counterparts, I find myself having to stifle a strong gag reflex. I feel like I'm one of the few people who ISN'T obsessed with these glittering vampires. I mean, how can I take a vampire that GLITTERS seriously?

In all honesty, I wouldn't be bothered by this normally. There are plenty of vapid, inane, and downright stupid things that appear in pop culture on a regular basis, only to disappear just as quickly as they came. I've even partaken in some of them myself (POGS come to mind...what was I thinking?), and before I begin, I would like to say that I fully realize that some of the things I read are guilty of some of the things I accuse Meyer of. My gripe with this particular pop culture phenomenon is that Stephanie Meyer's novels are being lauded as some kind of pinnacle for young adult literature. Any rational thinking person with a modicum of literary taste could open Twilight, read a page, and immediately see that Stephanie Meyer is no J.K. Rowling. Hell, she's not even a Jeph Loeb. These novels contain some of the worst writing I've ever seen on a page, and I've read Superpro. It's kitschy, it's sickeningly saccharine, and it doesn't challenge the reader in any way. Any passage in the book would do, but take this little excerpt as an example:

"I walked to my room and shut the door, slammed it really, so I could be free to go to pieces privately...For three and a half hours I stared at the wall, curled in a ball, rocking. My mind went around in circles, trying to come up with some way out of this nightmare. There was no escape, no reprieve. I could see on ly one possible end looming darkly in my future. The only questino was how many other people would be hurt before I reached it. The only solace, the only hope I had left, was knowing that I would see Edward soon."

I for one, am not impressed. One creative writing workshop would have torn this novel apart. I may sound fairly elitist right now. I know what you're thinking. "This is written for teenage girls. She's writing to her audience." I am of the opinion that we do teenage girls a disservice by holding them to such a low standard. And what excuse do the thousands of other non teenage girls that read this stuff? I am forced to wonder, after novels like this win awards and are read by millions of people, where our standards have gone? Novels like Twilight don't challenge people. They don't get them thinking. If anything, they venerate behaviors that most people would find abhorrent and socially uncouth. Edward and Bella have a weird, codependent relationship where true love means being unhealthily obsessed with someone to the point of stalking them. And the age difference? Seriously, there is a hundred year gap between Bella and Edward. How is this not creepy? Shouldn't Edward have his high school diploma by now? In New Moon, Bella is useless after Edward leaves her. She mopes around an whines for an ENTIRE NOVEL. Bella and Edward are not so much characters as they are caricatures of themselves. Bella is the lovesick teenager. Edward is the dark, mysterious, brooding hunk. Is this what we want our young people to aspire to? If people want to read this garbage, that's their prerogative, but I don't think that we should be proclaiming it to be quality literature. We should call it what it is: vapid, mindless, and devoid of any literary merit. If this is what constitutes literature in today's society, I think I will just stick with the classics.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Beginnings of Wednesday Conversations

As any comic book fan knows, Wednesday is new comic day, a day where comic book fans will congregate at their LCS (Local Comic Shop) to pick up the week's books and talk about comics, pop culture, and whatever else comes to mind. This blog will be channeling the spirit of the LCS on Wednesdays (hence the title). As I work at a comic book shop myself, I find that Wednesdays are so much more than just new books. I have been engaged in many interesting and thought provoking conversations with both my co-workers and the patrons of our fine funny-book establishment. As a result, while I will most definitely be discussing comics, I will not restrict myself to the comics medium. With that being said, welcome to Wednesday Conversations. We'll see how it goes.