The Noughties give way to the Tensies?
So my blog is called Media Whip, I talk about the media, yaddah yaddah. But until I can get my head round the fact that I have an exclusive and sparkly Dreamwidth account (seriously, now I’m actually a member of the secret holy club I don’t know what the frick to do with my blog), I have to submit my musings on this here readily customised wonder. I thought, we’re already quite a way into 2010, so perhaps it’s time to look at life in a retrospective New Yearsy sort of manner.
2009 was an intriguing year for the world of media. America found its superhero in Barack Obama, the first black man to reside at the White House not for the purposes of fetching coffee. I’m still waiting for the day when American gets its first black lesbian transgender president, but it might take them another few hundred years to become quite that relaxed. So I’ll probably miss that one. There were what felt like more celebrity deaths than usual, perhaps because of their high profile nature – Jade Goody losing her battle with cervical cancer, Matt Lucas’ ex partner’s saddening suicide, Michael Jackson’s untimely pre-tour demise, Farrah Fawcett also succumbing to the dreaded C word and somewhat overshadowed by Jackson, Stephen Gately’s shocking passing which seemed to feed the bizarre brain-demons that live in Jan Moir’s head, and delicate Brittany Murphy just before Christmas.
The world went Twitter crazy with the eclectic likes of Stephen Fry, Lindsay Lohan and Philip Schofield documenting the minutae of their lives, and while the bread slices in that sandwich maintained a delightfully amusing and straightforward status quo, Miss Lohan, the low-fat filling, appeared to become evermore dishevelled and confused, pasting heartfelt confessions of love on her page then deleting them, bewildering the heck out of Elle magazine as detailed on After Ellen and changing her sexuality more often than we mere mortals change our socks. Meanwhile Fry slimmed down and got a tan, and Scofe just got more perplexingly handsome. What is it about kids TV presenters growing old gracefully, eh?
While Big Brother was a complete flop (no surprise, I personally don’t think it could have ever matched the glory of the first and finest offering… less social experiment with psychological insights, more room-where-sleb-wannabes-gather), audition-based (I refuse to use the term ‘talent show’, because… seriously) ‘Reality’ TV had its golden year. Britain’s Got Talent spawned Susan Boyle, whom the public placed on a pedestal so high the poor thing got vertigo and went understandably mad, and The X Factor merged with the aforementioned show so closely via a live audition format that even the contestants were confused. Yes, Cowell, Cole and co had to deal with a great many elderly men with spoons and unstable women with supposed wonder dogs stating the words, ‘I thought this was Britain’s Got Talent‘.
It was the year in which my beloved Chris Morris was made a prophet in my mind. Yes, when my equally adored Charlie Brooker highlighted in his excellent panel show You Have Been Watching the fact that ITV News pitted Michael Jackson’s memorial service against that of Princess Diana’s, those of us in the know thought we’d stumbled onto another superbly dark episode of The Day Today. Nope, this was real. Terrestrial TV is getting bloodthirsty these days. Speaking of doom, panic about the recession gave way to panic about the weather. We British love a dull crisis don’t we. If it wasn’t enough rainfall to fill a bin in three minutes it was a spell of such powerful snow that the average Joe or Jane was sitting freezing in their Slanket yelling ‘What Global Warming?!?’ at those eerie adverts where the man is reading the Climate Change Fantasy Story to his daughter (he might as well have just stuck The Day After Tomorrow on the DVD player she’s no doubt already wasting electricity with.
Adolescent girls became even more irritating than usual with the added facet of an obsession with vampires and werewolves, middle aged women unnervingly more so. Stephenie Meyer’s unfathomably popular sifted and filtered version of mythical folklore comes out so sparkling (literally) and clean, it can be contrued as undead demons and flesh-hungry savages as written by a Care Bear. It was the year of Robert Pattinson, offering a reversal of the backstories of Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger – yes, the cigarette-puffing musically talented ‘serious actor’ Brit who once starred as a young and rampantly bisexual Salvador Dali in the little-known independent Little Ashes became an object of hormonal lust for pubescent emo types everywhere (and their mothers, again, creepily) and almost killed himself jaywalking into a road in New York to avoid their clutches. This is exactly how Depp and Ledger started (Cry Baby and Ten Things I Hate About You, anyone?) before they became the culty, edgy types they are/[sadly] were. Entertainment websites and gossip magazines became embroiled in the non-existent relationship between Mr Pattinson (‘R-Pattz’) and his co-star Kristen Stewart (‘K-Stew’ – what is wrong with these people?) to the point of announcing what flowers and canapes would be at their wedding.
