This first appeared at The Comics Journal.
Twilight: The Graphic Novel; Stephenie Meyer and Young Kim; Yen Press; $19.99; B&W, Softcover; ISBN: 978-0759529434
Twilight isn’t great any more than the original Superman comics are great. Both are essentially empty-headed wish-fulfillment, though differently inflected — in Superman, boys get to imagine that they are strong enough to save everyone; in Twilight, girls get to imagine that their love is so powerful that it magically makes those they care about safe. The day dream is too blatant to be anything but gauche — but the blatancy is also the power. Like Superman, Twilight has figured out how to give its audience exactly what it wants — and the result is mass enthusiasm, fame, fortune and infinite spin-offs.
I’m on my third iteration of the first Twilight novel myself — I read the book, watched the movie, and have now read the graphic novel (or the first volume of it, anyway.) Each has its own charm. The novel has the courage of its convictions, and the not -inconsiderable grace of its own obliviousness. Stephenie Meyer’s vision is melodramatic and often clueless (Volvos and baseball are the height of hip?), but she believes in it as fervently as Siegel and Schuster thought manly men wore their underwear on the outside, and there’s something about such utter faith that makes you sit up and take notice, even if just to exclaim in disgust. Twilight the movie didn’t have that potent naivete, but it made up for it —like the Superman movie before it — with a touch of camp, a sense of humor largely missing from the source material, and, most importantly, drop-dead gorgeous actors.
Twilight the graphic novel is more like the book than the movie. Indeed, reading it, it’s hard to escape the impression that Twilight should have started out as a manga-fied graphic novel in the first place. It’s true that, without Bella’s narration, and with manga’s faster pacing, both character and plot are much more attenuated than in the novel. Traits that are important in the book — like Bella’s clumsiness, or Jessica’s cattiness — are present only as asides in the GN. Similarly, the plot whips by faster than a sparkly vampire running through the forest — one moment Bella shows up in town, the next she sees Edward, and the next, hey, presto, she’d rather die than be separated from him. Overall, the pacing feels so rushed that I wonder whether you’d actually be able to follow the thing if you hadn’t read the book first — though, of course, everyone who buys the graphic novel has already read the book first, so it’s not really that much of a problem.
In any case, following Twilight isn’t necessarily the point— which is why the graphic-novel treatment feels so natural. In this version of Twilight, people and events largely disappear, and what you’re left with is lovely faces exchanging soulful looks in lingering freeze frames of fractured time. I’m not a huge fan of Young Kim’s art, which exists in an uncomfortable halfway zone between mainstream and manga, and which manages to be both slickly anodyne and clumsy — especially in the clunkily transparent speech bubbles. But…you know, slickly pretty is probably what most readers want from this experience, and Kim’s general instincts to show as many eyes in closeup as feasible seems similarly sound. The graphic novel, in other words, is just the juicy bits— a kind of distilled overheated fanfic version of the original. Since Twilight was essentially an overheated fanfic version of itself to begin with, though, that works out fine.
Speaking of distilled overheated Twilight fanfiction, Jen Reads 50 Shades of Grey. This series makes Twilight look like a work of utter genius.
On the topic of fiction that is its own fanfic, I saw Skyfall the other night; it’s only the second Bond movie I’ve seen all the way through (The first was Goldeneye, eh) and it felt like watching Dark Night Rises a second time. Unlike pretty much everyone involved in HU though, I dug DKR so I had a good time. As with DKR the protagonist is maybe past his prime, and being too old and obsolete is a key theme of Skyfall. I’m almost middle aged so I totally jacked off over Bond’s proving he’s still got it; I guess I have the makings of a manfic Bond dork after all.
You know what else seems like self-fanfic? Firefly. Every nerd I talk to worships that show, but to me it felt like an advertisement for its own adorableness; Blake’s Seven by way of Friends.
