Lunar Cycles

I have a confession to make.  It’s something that I guess its just good for me to get off my chest.  This Friday, I saw Twilight: New Moon in theaters.  Don’t worry, I didn’t like it that much at all.  One of my friends asked me afterward, “Matt, did you go to that movie just so you could think about it later?”  The answer, in short, is yes.  I wanted to contribute to the seething pop-culture pot and give some thoughts about a contemporary artifact.

First, I have a few caveats to my entire opinion.  One pet peeve of mine (often demonstrated in my rhetoric classes) is when one digs too deeply into analysis.  You can overanalyze.  I don’t want it to seem that I am grasping at straws here.  What’s more, I don’t want it to seem that I dislike Twilight just because it is “cool” to be contrary.  Whenever you find a popular trend, there are the people that like it because others do … and the people that desire just to be different.  Finally, independent of all else, I could easily conclude that I dislike the Twilight movies because they are poorly written and poorly acted.

With these in mind, I have three dislikes of this most recent Twilight movie:

1)  Immortality

It bugs me not only that the majority of characters are somehow unaffected by death, but it also is irksome how plaintively and constantly the female lead fawns after immortality herself.  I think part of the cultural draw of this work is just that.  We want to live forever and remain looking 22 for the rest of our lives.  There is not only a fear of death and age (wrinkles notwithstanding) but there is also, seemingly, a fundamental dissatisfaction with life.  The time we are given seems to be inadequate, but the response to this fact should not be “I wish I had all the time in the world” but the simple question, “What should I do with the time that I have.”

2)  Love

This is where I think the movie gathers its strongest attraction.  Everyone wants to be loved and love someone in return.  It is a human desire.  This movie, with whatever else it does, presents someone being loved and loving in return.  However, I don’t think it is presenting an accurate or desirable view of what it is like to live in love.  The characters vacillate between an angsty pained expression and passionate kisses or embraces.  There is never just happiness.  Everyone in the dramatic love triangle promises to each other “I won’t hurt you” or, failing that, “I won’t hurt you again.”  The point of love is not that you will never hurt your love (because, lets be honest, you will) but that you are bound together regardless of what comes your way. Love is not the sum total of the passion and pleasure you feel.

3)  Fantasy

I like fantasy works.  I like works with characters and plots.  The best stories and the best fantasy worlds are ones that reveal something about human nature.  It doesn’t have to be pretty, or even upright.  It should make you question, engage, and think about what is being portrayed.  Twilight reveals just another level of unresolved brokenness.  The characters do not reveal anything other than high school drama, an inadequate or incomplete view of love and relationships, and a fundamental discontent with life that (while perhaps striking closer to home than we would care to admit) is not something that we should dwell on … but something we should overcome.  This movie doesn’t make a comment on humanity as much as it does on depravity.  What’s more, its comment on depravity is far too much like “eat, drink, and be merry … for tomorrow we may (or may never) die.

The conclusion?  You don’t need to go see this movie.  In fact, you could probably get through life just fine without it.  What you should be aware of, however, is the cultural trends that are defining part of this generation and what exactly that reveals and entails for our society.