I watched Twilight and I didn't throw up (but my eyes almost rolled out of my head)

 Ten years from now, it won't be funny. Just sad.

I'm pretty slow on the uptake as far as pop culture goes. I probably haven't heard whatever popular song is on the radio, and I didn't even get into Gaga until somewhere around mid-November of last year. I'm the kind of person that has to Google discussion board acronyms. I read a lot of stuff, but I guess I just don't really retain it. Moreso, I guess I don't get the appeal. Pop music is unoriginal, rom-coms are formulaic and I couldn't care less which bachelor some bitch is going to pick for her fake engagement.

Given my aversion to things other people like, I have been morally opposed to the entire Twilight franchise since its inception, for two very simple reasons. One, it was written by a Mormon (see my problem with these precocious wholesome phonies). Two, it's about high schoolers. That's how I know it has to be bad. Teenagers are the most self-centered, histronic, and completely useless members of society. They're like babies who can drive and swear.

So my husband, the one who likes flowers and candles and romance - I'm not really cut out for that whole thing - urged me to watch New Moon with him on Saturday. I've never seen the first Twilight movie, but he described the plot to me in painstaking detail. Girl moves to town, falls in love with school hearthrob, he takes her for a nice little tree-to-tree jumping session in the forest. Standard fare, if you like things that are stupid and make no fucking sense.

From the minute the opening credits rolled, I was about ready to shoot up antifreeze. The melodrama is RIDICULOUS. It pretty much takes a whole movie to say that Jacob likes Bella, and Edward is a stupid martyr, and Bella is overdramatic and unstable and completely unlikeable. There is no reason why every guy in this backwards-ass town should be in love with her. She really brings nothing to the table. Standing there with your mouth agape is not a personality. Not to mention the fact that these 'vampires' who are supposed to hundreds of years old act like they're all fucking twelve. AND THEY SPARKLE IN THE SUN. No. Real vampires die. I'll gladly take Eric Northman over Carlisle Cullen and his terrible dye job any day.

I did a little research, and the rest of the saga would indicate that it was written by someone who is certifiable psychotic. Hybrid babies? Clawing their way out of stomachs? Implied romantic feelings between said babies and seventeen-year-olds? This is what happens when you go to a church that makes you wear sacred underwear. Bram Stoker (or what's left of his eyeballs) is no doubt rolling in his grave.

I think what this really is all about is this absolute batshit insane idea of love in the Western Judeo-Christian world. It perpetuates the notion that even if you are nothing special, which, (kind of) sadly, most people are, it is possible that someone with substantial power, beauty, intelligence or influence will fall in love with you. Heart-wrenching, overwhelming, unconditional love with you. It's the love of fourteen-year-olds who think they'll meet someone who is dashingly handsome and they'll be together forever. It's the wish and hope that a man exists who wants nothing more to take you as his wife and take your panties off with the most delicate of touches. It's the dream of someone who will take no liberties with you, afraid to bruise your petals. Girls as flowers. Men as bees. Your Prince fucking Charming who will rescue you from mediocrity and make you beautiful and immortal and never let you go.

Why are we so desperate for these fantasies, for these means of escape? Why do we numb ourselves with antidepressants and dreams that will never be actualized? Have our lives become so painful that we cannot accept nor embrace the people that exist within them, the genuine bonds that inspire both sadness and joy? Are we so hungry for Hollywood's notion of 'real love' that we are unwilling to be satisfied with an honest smile, a whisper in the dark, and an occasional shouting match? When did we as a culture decide that we can't handle the reality of pain? Why is no one willing to experience palpable, substantial emotional anguish that makes us question who we are, what we believe in? Why are people so fucking terrified of feeling things? 

I remember a long time ago, when I was sadder than I'd ever been in my life. I was in counseling and it was recommended that I go on antidepressants. I flat-out refused. I'd rather be myself and miserable than someone else and happy, I decided. I'd rather embrace the fucked-up, complicated, unfeigned world than buy into the bullshit fantasy and spend my days longing for imaginary characters and impossible situations.

"The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one." - Don Draper

I can't stop reading Mormon lady blogs.

I can't help myself. I feel like I'm on a different planet than these people. They're all shiny, attractive, wrinkle-free and wholesome. They've never smoked a cigarette in their lives and they don't watch cable television because it's too crass. They got married at 19 and knocked up at 20 because they're all dying to address their sexualities but aren't allowed to do so outside the contract of matrimony. They think coffee is the work of the devil and they all end up with men that are pre-med but somehow have the money to buy new houses and cars. These people live in an alternate universe where no one is black, gay, fat, poor, or cynical. They put on a happy face and pretend that life is beautiful while they suffocate under the burden of being perfect. They chastize the drunks and addicts but make sure to take their Prozac and Xanax every day, claiming the hand of a doctor somehow divine. They redress doubt not through exploration or rejection, but reaffirmation.

Now, don't consider me an expert. I've only met three actual church-going Mormons in my life. The first two were missionaries brought into my Comparative Religions class in high school. The only things I remember about them were their strange, stilted way of speaking about their church, and the long dowdy skirts they wore. The only other Mormon? A closeted beefcake of a man who slept with Joel. My interest in the culture of LDS and Utah grew, naturally, through the depiction of a polygamous fundamental LDS family on a critically-acclaimed cable television show. Yes, I'm talking about Big Love.

 

I don't know what I find more fascinating - their complete naivete or their thinly-veiled pretentiousness. They're so excited about "helping" people, but their version of helping is bothering people at home and telling them their religion is unsatisfactory and that they need to join the "one true church." They post RENT lyrics and videos of Kristin Chenowith on Broadway, yet pay their tithes to an organized religion that works to ban gay marriage and the ERA.

I guess what intrigues me most is that elements of my life that are SO mundane and banal - getting an iced coffee, dropping an F bomb, wearing a short skirt, buying condoms, having a beer after work, criticizing authority, giving homeless people change - all these things that create the backdrop of my life are not even present in their sheltered little world. Experiences that I find fundamentally American in nature are never experienced by these people. It continues to astound me how multi-layered our society is.

Furthermore, I can't hide my disdain for LDS. I can't pretend I'm not disgusted by the fact one of the faith's founders claimed to have a "calling" just so he could sleep with as many teenaged girls as he wanted without receiving disdain from his followers. I won't trust a religion that refuses to allow the "non-worthy" into their temples, even for their children's weddings. A true church would not turn anyone away. THAT'S "charity"... not baptizing someone posthumously against their wishes. Religion has nothing to do with building $3 billion malls... and it never should.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop reading about their alcohol-free Cinco de Mayo festivities and their Vegas honeymoons sans gambling. There are, apparently, numerous Americas - and I'm happy to live in one of them that's real.