I really didn’t like Skyfall (just reviewed it at the atlantic.) You should check out the earlier craig ones though, or the Sean Connery’s. They’re quite entertaining.
Torchwood is definitely tied into fan-fic tropes. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though (it wasn’t in the case of Torchwood — and arguably not in the case of Twilight either….)
That battle sequence with assassin in front of the neon backdrop is the best sequence to ever be filmed in a Bond film. And I loved the fact that the took the typical gay henchman and made him into the antagonist, playing with the homophobia of previous Bond films. The Bond girl aspect was a nice surprise within this relation. I thought it one of the best films of the series, certainly the best looking.
Hmmm…I’m wondering if the cinephile’s just love the way it looks? That would make some sense… I really don’t think the homophobia was especially thoughtful or different from the past, and the Bond girls certainly weren’t. But I can see folks being seduced by the pretty pictures….
I loved the way the film played with light and shadow; squint and it’s a Motherwell. But then I watched A Touch of Zen last night and it engages in similar cinematographic play, so you could just watch that instead.
Ha, possible, that can get me through quite a bit. But Kushner took the sexuality of the villain and made it no big deal to Bond — that was a nice turn. And [SPOILER] the Psycho style dismissal of the Bond female is what I admired. This was the queerest of all Bond films. With the Mommy issues, etc., it will be admired and hated for some time to come within Queer film studies, I just bet.
Deakins is certainly one of the best. And is the visual nature of an action film one of its primary attributes? And cheaply shot drama is permitted with a good script, but you better deliver on the spectacle for an actioner, regardless of the script and acting.
“isn’t” for “is” after the “And”
I’d be more impressed with the daringness of that homosexual banter if I hadn’t just seen pretty much the exact same scene, almost verbatim, in Clint Eastwood’s Tightrope from almost thirty years ago.
Great review! I’m probably never going to read the GN but it is just nice to see someone examine Twilight for what it is: A pop culture phenomenon that is giving people what they want. I don’t really know what people think they are going to accomplish with all the Twilight directed hatred other than upsetting young girls (or boys!) with the undertones of misogyny in their criticism. I love going back and reading the original Superman stories, but you are right, it is probably in the same indulgent way I would go back and read Twilight. Because when I consume something I don’t have to decide right then and there if I “love” it or “hate” it. I think that is one of the biggest symptomatic problems of fandom or nerdom, the rush to take a side. Why can’t we just say “meh, didn’t offend me, I enjoyed myself” and then talk about what aspects we found interesting or problematic? I have yet to have many proper discussions about Twilight as a part of our culture because 1)I get labeled as a Twilight apologist and 2) because people claim they are to smart (and or to good) to even read it. This is just really too bad. Glad to see someone being level headed in their criticisms.
Hey Emma! Great to see you over here!
I’ve written a bunch about Twilight along these lines — you can find many of them here (as well as some pieces by other contributors.)
My general take is that Twilight is not especially good — but it’s not categorically worse than most insanely popular pop culture phenomena (Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, Buffy, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Superman, those dreadful Nolan Batman films, John Grisham, the little I could read of those George R.R. Martin books, James Bond, and on and on.) Given that, the outcry against them seems more about demographic animosities and turf battles than about the fact that a bunch of people are reading mediocre books (because, again, most of what people read and talk about and enthuse about is really not that good to begin with.)
I haven’t seen Skyfall, but I’ve been talking about it with a friend who agrees with you guys re: the movie’s strengths and weaknesses. Since I’m not a visually-oriented person, but class and gender issues matter to me a lot, I’ll probably skip the film.
