Ellen Leventry: November 2008 Archives

After I heard that Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson named their newborn boy Bronx Mowgli, not only did I get an "icky" feeling, but I got a "that's a bizarre Rudyard Kipling literary reference" feeling. Then, I realized that the baby's initials are B.M.W.--is this a luxury baby?--I couldn't take the craziness of celebrity kids names anymore.

When Gywneth Paltrow and Chris Martin named their son Moses after naming their daughter Apple, I thought, "Well, at least it's a proper name and not a piece of fruit."

We arrived more than an hour early to the midnight kickoff showing of "Twilight" and the theater was already packed. Not with just 12-year-old girls and emo guys, but with Gucci-toting fashionistas and frat boys, two segments of the population I didn't expect to see.

The excitement was palpable and a small frenzy of camera flashes ensued when a member of my group whipped out a six-foot tall, cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson as dreamy vampire Edward Cullen. Obviously, every single member of this crowd was primed by obsessive reading and rereading of the books, ready to fall in love with whatever was presented on the screen--and fall in love they did.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen," "Lords of Dogtown," and "The Nativity Story"), and based on the first book in Stephanie Meyer's four-book series, "Twilight " is the first installment of the love story between human Bella and vampire Edward. This movie will definitely satisfy the fans and will probably enthrall some who haven't yet experienced the books. In the simplest terms, it's hard to ignore when two very pretty people, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, have great chemistry on screen.

I learned several things at a recent "Twilight" movie release party at my local Borders bookstore:

1. Mixing a strawberry smoothie with chocolate syrup to create a blood-like berry blast results in a rather tasty treat

2. The C.I.A. should look into recruiting teen girls because they have an extraordinary ability to recall infinitesimal details.

3. The "Twilight" series and movie may be the mother-daughter bonding mechanism of the decade.

The crowd was smaller than those I'd witnessed at similar "Harry Potter" book release parties, but what really interested me was the ratio of mothers to daughters at the event. There seemed to be at least one mother for every two girls present and they weren't just there as a disinterested chaperon or a patient chauffeur. No, these adult women were active participants. These moms talked, with as much fervor as the tweens surrounding them, about favorite parts of the book they wanted to see translated onto the screen. They also pawed through the various "Twilight" merchandise.

They deftly debated whether Kristen Stewart was the right choice to play Bella. Many in the group thought that "Gilmore Girls'" Alexis Bledel would have been a better choice. They proudly proclaimed themselves Team Edward or Team Jacob--all without their daughters seeming horribly embarrassed. In fact, the mothers and daughters seemed to be--gasp!--enjoying each others' company.

I must admit that I resisted reading the "Twilight" series until a school librarian friend of mine informed me that I absolutely had to read at least the first book before the movie opening. So, being a dutiful friend and pop culture enthusiast, I dove right in, submerging myself in all four books one right after the other--dare I say, I devoured them. (Yes, I said it.) But, I have to admit it was one of the oddest reading experiences of my life. I found the prose a bit pedestrian and was disturbed by the premise of a self-esteem-challenged 17-year-old girl giving herself over completely to her co-dependent manic-depressive vampire boyfriend. And yet, I couldn't stop reading.

Just like a vampire's beauty makes him/her the perfect predator, the story of "Twilight" is the perfect lure. Hey ladies, here's a gorgeous, filthy rich, well-mannered, sensitive man who thinks that you, who's always been considered the plainest of uncoordinated plain Janes, are a striking beauty. In fact, he will always be there to protect you, he can't bear to live without you, and the only reason he currently exists is to make you happy, even if that means giving you over to the other man. That is an extraordinarily attractive picture. But, there's a reason these books are considered fantasy and it's not just because they contain vampires and shapeshifters.

"I doubt that millions of teenaged girls, or women of any age, would be devoted fans of a series of novels about some happy girl with a ton of self-esteem, her "partner," their studied lack of emotion toward one another at their liberal-arts college, their smoothly-proceeding hyphenated-names 'commitment ceremony,' their overlapping parental leaves and their stroller acquisitions," a friend of mine noted. It is true that such a tale lacks a certain allure, but what happened to characters like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer's" Buffy Summers, a popular cheerleader who managed to battle personal demons while actually battling demons?

During the presidential campaign many conservative pundits spoke about people "drinking the Democrat Kool-Aid." (And perhaps there were pundits talking about Republican Kool-Aid, I just didn't witness it.) So, it's eerily apropos that the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre is only eleven days away. As I watched the pundits talking about the Kool-Aid, I wondered if young voters even understood the reference, that drinking everyone's favorite childhood drink somehow meant blindly following the party line even unto death. And now, thanks to MSNBC's documentary "Witness to Jonestown," they will.

Viewers will be introduced to Jim Jones, the charismatic and psychotic leader of The People's Temple, the cult he founded and the shorthand name given to the town the group built in western Guyana. They will learn about the 900 people forced to drink cyanide-laced fruit punch and the only U.S. congressman to lose his life in the line of duty. They will learn the horrific implications of "drinking Kool-Aid."