Maybe it’s more complicated than it just sucking to be R-Patz?
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010I don’t know much about Twilight. I haven’t read the books. And sure, okay, I think the only sensible explanation for the film is that it received money from the Bush administration when he was still president (but with stipulations: “make it really sexist, guys. Make it look like a man can’t control his sexuality at all, so when he rapes you, that’s a testament to how special you are. And you know what? Throw in some racism while you’re at it!” ) But I’ve been told that the books, while awfully written (“how could he be so calloused, so unfeeling?” is one memorable quote) and very, very gross, do have something interesting to say about female desire. We’re aware, naturally, that the series is marketed at women, and apparently the younger the better. We know that the fans do scary, violent, threatening things sometimes. We know all this, and personally, the whole thing makes me feel really yukky. We know that it wins points for epic Mormonicity too, which makes me cranky as fuck. But my feelings are mixed. I don’t want to fully add my voice to the condemnation choir. I don’t know if it’s the fact that everybody hates Twilight and it’s an easy target so I’m just being cantankerous, or the things Claire told me about how much of the first book is just Bella thinking about Edward’s body, thus allowing straight women the narrative grace of being into hot guys in a sexual way (we are, incidentally) and having sex feelings about them. So I think maybe I’m curious if there’s a difference between the books and the films?
As I say, I haven’t read them, but perhaps there’s a fertile study in applying Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema’ thesis and discussing the way the male gaze is so fully a part of film language, while also discussing The Novel as the once-upon-a-time pwning ground of women (it’s true, folks. Years ago, novels were considered very low art, and when they first became popular, a lot of the writers were women, because novels weren’t thought of as very good and nobody minded if women wrote them. I’ve linked to something that’s mentioned it briefly, but if you really want to know more, check out Dale Spender’s work.)
That study would take actually doing the research, which I haven’t done, so I won’t go on. I’ll just say that I’m curious. And anyway, this started because I just wanted to spare a thought for our boy Robert Pattinson. Assuming whatever we assume about Twilight – that it’s a slice of cynical marketing, that it’s a catchall for pre-existing gendered ideologies, that it’s a secret space for girls to think about sex without having to be “dirty girls” (instead, they’re just called “Twihards”, so it’s kind of lose/lose), that it’s just hot and fun, and really popular – poor old R-Patz is just a dude. He happens to be the dude that plays Edward Cullen, though, which means he has become a lightening rod for repressed reaction to gender inequity, which means he has legions of fans, some of whom are uncomfortably young, and some of whom do uncomfortable things. And I was going to write about that, because I’m interested in what it’s like to be very, very famous, but when I was googling for reffs, I found that not all of those crazy Twilight fan stories are even true.
I don’t doubt that some of them are, but often times I’m seeing a little bit of “I have a friend who has a friend”. And I think we’re all pretty aware that the attention is such that it sucks to be R-Patz right now. I can’t even begin to imagine how he feels about Twilight panties. But you gotta wonder… what’s the deal here? I believe it, that fan girls are capable of some crazy shit (if only because I remember the letters I wrote to Jonathan Brandis as a wee girl,) but I’m starting to think there’s a bit of media-matter here in the same manner as the G20 protests: the paper writes about the violent anarchists, and it’s not only great news, but it also happens to be a very great strategy for avoiding discussion of the fact that the G20 is a vile bastion of corporate evil (I don’t mean to sound so tin-hat. I don’t mean conspiracy, I mean “recieved ideas” in the sense the Pierre Bourdieu would use the term, in that global capitalism is “situation normal” and it takes reflection to critique it. Reflection is boring, and does not sell papers.)
As with Twilight fans – I’m not trying to say that some of them act normally, and popular media parlance tars them all with the same brush (other people make that argument, but it’s not my focus here,) I’m trying to say that talking about, and often times exagerating the behaviour of Twilight fans may belie the structural conditions that produce the fandom. It’s a book about sex for girls, for godsakes. And it’s horrible, and it’s regressive, and it’s sexist and I hate it, but shit, is anybody really surprised that young girls might be all “fuck! sex! I WANT that!” and having very few tools to express that with pride and power, ask for validification from R-Patz in ways he’s not comfortable with?
Shit, y’all, I don’t know. This was all written on the fly, and I don’t really have a lot else to say except this: sorry, R-Patz, and I hope it gets better. But also, if you are not R-Patz, perhaps it is more fruitful to discuss one’s disapproval of Twilight fans with the knowledge that popular coverage appears to be taking the actions of very young fan-girls as indicative of being something other than very young fan-girls negotiating wanting to fuck boys (or maybe each other) in a world that frequently tells them their desire to do so is dirty.
In addition, I’m not sure what the alternative would be to screaming fan girl style behaviour for a young woman growing up in our whacked out “fetishism of the commodity” world. As a grown-up, I guess I feel that a healthy sex reaction to a text FOR ME PERSONALLY is to own and accept the fact that commodity is what’s going on, and that I am, in fact, objectifying someone. But in the interests of full disclosure, I actually find that ownership quite hard to do, being as I have to admit that I’m horny, and also that my desires might impact upon somebody else. Neither of these admissions are hugely comfortable for a lapsed Catholic girl.
And I sure as fuck couldn’t have done that at ten. No, my love for Jonathan Brandis was clean and pure and maybe I would kiss him a little but mostly we would be boyfriend and girlfriend. Compare this to my recent re-watch of BSG, where I suddenly, for the first time, noticed that Jamie Bamber was really fucking hot. And hey, Jamie Bamber, if you’re a Roddy’s Film Companion fan, please be assured that I don’t want to date you, and I’m sorry if I’m making you feel weird. I just like looking at your body when it’s on TV. Yes, it’s that simple, and BSG knows all about it, which is, I assume, why they kept putting you in those tiny, tiny towels like in the pic. As Sam Beckett would say, “oh boy!” So there’s that.
Look, the point is, whatever the fuck Twilight is, the trusim of “sex sells” applies to women too. And there are a shitload of problems with that, but they’re not any of the ones the papers are writing about.