I will check all those articles out! I like your take. I think this is one of the big problems I’ve found with pop culture studies, video game studies and comic studies is that there is this push to only look at things that you can defend as being “good” and then people spend half their energy trying to justify why it is “good” and worth talking about in the crush of mass anger. I mean, who cares if something is “good”. Does that make it any more worth talking about? How about the fact that it is INCREDIBLY famous and that everyone is consuming it? Is that not as important as it being “good”? I have a “classic” English undergrad and Masters degree (where as my PhD is more digital humanities new media focused) and I think a lot of this problem is hold over from the forming of the English canon, which is something idiots still fight about. Instead of just examining a text for what it is they feel they have to justify it as a “classic”. Such crap. Film Studies as a discipline has maybe gotten over this, better than everyone else anyway. I’m going to go check out the rest of those links! Thanks!
Subdee (and Charles) my review at the Atlantic of Skyfall is here. (As I suspected, the commenters are nearly unanimous in condemning me. popular film + talk about sexism + negative review = cranky public.)
Emma, I’m not against people talking about why stuff is good or isn’t good at all. I’d even argue that there are good things about Twilight. But…I do think it’s important to keep things in perspective, and at least try to make distinctions between pandering to me/pandering to somebody else and good/bad.
Yes exactly!
“and it felt like watching Dark Night Rises a second time. ”
Wow. In the lead-footed dreary scale then that means “Skyfall” must be over the top. I mean, the previous two Bond films were dreary, but not on the level of a Nolan film. I’ll probably stay away.
Hey! I really liked Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace!
The first Nolan Batman, though, is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Is there any critical consensus that that’s a stinker, or am I an outlier?
steven samuels, I don’t generally play oracle about whether or not someone will like a movie or not, but I’m inclined to think that if you didn’t like DKR you probably don’t need to see Skyfall.
Emma, could you say more about what kinds of discussions you’d like to see Re: pop culture?
Hope this isn’t too presumptuous…but you can see some of Emma’s pop culture writing here. The recent post about sex and the Walking Dead is excellent.
I thought most people thought that the first Nolan Batman was the worst of the lot. The outliers are the Batfans who actually like it. It stunk, but not as badly as Batman and Robin.
And I sort of agree with Aaron. Skyfall is slightly less stupid than DKR but the ability to not think too hard is a prerequisite to enjoying any James Bond movie. Charles is right in saying that it’s one of the best in the series though.
Noah: (As I suspected, the commenters are nearly unanimous in condemning me. popular film + talk about sexism + negative review = cranky public.)
But wouldn’t you say that talking about sexism in Bond films is sort of predictable?
When you recommend Connery’s stuff, I presume you’re enamored of the dinosaur-like behavior in the films? Things like Pussy Galore’s conversion to the pleasures of dick or Connery slapping his masseuse on the butt as she leaves. You can rape and kill as many women as you like on screen nowadays, but no way can you show an anonymous female being slapped in the butt anymore. So what you don’t like about the current Bond is its pretensions to being sexually correct?
There was quite a bit of homage to From Russia with Love and Goldfinger in Skyfall anyway.
It’s somewhat predictable…but so is not talking about sexism, right? Most reviews just ignore it, but it’s not like it goes away or isn’t relevant. The franchise returns again and again to the same material; clearly it’s still relevant. Saying “it’s predictable” just seems like another way to say, “it’s PC”, and/or “it’s my entertainment and I don’t want to think about it too much.”
Anyway, to me it’s interesting how the Bond movies do or don’t try to deal with the way gender roles have changed. The last couple of Craig outings really do think things through; Skyfall does not (and the plot is more hole than plot; it’s really a poorly put together film.)
The Connery films are of another era — if you don’t want any sexism, I would say you need to stay away, but they do what’s expected and are generally better written and plotted than the Skyfall mess. Goldfinger, for example, is a really entertaining villain, whose master plan is actually fairly clever. And Connery’s fun to watch (as is Craig).
And you know…the Bond girl death in Goldfinger is actually handled substantially more tastefully than the one in Skyfall, which is something of a low point in the franchise in that regard. Turning mothers into Bond girls also seems unusually unpleasant.