Conversely, and appropriately, it was a great year for American drama, not only with series after series making its way to our shores but predominantly for the delightful True Blood, lovechild of Six Feet Under‘s Alan Ball and a programme which effectively took the Twilight franchise, smacked it about a bit and laughed at it. Handsome and moody vampire? Check. Introverted and lonely human lady? Check. Rough around the edges eye-candy shapeshifter? Check. Love triangle between the three? Check. Murder mystery in a small town? Check. Inept police? Check. So far, so Twilight. Add swearing, violence, plenty of blood, a heap of graphic sex, fairly represented alternative sexualities, an Australian actor most notable for Home and Away with the best American accent I’ve heard since Mel Gibson’s and a group of secondary human characters which are NOT two-dimensional props, Stephenie Meyer, and you have something gripping, delicious and addictive.
Now for the personal. 2009 was a year which started off pretty dreadfully for me, landing myself in hospital with a small but awkward knee injury which required major surgery and left me sofa-bound for a few months. It was a year of introspective soul-searching where I realised that there was more to life than earning comfortable amounts of money doing jobs I hate, thus throughout the year I made it my priority to get into writing. Thankfully those who had told me during my lifetime so far that my writing was good were not wrong by industry standards, and I secured myself a two month position at the website Yelp as well as getting a number of articles confirmed for print publication in MediaMagazine which has always been a dream of mine. Starting 2010 as a freelance writer feels pretty great, if not the most secure means to a living, well, my happiness levels have gone through the roof and that’s what matters.
I’ll be publishing all my MediaMag articles on this blog too as well as the regular media musings I offer. The first is already here, the aforementioned ‘Faking It’. So, Happy New Year to all fellow bloggers – here’s to the start of the Tensies. Cheers, folks.
Bowel Movements… They’re Sexy
I would like to ask the powers that be why this advert keeps returning to our screens. Seemingly playing upon the fact that women all over the UK love Sex and the City, and have already decided which character they figuratively are (I’m told I’m a Charlotte myself. I am polite and I have dark hair. That’s about as far as the comparison goes really), what better than for Dulco Ease to reference these four figures in an advert about bowels.
In trundles stressed-out short-haired ginger suit faux-Miranda to join her friends at the table for one of their regular, neverending expensive brunches or lunches. They all instantly hassle her and she gets mad, whinging about the fact that when she went to the loo… ‘Bowel stuff. It was really hard and uncomfortable again.’
I’ll allow you to just ponder her little description for a moment. They’re in a restaurant. However even if I wasn’t in a restaurant, and even with my closest friends I still would not start my conversation on any social scenario with the word ‘bowel’. Surely that’s to be saved for when we’re all in our eighties. Only then is it acceptable.
I still can’t figure out who’s meant to be who in the rest of the team. Obviously Charlotte’s the one with the dark hair but there are two blondes, the lady who dispenses the pack of Dulco Ease from her ‘ooh, new handbag!’ (okay, that makes her a definite Carrie) and the one who says she ‘used to have a big pain in her life’ when her companion interjects and explains that ‘she ditched him’ (Samantha, surely, for the insinuation of use him and lose him). Oh ho ho ho, hilarious. Let’s equate men with uncomfortable bowel movements, doesn’t it just signify how far we’ve come? Emmeline Pankhurst would be so proud.
I’m submitting this one to TV’s Worst Adverts. It’s up there with the kid who wants to have a poo at Paul’s as far as I’m concerned.
