Twilight: Eclipse is about to hit the movie screen and, quite frankly, I’m a little concerned at what this series of movies is teaching the youth of America. I know, I know, I just admitted that I watched both Twilight and New Moon, but listening to Rifftrax in the background made them immensely more tolerable.
Here’s an example: there’s the big “Team Edward vs. Team Jacob” controversy that’s dividing the nation—Should Bella want to suck face with a vampire or a werewolf for the rest of her (potentially eternal) life?—but according to the movie, there is no controversy. She says she’s madly in love with Edward and wants to live with him happily forever after. At the end of New Moon, he agrees to turn her into a vampire “under one condition.”
The condition? He wants her to marry him.
Her response? She stares at him and doesn’t answer.
Sure, it’s a suspenseful way to end a movie and get viewers to anticipate the sequel, but it also follows the theme of both movies so far. It’s been extremely rare for characters to finish three lines of dialogue without a dramatic (see: extremely long and awkward) pause. Still, if she claims she wants Edward to bite her so she can spend eternity with her true love, why would asking her to marry him be suspenseful? You think she might say “No”?
And during the course of Twilight and New Moon, Bella is running around with vampires and werewolves (at this rate, I’m expecting some other supernatural creatures soon, too—“Go Team Zombie!”). Meanwhile, her dad Charlie is stuck at home freaking out when she disappears for days at a time. First, she echoes the shit that his ex-wife said when she left him; the next, she doesn’t bother to contact him at all and he thinks she’s dead. How selfish is that?!
Charlie loves his daughter (a love which naturally includes extremely long, awkward pauses in dialogue), but she runs away, comes back, runs away, comes back… it’s always about the vampires, not her own flesh and blood [insert rim shot here]. You think that sets a good example for kids nowadays?!
So here’s some of what kids watching these movies have learned: Spending forever with someone is no big deal, but marriage? Be afraid… be very afraid. It’s also okay to run away, do what you want and not care about people who love you until you want to come home, at which point they’ll take you in with little more than a long, awkward pause.
Essentially, teenage girls can be self-centered, pretentious bitches who lust after hunky guys and ignore their parents with no negative consequences whatsoever. Don’t agree with that message? Then repeat after me: “Go Team Charlie!”