Did you read the review and dislike it, Suat, or just going from my description here? (Just curious; no need to read it if you’re not interested, obviously.) I am interested why you think Skyfall was one of the better entries of the series though. Is it the visuals, as Charles said? Did you find the banter especially well done? The plot just seemed so poorly conceived, but I suppose there could be other pleasures….
Yep, read your review and thought it was one of the better written negative ones out there. I’m not convinced by the M as Bond girl angle though. I think most people will get the more obvious message re: Mommy’s Boy/Britannia substitute.
The casual killing of the Bond girl was certainly strange but maybe Charles can drop by again to tell us why he liked it so much. Maybe there will be a director’s cut where Bond will shed a few tears before moving on (more or less what happens with the sisters in Goldfinger). Also, with regards your review, I don’t know if using a dead, oil-soaked Gemma Aterton as fan service-homage is that progressive you know (even if Bond affects some emotion)? The part where Bond doesn’t bed Olga Kurylenko is probably the most progressive part of Quantum of Solace.
I like Skyfall for the usual reasons I like any above average action movie: good set pieces, nice cinematography, convincing special effects, nice sound engineering, fan service, mild deviations from the norm (so Bond losing fight in the cold open vs. the ending of Empire Strikes Back) etc. But you’re right, there aren’t many memorable-funny short scenes between Bond and villain (a la Bond and Blofeld or Goldfinger). And the turning point in the underground M16 is genuinely dumb. I’m surprised that you liked Quantum of Solace more though. That film is a mediocre mess.
A lot of people cite Goldfinger as the best Bond film but if you compare the action sequences with those in contemporaneous films like Point Blank, Frankenhemier’s The Train, or Bullit, it just doesn’t come out favorably. It’s better appreciated for its camp aesthetic.
I really hated the last half hour in Scotland. And the relative competence of villains and heroes was even more egregiously tied to the demands of the plot than is usual in these things….
Re: Arterton: It was the emotion and I thinl M saying, “she had a desk job!” when Bond starts to try to talk about her service to her country. There was just a sense that she was a person and had a past and a life outside of what we see that was unusual and welcome. Combine that with the fact that he doesn’t sleep with the main female lead, *and* with the fact that he’s motivated the entire time by Vesper Lynd’s death — it’s subtle, I guess, but it’s a pretty different vision of women than you get in most Bond films. They behave differently from each other; they have their own motivations; they seem to exist for themselves rather than solely for Bond’s aggrandizement. I’m not saying it’s brilliant or even not sexist, but I felt like it was at least making a vague gesture at not being completely idiotic.
There are the similarity and differently about twilight and superman and You show me very clearly about that. Superman is the past time and twilight is future time.
thank you
Not sure about the first Nolan Batman film, but I’m under the impression that the second and third Nolan ones had somewhat mixed reviews at best among the more serious reviewers. Edelstein didn’t like it, among others. So negative opinions on those films are not necessarily outliers depending on your POV.
I saw 2 movies this weekend, and Kushner wrote Lincoln, not Skyfall (if anyone noticed my reference above). Lincoln’s a lot of fun, too.
As for Skyfall, Bond and Noah’s feminist fantasies:
It seems pretty silly to bring up ‘rape’ in the context of that Pussy Galore scene. It’s all so light hearted, where she’s clearly playing along with him. It’s more of a “I could only fall for a man who can best me in a fight” than any sort of abuse. She’s clearly titillated by the whole thing. But if anyone were to suggest that Pussy is bi-, not strictly a lesbian, that would make sense.
Bond movies (I’ll stick to those, since I haven’t read the books) have always been primarily about men fighting men, with women being there as an enhancement for masculinity. I can’t imagine what a feminist Bond film would be like, but I don’t expect to see one. What this film does is put a woman at the center of creating masculinity, which could be seen (as Noah does) as justifying the Bond world, or as an explicit referencing of the lack of feminine influence throughout the Bond series (women aren’t merely attachés to 007, but one of them is the prime mini … er, mover behind the whole thing). What I loved about offing the Bond girl so early was that it mocked the role she’s played in all the former films, it just cut through the illusion of how important all those women have really been to each story. No, this is ultimately a story about men, while problematizing the series attempt to erase the feminine influence. To me, this wasn’t all that subtle, but it was clever enough to be fun.