Olly Murs channels Family Guy’s take on William Shatner
A wee while before the X Factor final, I was struck by a most unusual dance routine from Mr Murs. Yes indeed, he’s been praised for his swivelling hips and jangly legs, but has the young man ever heard of over-egging the pudding? Have a little gander at this…
And then see if the following reminds you of anything. Oh, Olly Olly Olly. You had me in fits of hysterical laughter, and I don’t think you were supposed to now, were you. It takes a while to kick in, but it all goes wrong from the moment his knees start moving independently of one another and he looks like he has no bones. No bones whatsoever.
Article 1 – Faking It: An American Guide to the Simulacrum
Exactly how real are the US’s popular, glossy reality shows like Laguna Beach: The Real OC, The Hills and Real Housewives Of…?
[The producers ] totally set up the BBQ scene for Brody and I to meet each other… they said, ‘The audience would get a kick out of seeing the ex talk to the new guy’… It was some of the best acting I’ve ever done.
Gavin Beasley on his stint as Lauren Conrad’s date in ‘The Hills’ (speaking to Reality TV World’s Christopher Rocchio, 2007)
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard argues in his book Simulacra and Simulation that, ‘The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth – it is the truth which conceals that there is none.’ He is essentially suggesting that in contemporary society our system of representations, symbols and images has become so vital, it supersedes the truth it claims to signify to the extent of that truth fading into oblivion, or failing to exist at all. Cynical as this may seem, think of the incidents often recounted by soap opera actors portraying villains, where viewers will approach and chastise them in public for their character’s behaviour. To this audience, the actor doesn’t exist; it is the character they engage with. Baudrillard’s theory is particularly appropriate to the study of reality television and to the exploration of the idea that on TV, we rarely see a ‘true’ reality. Situations are manipulated, events are dramatised and incidents are staged and enhanced ‘for entertainment purposes’. Paradoxically, ‘reality’ is fashioned within a genre that claims to give the audience the ‘truth’ as it actually happened. In other words, they create a ‘truth’ that never has, or arguably never would have existed in reality.
While it has existed in various forms since entertainment television’s conception, it was at the turn of the millennium with a spate of ‘fly-on-the-wall documentaries’ and the first UK version of Big Brother that the term ‘reality television’ became part of our everyday vocabulary. With many British reality shows translating successfully Stateside, the US has since generated its own breed of ‘reality’ entertainment shows that prompt controversial questions – are they documenting real events, or are the events staged? The idea of feigning occurrences to enhance a ‘reality’ show certainly reflects Baudrillard’s proposal that the simulacrum creates a more interesting, ‘valuable truth’ when reality will no longer suffice.
In 2002, MTV created The Osbournes, which claimed to follow the everyday lives of metal singer Ozzy, his wife Sharon and their two younger children. The show adopted a ‘warts and all’ approach to its depiction of the family, however siblings Kelly and Jack protested on a MADtv episode that the editing process made it appear as if they used profanities more than they actually did. Seemingly tied into this altered perception, misleading episodes later appeared incorporating pranks at the audience’s expense, arguably highlighting the family’s complaints that the edited portrayal is sometimes inaccurate and emphasising how easily viewers can be duped into thinking a situation is real.
In 2003 MTV produced another celebrity ‘reality’ programme – Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, based around the married lives of ‘wholesome’ singers Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, implementing a similar ‘truth-telling’ approach whilst editing footage to take it out of context (recontextualise). For example, Simpson’s infamous confusion at the tuna brand name ‘Chicken of the Sea’ which endeared her to the public led to her conscious characterisation as a stereotypical ‘dumb blonde’, with editors taking pains to incorporate similar incidents of puzzlement and ensure she had a ‘dumb moment’ at least once an episode. Along with careful editing – re-using and lengthening shots, creating montages, adding incidental music – less satisfactory reality is manipulated and a new ‘truth’ is manufactured.
