RISING BAD MOON
The number of people who hate the Twilight series is growing worldwide
By Charlene Chua
December 13, 2009
WITH the Twilight sequel New Moon joining the likes of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince and Star Trek as the biggest blockbusters of 2009 due to its US$580 million haul worldwide, Twilight-mania is hitting its most feverish pitch ever.
GOODNIGHT TWILIGHT:
Local Twi-haters (from left) Joey Weng, Sophia Lee and Jenjira Loke. –PICTURES: KUA CHEE SIONG, SHAW
And fans of the book-turned-movie series who call themselves Twi-hards, Twi-guys and Twi-mums seem to be everywhere.
But not every girl is going gaga over over the bizarre romance between human Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).
Some absolutely hate it.
In fact, the Twi-haters phenomenon is so widespread that googling Twi-haters turned up 50,000 hits. Google ‘hate twilight’ and there are 145,000 hits.
Among the results are websites that give you 95 reasons why you shouldn’t read the books, to forums with ‘personal hate stories’ shared by netizens. There are also blogs filled with essays titled ‘Stupid story. Bad acting’.
On Facebook, there are more than 250 pages dedicated to bashing Twilight. Fans of these pages contribute by leaving comments on the page like ‘I’m going to stab someone if I hear ‘oh my god Edward is so hot’ again’.
In Singapore
Locally, there’s an Anti-Twilight Association (ATA) which has a website filled with Twilight spoofs and a Facebook page – which currently has 68 members – to commiserate with other Twi-haters.
The group’s members – which consist mainly of teenage girls – say they find the central relationship unhealthy and obsessive.
They point out how, in the series, Bella jumps off a cliff just to hear Edward’s voice and contemplates suicide when he breaks up with her.
He, in turn, breaks into her house to watch her sleep at night and dismantles her car wheel so that she can’t meet his love rival Jacob Black.
Said ATA member Sophia Lee, 14: ‘Think about the message this is sending to all the young girls and women out there. To have such a notion about love and in turn have these expectations of your partner is ridiculous.
‘I know of some girls who say they want to marry Edward. Consider this. He drives at 160kmh and when Bella chides him, he says ‘I don’t like going slow’, and carries on speeding recklessly, putting her life in danger.
‘A guy like that should have been dumped already.’
The ATA has turned its dislike for Twilight into tongue-in-cheek humour.
Joey Weng, 14, said that another ATA member draws spoof cartoons of Twilight which she uploads on the website.
She herself would trawl the Internet for spoof videos to share with the rest of the members.
Her favourite video is one where Bella and Edward are saying goodbye and he leaps off into the forest.
In the movie, Edward is a master of flight, a quality which has left many girls breathless.
The spoof video shows ‘Edward’ jumping onto a tree trunk which he can’t hold on to and ‘Bella’ has to push his behind to help him.
HATE: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in New Moon.
Flamers get flamed
The two students, together with their friend Jenjira Loke, 14, also told The New Paper that they have been getting ‘flamed’ on their website since its launch last year by Twilight fans.
These flamers leave negative messages on their discussion board – some even insisted that they shut their site down.
While comments such as ‘you are so stupid’ hasn’t hurt the ATA detractors – they just laugh them off – they do take offence when they are ‘told’ that they can’t differentiate between good and bad literature.
Said Jenjira: ‘The whole plot of Twilight is just unrealistic and it’s also badly written. The author can describe a kissing scene between Bella and Edward for up to three pages, plus she tends to repeat the same adjectives again and again.
‘I mean, how many times do you want to read about his liquid-topaz eyes?’
They also couldn’t resist taking a dig at Edward’s ‘hairy’ visage.
Joey joked: ‘Why would you like a guy who doesn’t shave?’
Preferring Shakespear’s Romeo And Juliet (also about forbidden love) over Twilight, the ATA girls however, say they have nothing against British actor Pattinson, who plays Edward in the films Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
Jenjira had caught New Moon’s recent premiere as her friend had offered to pay for her movie ticket and said that she thought the film – which opened in cinemas here last Thursday – was both ‘corny and cheesy’.
The scene that tickled her the most? When Bella says to Edward: ‘Kiss me because it’s my birthday.’
The ATA members are not the only ones who are sick of the Twilight craze.
Businesswoman Joan Liang, 25, said that she didn’t like the way vampires are depicted in Twilight as ‘they are supposed to be scary creatures that instill fear in man’.
Ms Liang explained: ‘When you think of vampires like Dracula and the like, they are as magnificent as they are dark and frightening. Why? Because they can kill people by sucking their blood.
‘In Twilight, you have Edward who is so attracted to Bella’s blood, badly wants to kill her and yet loves her. Then you have Bella who knows all this and keeps asking him to kiss her. Asking to get killed is a seriously daft thing to do so it all becomes a joke really.’
Other Twi-haters like 16-year-old twin sisters Mary and Joanne Quah said that what they can’t stand most about Twilight is its ‘sick’ plot – a sentiment echoed by the ATA girls.
In the fourth and last book Breaking Dawn, 16-year-old werewolf Jacob ends up falling in love with a baby girl.
Said Jenjira: ‘Jacob says he would wait for her to grow up. That’s not right!’
The NewPaper