Of Twilight, Miyavi, and Dinocroc vs. Supergator

So I think I updated this last on Thursday or Friday, but now its Sunday and I should probably update again.

My weekend was pretty good, I hung out with my good friend Margo who came back from Russia and we talked about her trip and also how she went to see Miyavi in concert in Chicago which apparently was freaking amazing. He is a spectacular guitar player and master of visual kei style. He is pretty kickass. He cured her fever, even! Margo said he is god. I would say he is at least god-like.

We also watched terrible moves like Backwoods and Dinocroc vs. Supergator. The latter was especially awful, with actors who I could probably out-act and lots of people getting eaten and funny looking CGI and just.. bad-ness all around. But it was soooo funny. I especially loved the part where the bus driver was like sleeping and the giant crocodile appears around the corner all loudly with his stomping and the bus driver kinda wakes up for a second and then goes back to sleep.

Then when the croc starts coming closer he wakes up again, sees it in his rearview mirror, and starts the engine but at that precise moment the giant croc(which is far too heavy to do any kind of aerial action) jumps several meters up and across, and crushes the bus underneath its fat butt.

It was a priceless moment. Click here to see the trailer for this hilariously bad movie. It even has the bus crushing part in it!


So, on the topic of bad movies, I thought I would bring up Twilight. And when bringing up Twilight, I know it is wise to say early on.. I am not a Twilight fan. IF YOU ARE A TWILIGHT FAN, DO NOT READ!!!! ESPECIALLY DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE MANIACS THAT GOES AND KILLS PEOPLE WHO THINK TWILIGHT IS ONLY "OKAY." SEE A LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST. NOW!!

Also, if your name is Maggie, I wouldn't recommend reading this either. You'll probably get mad at me.. and I'll be sad..

I wouldn't care about Twilight at all if it wasn't so popular and I could go a day without seeing references to it. However, since it is at best a mediocre book/movie I feel like having it become this popular is just heresy.

My favorite part from the Twilight movies was when Bella hits her head against the rock and Jacob decides that for some unknown to god reason he needs to wipe Bella's bloody head with his shirt, and that for this he MUST take it off in a very rushed manner. Everyone thinks its because he wants to help Bella, right, but my theory is he was just soooo hot with it on he couldn't bear it! Insert teen porn placement here. *imitates gaga eyes of 13 year old girl* -unbearably unmistakable fan girl high pitched screech- OMG he's soooooo hawt without his shirt on.


My second favorite part from the Twilight movies was at the beginning of the second movie when Bella is at school by her car waiting for Edward and when he shows up they show him walk over to her in all his slow motion glory, getting closer and closer with every second. It takes up an entire minute of the movie so fangirls can just gaze in awe of his anorexic looking sallow/sullen features. And then when Jacob shows up they like show him for two seconds. I was surprised no one in the audience yelled "why isn't he in slow motion?!?"

So anyways, now that all Twilight fans can hate me and go burn down my house (I live at 666 Lake Forest, Illinois, btw) I think my mission is done. Oh wait, not quite. I wanted to comment on this article I found on the topic as well.

So, there's this article on Twilight that's talking all about why Twilight is bad for humans. Particularly, young female humans. Its fine in a "oh you know, this is nice" kind of way but not fine in a "OMG I AM GOING TO ADOPT ALL THE FEATURES OF THIS MAIN CHARACTER AND MAKE HER MY NEW ROLE MODEL AND LOVE LOVE LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS EVAR." Someone could argue that such is never fine, but you know what I mean.

Read the article here.

So I know this article talks a lot about feminism. Let me clear something up. I don't think women can do everything that men can do. Women are physically different in some ways, which makes it hard and sometimes dangerous to do the same things men do. If they really want to, fine, its not like it will necessarily be bad for them and I do think anyone should get to do whatever the hell they want within you know, limits of law.

I think its a little freaky when women do weight lifting like crazy and stuff like that, but I don't think theres anything wrong with a strong woman. I don't think theres anything wrong with lesbians, or transgender. Do whatever you want. It's you. I don't think anyone should come up to someone and be like "hey, you can't do this because you're ____" Unless its life threatening, I suppose. There are exceptions, but overall, its the freaking persons decision.

To sum that up, I think there are two extremes when it comes to female gender roles. Theres the hard core "feminists" who basically hate men and think we should lock them up and use their sperm and nothing else.. or the ones who think we should be exactly the same as men.. and then there's the people who think women should get married to a man, raise babies, care for their babies, cook and clean, do whatever their man wants them to, be submissive always, and never stand up for themselves.

I'm going to quote Lady Gaga. That is, if I can find it... which it doesn't look like I can. Whatever. She basically said something like 'a woman can be ugly, beautiful, strong or weak, cruel or kind' whatever. There shouldn't be a label for it.

So anyways, lets tie this back into Twilight and particularly, Bella. Bella embodies an incredibly traditional female role. See the article for why. She's not a powerful figure, the guys around her basically make all the decisions, not to mention she's kind of a zombie, and she can't live without her Edward (considering she almost kills herself and has a hysterical breakdown for three months).

Basically, she is nothing without the dominant male figures. By making her main character so incredibly... THAT... Stephanie Meyer is basically saying "oh, yeah, if you act like that a really sexy dominant guy will come along and you will become a zombie for him and basically your entire life will revolve around him and you will be soo incredibly happy," etc. etc. I know that humans aren't that stupid that they will consciously be thinking that unless they're a really hopeless case, but the novels just scream that kind of attitude.

So even if 13 year old girls aren't thinking "omg, I want a really dominant guy who will do naughty violent things to me and say I am his only and I can belong to him and be really really submissive always" probably it will enter their minds subconsciously.

Another note. Twilight promotes ridiculous, suicidal, over the top teenage girl breakup angst. I HATE THAT. Guys will probably break up with you. Life will suck for a while, maybe, but don't actually convince yourself that you will not live past that day and not do anything but sit and stare out the window for 3 months like an emo child.

Phew. So I think I'm done ranting about Twilight for now. And the best part is, all those twilight fans who hate me (though I doubt you are reading this, whatever), I may publish a book in the future that you might end up reading and being like OMG THIS IS SOOO GOOD! and I'll laugh. Bwuahahha. Maggie, don't hate me.


I know here I only talked about why I don't like Twilight in a "how it effects humans" sort of way.. but I also don't think the writing is good.. which I might get into in another blog entry if you know, I have time. Or actually.. maybe I'll just link to some other places which embody my opinion:

http://fricknits.typepad.com/fricknits/2008/06/10-things-i-hate-about-twilight.html

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/friends-chat/anyone-else-can-t-stand-twilight/t.24736495/

http://bookstove.com/fantasy/why-i-hate-twilight/