The popularity of these celebrity-based shows with their exploitation of participants for comic effect eventually spawned The Simple Life, a merging of the sitcom format with that of reality entertainment, initially placing arguably ‘lazy’ socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on a farm to live and work. It followed a ‘documentary’ format with an informative voiceover; however, the narrator adopted a mock-Southern accent and regularly appeared to ridicule the girls for their ineptitude. Whereas The Osbournes and Newlyweds filmed its participants’ supposed everyday lives, here, the show put its celebrity subjects in situations extremely unnatural to them and recorded how they coped… or didn’t. ‘Some scenes have been created for entertainment purposes’, a disclaimer appearing briefly at the opening credits of many US reality shows including The Simple Life, is arguably a kind of catch-all phrase that ‘covers the backs’ of the programme creators for manipulating situations, similar to the panellists on shows like Have I Got News for You prefixing a potentially libellous statement with the word ‘allegedly’. It blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction further still as it does not specify which scenes are ‘artificial’. One could argue that any scene involving ‘unnatural’ situations has been ‘created for entertainment purposes’ per-se. However, ‘created’ scenes could mean any additional pre-filming processes, such as staging or scripting.
This boundary-blurring crops up frequently when reading any media text. If a television programme, film or advertisement claims to represent ‘reality’ in any form, a mediation process has taken place between what transpired and what one sees on the screen, whether this is simple cutting room recontextualisation or the falsification many US ‘reality’ shows have been accused of. These boundaries become even more indistinct when the reality show itself has been inspired by fictitious TV drama.
Laguna Beach: The Real OC and The Real Housewives… are obvious examples. Observing the popularity of teen drama The OC and the Desperate Housewives saga, producers have obviously engaged with the fact that the lifestyles portrayed are of interest to audiences, hence their production of ‘reality’ versions. The New Jersey edition of Real Housewives on Channel 4 recently focuses on the ostentatious wealth of the five women in question, and despite the documentary ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of the programme, it is set up to be viewed like a drama or soap opera. We are given teasers of what is coming up, and the opening credits present the show’s subjects as characters, posing in front of a gold background with their respective families in tow, their monikers glittering.
While it supposedly depicts real events, The Real Housewives of New Jersey embraces the conventions of a TV drama with its careful editing to incorporate mystery and tension. It introduces us to four closely linked ‘characters’, and with perfect timing, presents a fifth, the ‘outsider’ Danielle. Unlike the others she is a single divorcee with a somewhat ‘colourful’ past. She has already befriended one of the group, and in a camera interview the friend, Jacqueline, ‘hopes the others will accept Danielle’, Cue dramatic non-diegetic music that builds to a crescendo as the camera zooms in on a ‘concerned’ Jacqueline. What could have been a simple declaration of genuine concern is dramatised via the editing process as an ominous foretelling. Clearly, the others will not accept Danielle, and just in case the less than subtle media language didn’t make this point clearly enough , we have already been exposed to teasers in which one ‘wife’ declares, ‘And then she came along,’ and another tips a table in Danielle’s direction.
Merging reality television with drama even further is MTV’s The Hills, a Laguna Beach spin-off ‘starring’ Lauren Conrad from the original series (the term ‘starring’ complicates the reality concept further). Conrad has left Laguna Beach to pursue a fashion career, studying at design school and interning at Teen Vogue. However, while a voiceover is provided, this is no documentary. Conrad’s narration takes the form of a confessional diary and the style in which is it shot, coupled with numerous events taking place within a very short space of time, make the show look more like its fictional predecessor The OC than a programme recording real events. Non-diegetic music is taken to the extreme with fashionable recording artists providing a ‘soundtrack’ effect (appropriate for an MTV-produced programme), and camera interviews are replaced with intimate conversations with the ‘characters’ whose names are provided at the bottom of the screen as they appear, evocative of MTV’s The Real World (one of the original reality shows that prompted questions as to just how ‘real’ that world was).
