If you read the books, or talk to the tween girls sucking up all that Twilight / New Moon consumer society garbage being churned out by every retailer in the marketplace, they’ll probably tell you that the Twilight Saga is about the love story between Edward and Bella. They’re right, mostly.
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New Moon, however, is about something much less prosaic. I’m pretty sure that New Moon is really all about Taylor Lautner’s barely-legal abs.
I saw the movie on Thanksgiving night with Latoya and Lauren, at the Regal Theater in downtown Silver Spring. I’m guessing there were fewer than 5 guys in the entire theater, but what really surprised me was the women in the theater – less than 1/4 were under 20 years old. I’d bet more than half were over 25. In one particularly memorable scene, Lautner’s character Jacob stands up and strips off his shirt to use as a rag. That scene literally had the entire theater cheering and clapping.
Thanks to Latoya, I gained a new perspective on the Twilight movies that I’d somehow completely missed – and speaking as Aaron-the-gay-guy, it surprises me that I didn’t catch on before now. I should have wised up the first time I raved about Twilight in mostly male company and received a half-dozen looks of confusion and discomfort. I thought that meant that Twilight was just too juvenile – I assumed it was teen targeted, and thus just didn’t interest more mature or jaded adults (I freely admit that I enjoy kids’ and teens’ literature and movies more than other adults).
The truth is, the Twilight movies are to women what the Laura Croft: Tomb Raider movies are to men. They’re shameless, exploitative romantic flicks with mediocre acting and almost extraneous plots. The interesting thing is, the Twilight series is possibly the first time a major, large-budget film of this type has been made and targeted toward women. There are quite obviously many, many of these films made for men, but I’ve been wracking my brain to find one that was made for women, and I can’t think of anything in the last 10 – 20 years.
So there you have it – New Moon is all about Taylor Lautner’s abs. If you need further evidence, check out this Guardian article, The Twilight Saga: New Moon – why resistance is futile.
