FLY*

[Notes: NPR already explained why the MMAs are relevant. Although I am not the demographic MTV cossets, I did vote. I’ve seen all the movies that were up for MTV Movie of the Year, and I chose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. But I admit Breaking Dawn was my second choice.]

Why Twilight — why Breaking Dawn Part I won and why it deserves to have won — can be explained in one word: passion. I don’t mean on screen passion, though I personally voted for Edward and Bella to win Best Kiss (put simply, both the Ron and Hermione kiss and the Katniss and Peeta kiss were far more satisfying in the books while Edward and Bella transcended their source material). I mean the fans. I mean the Twihards. I mean the people who spent the entire show voting for Twilight over and over because MTV kept hinting that The Hunger Games was in the lead. Twilight has won MTV Movie of the Year four years in a row because its fans showed the most passion. And I kinda love them for it.

Negativity dominates nearly every fandom I encounter. It’s strange but fans tend to be the quickest to tear their fandom down. They pick, they rant, they form teams, and have shipping wars, they get mad at the writers and actors and every other creator involved, they find all the devils in the details, they make up imaginary rankings of “real fans”. They, inadvertently and intentionally, do their best to burn this thing they love to the ground. Twilight is hardly immune to this — they’re responsible for the whole Team phenomena — but last night they were all Team Twilight. United. Passionate. And not even, really, against THG or HP (Or The Help or Bridesmaids), but for Twilight.

I’m okay with that being rewarded.

Plus Harry Potter  won Best Cast, Harry Potter won Best Hero, and Effie won her category (Best Transformation). I’m good!

3 notes

Over at Bites, Donna has started a meme about exposing cliches in Young Adult literature. I read a lot of YA lit and I love this kinds of analysis. The first cliche is “The clumsy kid, most likely female and usually endearing to the point of fawning over.” This is a trope that seems more prevalent outside of literature but we can thank Bella Swan for making it part of this discussion (and super-mainstream). 

Thoughts:

•  All teenagers are clumsy. It’s a byproduct of the changes their bodies are going through. 

• High school is a scary place and I agree with the post that someone who is truly accident prone is more likely to be made fun of than considered adorable.

• But if someone is attracted to another someone and that someone is clumsy the first someone could find that clumsiness endearing.

• Bella has a point about the damsel in distress bit. People do respond to that, I know this from personal experience.

• I was a clumsy girl in high school and college. You know that other cliche about trained dancers being super clumsy when they are not dancing? Cliches have some truth to them folks!

I know if you have to explain a joke it isn’t funny, but the complexity of the following explanation is part of the joke.

I like to role-play, write stories for, and fancast comic book characters. For example, in the elaborate latticework that exists mostly in my head and on my laptop, but partly online and in conjunction with various cohorts, Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel) and Peter Parker (Spider-Man) are in a happily committed relationship and portrayed by Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson:

And they have a kid, Obi-wan “Ben” Danvers Parker, played by Jackson Rathbone:

(They actually have two kids but Ben’s sister is not important to this story.) Jackson is best known for playing the most ridiculous of the ridiculous vampires in Twilight (note: I love ridiculous). But to me he is Ben first.

I have an equally elaborate head-canon for Jessica Jones, for whom I use Katie Holmes:

(Peter Parker and Jessica Jones went to high school together, remember?) Such as, before she decided to try being a superhero again, but after she was living with all of the underground (New) Avengers, in addition to being the name on the Netflix account, Jess acted as the team’s “publicist” (her word) which while underground was defined as “visiting celebrity gossip sites to make sure there aren’t any problematic sightings or stories”.

SO, when the celebrity gossip site BlindGossip started requiring a permanent log in, I chose “Jess Jones”. I don’t comment much but the other day there was a blurb about a Twilight actor wanting to come out during the press tour and someone said something about Jackson and I chimed in (as Jess Jones) to say he was my favorite no matter what.

And then Star Magazine printed it:

Appendices:

(1) I don’ t think I’ve physically picked up Star Magazine in 5-10 YEARS. Goofy celebrity gossip is available for free online. The woman in line ahead of me at the grocery* was having trouble with her credit card so I started flipping, found “TWILIGHT GAY BOMBSHELL”, saw Jackson’s ridiculous picture (click on the blurb above to see the full pages), read his blurb… I couldn’t even believe it at first though I was simultaneously laughing so hard it hurt.

(2) *Also I usually go through self-checkout. So this was all chaos powers.

(3) I don’t care what any of their sexual preferences or relationship statuses are. Not my business! This is meant as support, not speculation.