Should we feel the need to suspend our disbelief whilst watching something that purports to be a reality show? In the first episode, no sooner has Conrad arrived at her new apartment and met housemate Heidi Montag, she receives a call from Teen Vogue asking if she can attend an interview in a mere twenty minutes. Of course this is not impossible, perhaps unlikely, but it adds a sense of drama and tension to the scenario. The sight of Conrad frantically ironing her skirt with hair straighteners while Montag excitedly squeals may be a lot more entertaining than Montag simply giving Conrad a tour of the apartment as they’d initially ‘envisaged’, but is it reality? Controversy dogs The Hills at every turn. According to a fellow diner supposedly present at Conrad’s ‘date’ with Gavin Beasley, ‘It was clear that this… is not a reality show. They took five takes of Lauren ordering dinner.’ Additionally, recontextualisation via editing also rears its head, with Beasley stating that, ‘I ordered that salmon roll for myself and Lauren said she would like to try a piece, so of course MTV edited the scene to make it look like I’m force-feeding her the salmon that she hates…’ Even the show’s producers, creators and spokespeople have confirmed that some scenes are filmed simply to add ‘continuity’ to the programme.
David Rupel helped edit two seasons of The Real World. In his defence of the editing processes reality television undergoes, he states, ‘One of the most common complaints I heard was that people thought we edited things too much and that we weren’t telling the real story… Trust me. As someone who has literally watched tens of thousands of hours of raw footage, nobody is interesting all of the time… if you watch every second of someone’s life, the majority of it is quite boring.’ Baudrillard declared that we value a ‘simulated real’ over what is real. The contrived ‘version’ of reality provided by the shows examined here is evidently considered more compelling than the more authentic ‘boring footage’ Rupel describes. The skewed perception of reality that leads a soap fan to reprimand an actor for their character’s actions, leads us to the recognition that audiences are quite content to value soaps as real. Therefore, why not value reality as soap?
Autumn Blues
What?!? Tights weather again? Already??? When the hell did that happen?!? And WHY in the name of hellfire are all mine laddered from last winter? Please, not the dreaded trip to the seventh circle of Primark, PLEEEASE.
Same Sex, Similar Plotlines, I bring you The L and the City
Is The L Word the thinking girl’s Sex and the City?
Like many twenty-something city-dwelling females, I come with something of a license to be excited and comforted by Sex and the City re-runs, boxsets and of course last year’s movie. Yet I may be contented to while away 45 minutes with Fiver on in the background, but my enjoyment of the show is hampered, and not just by my significant other’s admission that a particularly annoying ex-girlfriend of his forced him to sit through the entire six seasons in one emasculating marathon, no. It is because for the most part, I prefer The L Word.
- Diversity levels have soared as The L Word has progressed, yet gorgeousness has maintained its status quo
The L Word first aired in January 2004, accompanied by titillating promotional material including the cheeky tagline “Same Sex, Different City”. It seems as if the show immediately knew that its default demographic was those women who “like to watch”. And not just gay women. Members of the cast, whether lesbian or straight (and for some it is deliciously ambiguous) speak forthrightly about their pride in representing a minority. And forgetting for a moment Samuel Chambers’ protests of “heteronormativity”, I myself have met many gay women who claim to be “guilty” fans of The L Word, perhaps the same guilt I felt in my ticket queue-joining conformity to gawp at SJP’s shoes.
There are several similarities between the two shows. Firstly, they each follow a six season format, supplying the audience with enough time not just to befriend these people but also to experience them change and grow a little, perhaps even undergo major life alterations. Both shows present us with stock characters; recognisable personality types.
For example, SaTC has its resident bed-hopper with no strings attached, PR guru Samantha (something of a gay icon herself), while The L Word’s own lothario is the androgynous and mysterious hairdresser Shane. Samantha may exude life-affirming sexuality and healthy modern selfishness, yet Shane is a different beast – recoiling from affection, damaged, self-destructive and secretly miserable.
Quirky clothes horse and journalist Carrie is echoed in token bisexual Alice, also a journalist, also creative with fashion, also harbouring the same neuroses and romantic longings as her counterpart. While Carrie’s career broadens into hardback publication of her columns, Alice begins by writing for LA Magazine and furthers her career as a radio DJ, website developer (that began as a “napkin”) , podcaster and later a panelist on a womens’ talkshow. The two share many personality similarities – both are fiercely independent, live alone, have wide circles of friends and respond to relationship breakdowns particularly badly.