As for the gay thing, I’ll side with Cruising, Basic Instinct and now Skyfall over the restrictive and moralizing homophobic reading. Robin Wood would’ve liked this movie, I just bet. Noah, you need for a story to tell you that something is definitely wrong in order to take the story as being against what’s wrong. It’s never enough for such a film like this to present a problematic, while still delivering on the entertaining requirements. Bond is sexist, yes, but here he’s presented with a distorted mirror of his own life, the villain as an even more extreme example of a man who doesn’t need women at all (except for that one, the mother figure). And if someone wants to say that this paints all gay men as evil, Bond is shown making a point that he doesn’t have a problem with homosexual sex. Is Bond’s heterosexuality any better off than the villain’s homosexuality? Sure, the movie delivers the sexual fantasy for straight men, but it also pretty clearly questions Bond’s sexuality in the film, too. Bond’s sexual encounter with the wouldbe Bond girl is doubled by the villain’s violent encounter with her. That seems to have a lot rich interpretative potential on my end, at least.
I do agree with Noah that the plot rambles and the film was too fucking long. That is, I was pretty bored by the Scottish sequence, too.
And, yeah, Batman Begins stunk.
Oops, also: anyone thinking Twilight is as good as Song of Ice and Fire clearly hasn’t read the latter. Jesus, that’s ridiculous.
“Noah, you need for a story to tell you that something is definitely wrong in order to take the story as being against what’s wrong.”
Yep. That’s why I love slashers and the Thing. You’ve got me.
You’re fairly delusional if you think killing Bond girls goes against trope. Bond girls are constantly getting killed — late, early, and in the middle. That’s what happens to them. The contested male homosocial struggle resulting in the death of the contested object isn’t pushing against the standard narrative — it is the standard narrative.
And similarly the idea that lesbians are all just waiting around for a strong man to turn them straight by raping them isn’t a fun negation of the ideology of rape. It’s the ideology itself.
I really don’t think Robin Wood would have liked this movie, with it’s entirely banal reinscription of tediously familiar gender politics. But who knows? Maybe the pretty scene in Singapore would have dazzled him so much he had to back and fill to make excuses for an otherwise boring and unimaginative film.
Oh…and I haven’t read Song of Fire and Ice because I couldn’t get past the first couple of pages because I passed my threshhold for by the numbers sword and sorcery twenty years ago. But, on the other hand…you haven’t read Twilight, have you?
Glad we agree about the Scottish idiocy and Batman Begins though!
There was no real Bond girl in this film — that went against trope, didn’t it? Admittedly, I haven’t seen much of the 80s and 90s, post-Moore films.
Pussy Galore wasn’t raped. It’s statements like that that will get your typically outraged comments on the web. You kind of get the reaction you deserve. Make a ridiculous statement, get ridiculous responses.
And, no, I haven’t read Twilight. I have sampled the writing and argued with you enough to know that the politics etc. aren’t anywhere up to what Martin does, though.
If, however, you want to keep the comparison to merely the filmed versions: it’s pretty obviously wrong to suggest that the Twilight movies are anywhere as politically, ideologically, psychologically, philosophically, and any other -ly as rich as the TV version of Martin’s books.
He forced her to have sex with him. It’s suggested that she likes being overpowered by her enemy and being forced to have sex, yes…but men often argue that women like being raped. We’re in a male fantasy where rape is okay and fun. But that doesn’t make it not rape.
It’s not hard to outrage folks on the web. Any feminist commitment is enough, really, from my experience. Or just saying that a movie people like is bad. Or saying a book people dislike is good. Or whatever. You can even upset people by making distinctions between rape and legitimate rape, is my understanding.
