Twilight Saga: Midnight in the Garden of Vampires and Werewolves

With coffee consumed like a red-hot caffeinated shot and the urge to wear flannel loungewear dismissed, I made the pilgrimage to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn among the throng of Twittering teens at the witching hour of midnight. At my side: two trusty co-horts, all repulsed by the label of a being called a Twi-mom. Just because we have kids doesn’t mean that we have a life-sized, depressed doppelganger of RPatz looming over our laundry rooms, nor does it mean that we are trying to reclaim or relive the romanticized relationships of our fleeted youth.

We are just simply people who like Twilight because it is so simple. Metaphors, symbolism, allegory and allusions be darned. Anti-women, pro-feminism, pro-life, pro-choice, I have read all the criticisms and analysis and I don’t care—I just want to sit for a couple of hours and be mindlessly entertained. 

I like good books and good films as much as anyone. The Twilight series doesn’t fall into either category but it does fall into an immensely entertaining one. Why else would so many teens, tweens, moms, and unforced men brave a midnight showing? At this midnight showing I noticed more men along for the ride on their own free will—did they finally figure out the secret formula of girls gone gaga over the unavailable undead?

Prior to the start of the movie, a bunch of high-school aged thespians approached the front of theater and proceeded to act out a couple of key scenes from the other Twilight movies. I wondered how many Saturday nights were spent as group watching the movies together and practicing the fight scenes.

From my perspective, my generation, Generation X got the short end of the magical movie wand. We didn’t have the Harry Potter hysteria or the vampire movie mania of this day and age. The teenaged book nerd in me would have loved to stay up all night reading a freshly released book and would have waited in line for hours to see the movie.

So since my youth didn’t present such opportunities—my middle-aged self is going to play right along, but with advanced tickets bought online and a willingness to forgo the best seats in order to arrive closer to the start time. Breaking Dawn may have made me cringe a little at times (I’m talking to you, Jackson Rathborne), and made me roll my eyes (that’s you, creator of the bad wigs), but I am willing to suspend belief, forgo the logical, the plausible and nonsensical plotlines. And so for now, I totally get that a century-old virginal vampire would marry and then spawn a cannibalistic demon child and that a teenaged werewolf (shapershifter!) would imprint/ fall in love with a newborn. Just pass the popcorn, please.