Workaholicism in the two shows is personified by the characters of Miranda Hobbes and Bette Porter. The two are highly successful and affluent careerwomen, Miranda as a lawyer and Bette as curator of the California Arts Center then the Art Dean of USC. There is however a distinct difference between these women. Bette opens the first series with the intention of starting a family with life-partner Tina, while Miranda has motherhood thrust upon her. Both processes bring out a softer and more nurturing side in such seemingly unmaternal post-feminist types, and the trials and tribulations of the emotional rollercoaster known as parenting make for particularly entertaining and harrowing plot developments in terms of such blatant juxtaposition.
As well as sharing some character types, the subject matter also repeats itself in certain areas. The issue of breast cancer, obviously a topical issue in any group of strong, empowered women, is raised . Both used an interesting shock tactic to introduce the disease – it claimed two particularly exuberant, life-affirming characters; fun-loving “life’s-too-short” Samantha and sculpted athletic pro tennis player Dana Fairbanks. Generally for me, The L Word wins out in terms of its gripping plotlines and more… stylistic sex scenes, but here SaTC had the edge. An extremely positive story with a message of hope was presented – early detection saves lives. Yes, Dana confirmed that her lump had “been there forever” but still, the harrowing tale of an energetic young woman on the cusp of stardom struck down in her prime by The C Word (and the all-too late rekindling of her friendship and possibly even romance with Alice) left a bad taste in viewers’ mouths.
And many viewers believe that from Season 3′s culmination, The L Word went downhill. While SaTC gave its fans exactly what they wanted and ended happily – Samatha’s cancer recovery and submission to monogamy, Charlotte finally becoming a mother and supercouples Carrie and Big/Miranda and Steve remaining solid – its lesbian counterpart began to bewilder and isolate watchers, challenging and confusing them more with every episode and seemingly consciously giving the audience the opposite of its desires.
Aside from tearing asunder terminal on-off couple Bette and Tina once more (except this time following Tina’s newly found heterosexual desires and causing even more irritation), the break-up of Shane and Carmen, the couple that launched a thousand YouTube tribute videos, was something fans found very hard to swallow. Carmen was Shane’s Smith, the only person she’d ever really wanted to change for, and a fun-loving alternative to her status-obsessed Richard equivalent (Cherie Jaffe).
Similarly, one could almost hear the groans of disbelief resonate in sitting rooms everywhere when self-indulgent malcontent Jennifer Schecter finally got her sought-after publishing deal after two seasons of immature scrawling. Character development aside, Jenny morphed from a fragile, emotionally wrought child into a beastly egomaniac. While her narcissism provided some comic relief, hearing a woman who only a year or so prior had been engaged to a vanilla swim coach criticise another character for crawling to the safety of white heterosexuality was more than nauseating.
But perhaps the most unforgiveable crime of all was the final season’s coupling of Jenny and Shane. Writers at both the Kissing Fingertips and After Ellen websites had previously praised the series for the longstanding platonic friendship of the show’s most mentally volatile subjects, both of whom seemed far calmer around one another than the rest of the cast, praying that it would “stay that way”. It did not. To drive along the Season 6 whodunnit premise, a sexual connection was forged between Shane and Jenny, creating a claustrophobic scenario where the former lothario feels like a prisoner of her best friend, hence giving her a motive for murder.
With the storylines feeling somewhat forced for the purposes of every cast member stating the words, “I hate Jenny!” or “I’m gonna kill Schecter!” there were moments where the ensemble simply didn’t feel like the characters Season One introduced us to. Alpha-female Bette was contemplating life as a stay-at-home Mum, Alice’s bisexuality had disappeared into oblivion with Dana, Dana’s cat, Carmen, Papi, Ivan, Jenny’s self-mutilation, Shane’s acceptance of monogamy, Tina’s Season One and Two charity job and countless other significant plot developments, and many other factors led to the programme looking like an entirely different one to that which graced Showtime back in 2004.
