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Why Black folks don’t like Twilight
The internet is all agog over vampires with the release of New Moon, the second movie release in Stephenie Meyer’s popular Twilight book series. The film has broken box office records. New Moon devotees have taken over social networking sites, declaring their allegiance for “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob,” the two males vying for the affections of Bella, the story’s quirky protagonist. Teens, tweens, and middle-aged moms alike pine for the movie’s male stars Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Missing from the shrieking fracas are the young Black women swooning over Lautner’s swarthy good looks and washboard abs. Where, among the Twitter updates in French, Tagalog and – oh yes – Indonesian are Tweets from Sheniqua and Tyrone about their third visit to the cinema? Black folks are talking about New Moon but, like Baratunde Thurston of The Onion who held a live hate-tweet of the film, we’re just talking smack.
Here are a few reasons why my people can’t really get on the Twilight bandwagon:
Bella is weird: She’s the quintessential nerd, doesn’t fit in, and generally acts and looks as such. African-Americans have enough to worry about, enough reasons not to fit in without adding “I’m a dork” to the mix. We tend to hide our social discomfort behind nice clothes and bravado, so Bella putting it all out there for everyone to see just turns us off. Identifying with Bella’s geekiness is pretty much the key to Twilight fandom. Looking like a nerd is cool when Kanye does it; acting like a nerd is just not gonna happen.
We don’t like the cold: Edward is cold, like dead people. It’s not a generalization to say that Black people like warm things, since we’re usually the first people to break out a coat when the temperature drops. Not too many Black women will “cozy” up next to some cold, hard dude night after night, particularly when its cold outside. And even though Edward has cool amber eyes and the whole sparkling-in-the-sunlight skin, he’s also deathly pale. Its not really a popular look with the sisters and, therefore, hard to imagine him inciting suicide-level longing and lust. I’m just putting it out there.
Vampires are supposed to be violent: For better or worse, the African-American experience has been fraught with violence of some sort: slavery, integration, the ghetto. We kind of expect that things are going to turn bad in some situations, like when a family of vampires move into town. But it never happens in Meyer’s world! The Cullens are above – or beneath – the usual vampire blood-sucking, and the books and movies barely hint at the flesh-ripping scenes so common to the genre. For a Black audience raised on The Godfather, action movies and NWA lyrics, pacifist vampires are as boring as My Little Pony.
Perhaps there exists a legion of underground African-American Twilight fans lurking in the blogosphere, pining after inter-species love of all kinds. Until they reveal themselves, expect us to make merciless fun until the DVD release of Breaking Dawn.
Social Media: Making Your Movies More Like Pooky’s since 2009
We live in an electronic age, where information may even be irrelevant if it’s not part of the social network: to wit, blogs. Why read a newspaper or a magazine when you can surf the internet for the latest pop culture ramblings from someone you don’t know from a can of paint?* Today, a new collaboration from Spot411 and Fox Home Entertainment makes it possible to add social media feeling that’s been missing from all your DVDs.
Introducing FoxPop, an application that connects the movie your watching with social network commentary about said movie. Let’s say you’re watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on your computer and decide to log into FoxPop. The part of the app powered by Spot411 will provide you with minute details about the movie – actors, writers, score, set decorations – based on what part of the film you’re watching. The social networking technology “reads” the movie dialogue and will give you comments that your Facebook or MySpace friends have made at precisely the same point in the movie! What’s more, you can watch the same movie at the same time with “friends” across the world and make commentary to each other. Isn’t that great?
Actually, I’ve been doing it for years, since the Spot411 technology is the virtual version of seeing a movie in a Black neighborhood. You know what I’m talking about. Go to any Magic Johnson theater across the country and you’ll get all the commentary you ever wanted. If you saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the theater on the corner of Crenshaw and Martin Luther King, people were probably talking about Taraji P. Henson like this, once her name appeared on the credits:
“Wasn’t she in that Common video? I thought they got married.”
“Right, right. (sings) ‘Before you lock my love away..’ That was the joint!”
“Naw, Common is with Serena Williams now.”
“Common, that’s MY husband.”
(from the back of theater) “Yo, shut the fuck up…the movie ’bout to start.”
See, there’s no need for fancy computer applications and Web 2.0 to give you the movie-going experience that African-Americans have had for years. We tend to talk a lot during the movie: not just disruptive chatter, but the kind of talking that enhances the onscreen action and contributes to the overall enjoyment of the film. Okay, any Black audience will have loud shouts of “kill ‘em” and “now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout”, and “oh no he didn’t”. Well, maybe not that last one anytime post-1998. But inter-movie conversation is one of the things I love most about my people, and the conversation isn’t necessarily limited to the folks who accompanied you to the theater. Say, for instance, you’re watching The Dark Knight, one of the Fox films with which you can use the new FoxPop technology. There’s a scene in the movie where the Joker pits a ferry full of commuters against one full of prisoners, assuming that they’ll destroy each other. Following is some commentary you’re likely to hear from the “peanut gallery”:
“Yo, that’s messed up. Tight-asses gonna smoke the prisoners.”
“Wait up, that’s Debo. With the tattoos.”
“Oh yeah, from Friday. I love that movie.”
“You got knocked the fuck out!” (laughter)
“Debo gonna bitch-slap the warden. Go for yours!”
“This shit is crazy. I would just jump out the boat.”
(Applause and cheering when “Debo” throws the detonator out of the window)
“That’s right, Debo, you did the right thing.”
See what I mean? Useful information linking an actor to other films, unexpected humor, and enhancement of a dramatic scene crucial to the film’s plot. You don’t really have to know that “Debo” played a character called “The Tattooed Prisoner” in the movie, or that the actor’s real name is Tommy “Tiny” Lister. Those are facts that you can Google later if you choose. And I’m sorry, but the kind of people who shout things out in the middle of a movie are usually so brazen and funny that nobody cares about the interruption. Some people in my network are not as entertaining, and allowing their comments all over my movie screen might just make me end our relationship.
So in social networking, as in pop culture, Black folks are ahead of the curve. I wish I’d known that when a White woman “shushed” me during a viewing of Lethal Weapon 3: I could have billed her for the interactive movie feature.
*Editor’s Note: You should, of course, continue to read this blog, comment on this blog, and forward posts from this blog to all of your friends and colleagues. It’s really smart and funny, and you can learn all about the reader’s credentials on the “about” page.