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Friday, July 02, 2010

Dying to die for

I read Roger Ebert pan the latest installment in the Twilight franchise. I saw the first, but between terrible trailers and scathing reviews, I’ve kept as great a distance as possible in this media-saturated culture. On a related note, I’ve also read a few reviews which pan its TV cousin–the Vampire Diaries.

All this stuff is clearly and purely chick-a-delic fare. Which raises a question. Women frequently complain that pornography ruins men for real women. And that’s apparently true in a number of cases, although I don’t know the percentages.

But I wonder if the same holds true in reverse: is vampire chic pornography for women? Does it ruin women (or adolescent girls) for real men?

If that’s what they’re looking for in the guy-next-door, then they’re not going to find it–unless, of course, the guy-next-door is a charming serial killer.

4 comments:

  1. Do you think I would get more female attention (positive female attention, that is) if I told them my roots are Transylvanian?

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  2. That's a start, but you'd also need to work on some other things–like practicing a furrowed brow, speaking with vaguely Eastern European accent, dropping subtle hints about your aristocratic pedigree, &c.

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  3. Ah, but I lost my Romanian accent while learning Greek and reading Homer as a young child in the academy.

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  4. Steve, you bring up an interesting point although you may just have been kidding.

    I actually don't like my daughter to watch any movies/shows (none are coming to mind at the moment) where the whole premise is the perfect romance as I don't want her to think that the most important thing in her life is to find "true love". One, I'd rather she focus on God and other stuff and not boys. And two, life is never as picture-perfect as movies.

    Anyway, I haven't seen the Twilight series but I can see how these movies could cause unrealistic expectations, especially for teen girls.

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