As a result, announcements that L Word creator Ilene Chaiken is contemplating a film version (evidently on the back of the success of the Sex and the City adaptation) have been met with skepticism. Diane Shipley of The Guardian stated that, “while Sex and the City fans flocked to cinemas out of loyalty to a programme they still had fond feelings for, the last episodes of The L Word were so awful that former fans are unlikely to go back for more.”
Perhaps the attitudes of L Word viewers are a dire warning for writers to listen to their audience. They complained about the increased use of the band Betty (particularly the theme tune) and the growing prominence of its member Elizabeth Ziff, they believed Cybill Shepherd to be the least convincing lesbian ever, Dana was one of their favourite characters and Jenny’s writing-based reveries were reviled. However, maybe The L Word, whether intentional or otherwise, is living proof that a show people love to hate can be as popular as a show people love.
I’m a latecomer, I know. But the question is ever present. *Do I Like Twilight?*
And they called it puppy love... ish.
Last night I acquired access to a budding, burgeoning, brooding teen fantasy which took the world’s “thinking” adolescents by storm. I say “thinking” because I have a great deal of difficulty imagining some of my town’s local shop-door loiterers or mini-motorcyclists (what on earth is it with those tiny bikes anyway?) sitting through such a tenuous and strained emo wet dream. I’m certainly not the target audience, however if I regress to my teendom and recall my ghostly pallor, sardonic wit and angry silences alongside the perennial activity of jamming portable music into my ears and shuffling around with my head bowed, maybe I can identify with the characters and comprehend the level of the franchise’s success.
Firstly, if you’re 25 and female, don’t watch it with your partner. This is a chick flick and a half. Let’s just put all societal progress which rages against gender stereotyping to one side for a second – I’m not generalising, but men and women are likely to view this differently. I believe my significant other to be particularly sensitive and romantic, but he’s male, and Twilight is not a film that holds up against the repeated phrase, “Oh come on, give her a good rogering!” I told him they’d not even kissed yet, to which he responded that this was likely to be two hours he’d never get back. I explained that if he got too excited he’d eat her, he said he’d rather he ate her, then the whole thing degenerated into ways in which they could have copulate safely, including my suggestion of a Hannibal Lecter mask. Not its target audience, either of us.
I came to the film with vague Twilight knowledge, but it was from an opinionated perspective. I’d discovered the series of novels through a LiveJournal forum which didn’t hold them in particularly high regard, and the more I researched, the more I agreed. The character of Bella came across like a spoilt, insipid brat, and I could not cope with the sheer amount of vampire folklore that had been altered, seemingly for the convenience of the plot. Rather than burn and disintegrate in sunlight, they “sparkle”. No fangs – their teeth are just “sharp” yet aptly look just like human teeth. And they do not sleep. The Cullen clan from which Bella’s beloved Edward comes are practising the vampire-with-a-conscience lifestyle first advocated by Louis in Interview with a Vampire. I spoke to my father, an Anne Rice fan, about this mockery of bloodsucking traditions, expecting his support. He disagreed with me entirely, informing me that Anne Rice herself had changed a fair bit too. No stake in the heart to end her vampires’ otherwise immortal years – dismemberment is the only option. Ironically enough, Stephenie Meyer follows suit. The one thing my father couldn’t quite get his head round was the “sparkling”, although he did tell me that Rice created a coven of vampires which evolved to survive the sunlight, so even this change he accepted. My one source of vampire elitism failed me – who else could I whinge about it to?
