“It Came To Me In A Dream” Twilight Envy
Monday, November 30th, 2009
I am going to diverge from my normal subject matter to comment on this weekend’s box office experience at “New Moon.” Having missed the Beatles, I had not experienced the raw power of teenage girls going batty (pun intended) over vampires and werewolves or anything else until seeing “New Moon” with my fiance and his daughters over the weekend. It was an amazing experience, though not due to cinematic excellence. It was the screaming, the hyperventilation, the giggling, the raw desire that those 14 year old girls were experiencing that was the EXPERIENCE. While in the loo, a gaggle of girls came in whom I honestly thought needed medical attention, so shallow their breathing, their crys of anguish so jaggedly real. It was only their hysterical laughter that made me snap back to reality and the understanding that it was not impending death but Taylor Laughtnor’s abs and Robert Pattinson’s smolder that had the girls whipped into their oxygen-deprived frenzy.
How do I say this without sounding like a snob? Well, probably there isn’t a way, so I’ll just say it: Stephanie Meyers is no Shakespeare. She most likely will not become a regular contributor to The New Yorker anytime soon. But perhaps the message is that box office success does not require a Masters in Fine Arts or Creative Writing. Perhaps we all need to listen to our dreams and risk the foolishness of a few months “wasted” writing them down.