Whether this was a mistake or not, I became something of a Wikipedia expert on the subject of reading ahead and now know exactly what happens at the end of the four novels (the last of which was far less well critically received than the others). It does mean I agree somewhat with the critics who assert that the film would seem a tad ridiculous to those who haven’t read the books. I knew that Edward would be physically repulsed by Bella when he first saw her. It’s a pivotal moment. However to the unsuspecting viewer, whose shoes I wore as the film began, it all looks… strange. He seems to quietly retch as the fan blows her hair about in slow motion, which draws us to one conclusion. What an oddball. Which perhaps was the intended outcome – after all, he is otherworldly. While I don’t know about the book, in the film the minutae of teenage relationships is expertly captured; the awkwardness, the uncomfortable silences, the five minute gap from being virtual unknowns to boyfriend and girlfriend (something I desperately tried to remember but my 25-year-old brain wouldn’t allow me to envisage… perhaps it’s blocked such daft memories out). And try as I might with my cries of, “How long have they known each other?!” I couldn’t deny the breathless chemistry between the two, it was genuinely palpable.
I did however struggle to suspend my disbelief. I grappled with the notion that only Bella managed to put 2 and 2 together about the Cullens, and only with the added element of her bearing witness to Edward’s superhuman strength. Her classmates decsribe the Cullens to her as keeping themselves to themselves, she notices their porcelain features, they don’t eat in the cafeteria, and then one sunny day the Cullens are absent, and the classmates once again make themselves look like prize morons by telling her the Cullens are never around when the weather’s good. Let’s just recap. Pale. Don’t eat. Absent when the sun’s out. Incredulous as the idea of vampires may be, I deem it more incredulous that not one child in that school has thought of it before Bella saw Edward make a handprint in a car.
That aside, nothing prepared me for the violent conclusion. By this point I’d concluded that it was vampires by numbers, as not one iota of grisliness had graced the screen. Yet the final showdown between Bella and James was nothing short of gut-wrenching – one particular moment froze me, a person recovering from a fractured leg, to the core. It left nothing to the imagination. The Cullens’ subsequent intervention was also not for the faint-hearted. And while tooth-baring may not be nearly as terrifying without pointy canines, you forget that human teeth can do a heck of a lot of damage by themselves. Zombies, anyone?
In conclusion, I’m on the fence. I love the idea. I struggle with the incredulity. All-consuming whirlwind romance is perfectly plausible, particularly at such an age. But I’m horribly jealous of Meyer for creating such an epidemic (for want of a better word). It’s like the hormonal Harry Potter. But I’m at loggerheads with the erotica of abstinence because I can’t help but associate it with American right-wing religious movements and the writer’s own Mormon background. Perhaps I can treat the books and the forthcoming films as two totally separate entities, and maybe then I’ll find the product easier to swallow.
Blumenthal’s Televised Food Experimentalism Coincides With Restaurant Poisoning Scandal
40 vomiting diners take on an ejaculating cake… possibly.
Heston Blumenthal’s infamous Fat Duck restaurant has been closed due to an environmental health scare in what could be construed as ironic foreboding. The “culinary alchemist”’s kitchen is home to such oddities as vanilla mayonnaise, quail jelly and snail porridge. While one may argue that these may test even the steeliest palette, around 40 customers contacted the restaurant to voice what their stomachs wished to project(ile).
With impeccable timing the news comes just days before Channel 4’s screening of Blumenthal’s new “Feast” series, in which the gastronomic mad scientist deep fries mealworms, blancmanges frogs, condenses cow head juice and bakes four and twenty blackbirds into a pie, leaving some intact to sing and escape. And wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before a seemingly haphazardly assembled group of “celebrities”.
While TV critic Sam Leith sagely noted that “you can’t get food poisoning from watching him on the telly”, the recent indignity may leave a sour taste in the mouths of viewers treating themselves to the bizarre spectacle of an oversized erotic absinthe jelly. Blumenthal himself is feeling less than aroused, declaring that he feels “dreadful”, describing the event as “a real low” and asserting that he hates the thought of “anyone [feeling] remotely uncomfortable when they have left the restaurant”. Yet those that remained after service were not excluded from the drama. The entire staff were asked to provide stool samples, not for research into some taboo delicacy but for laboratory testing.
Blumenthal’s televisual persona rose in the wake of his attempted invigoration of Little Chef, the verdict of which we still await as to whether the model will be rolled out to the entire chain. The series proved that despite his tendencies toward culinary lunacy, he does fish and chips too. Somewhere Whittingstall is crying into his cuttlefish ink.