Anyway, re the Bond girls: not sure what film you were watching, but in the one I saw there were numerous Bond girls. There’s the poor sex slave who gets shot (and like I said, having sex with Bond and then getting shot totally makes you a Bond girl.) Moneypenny is a Bond girl; revealing her as a returning character just means that the returning character is a Bond girl, not that she suddenly gets un-Bond girled. And M is treated as a Bond girl; intense emotional relationship with Bond, then she gets shot and dies in his arms. How many more do you want?
Well, I haven’t read the books or seen the tv series for Martin…and I’m not especially fond of the Twilight movies anyway (the first one was fun, second was okay, third was dreadful, haven’t seen the others.)
Twilight’s really interesting and weird politically and philosophically though. You just dislike the points it makes, from what I can tell. You have an ideological commitment to a world in which violence is at least recognized as some approximation of truth. You like Martin for its realpolitik brutality, right? That’s not Twilight, so you dismiss it as unsophisticated. I’m coming form a somewhat different perspective, so my take is somewhat different.
I don’t know what else to argue about that scene, Noah. She is quite clearly toying with Bond, enjoying the fight, finding it titillating. It’s sexual foreplay. At no time is there any terror or fear in her eyes. I’m not arguing that the scene doesn’t play into sexist views, though.
I should be clear: I was considering the main woman to be the Bond girl, not any woman appearing in the film, even if she sleeps with Bond. I know that Rolling Stone or whatever will put up many actresses as “the new Bond girls,” but I was talking about the fact that there is no central one that goes through the entire story as the subject of Bond’s love interest. Instead, his mother is substituted (but I wouldn’t call her a Bond girl, since she plays a different role from what that title tends to suggest).
Martin shows the problem with realpolitik, too, so it’s not all brutal violence. He really problematizes multiple views within the narrative. Everything comes with a downside. Not many pacifists in it that I can recall, though. Anyway, I like Twilight for all the reasons you ignore: it’s a conservative, Mormon feminist fantasy. I always appreciate a movie that doesn’t give me more Hollywood liberal views on something. (On the other hand, I liked Lincoln because it’s so stridently an argument for a middle-of-the-road ideology. It out-Capras Capra.)
Also, the fact that the series questions what is honor (e.g., relative to the fates of Ned and Jaime) is enough to demonstrate that the series is hardly “by the numbers.” There are plenty of examples of how Martin works against genre expectations. One might not like his books, but it’s just wrong to say it’s just another fantasy series, offering nothing new. His characterization sets him apart from any fantasy I’ve ever read.
I don’t think the Pussy Galore scene is nearly that clear. I rewatched it recently (and actually talk about it in my book.) I think there are a lot of assumptions that go into your argument that she doesn’t show sufficient fear or isn’t sufficiently upset. To me, your reading just boils down to, “well, the rape wasn’t sufficiently traumatic, so it doesn’t count” — an argument, which has a really unpleasant pedigree. What we see in the film is a woman being overpowered and forced to have sex. The sex is then so transformative that she turns her back on her sexuality, her job, and basically all of her earlier commitments in order to wander around and do whatever Bond says.
Did you notice that once Bond screws her, she never quips again? She’s funny and smart and challenging, and then suddenly she’s just Bond’s tool, to direct where and how he will. If she’s entering into the relationship autonomously, why does the film systematically rob her of her autonomy once she’s in that relationship?
Your definition of Bond girl seems willfully idiosyncratic, and, like I said, ignores the fact that many fan-service Bond girls get murdered. I’d agree, though, that the film is unusual in that it substitutes M for the main love interest — but as I say in the review, I think that’s more in the interest of extending the Bond girl to the mother than in the interest of getting rid of Bond girls altogether.
But…I’ve talked extensively about Twilight’s Christianity and it’s emphasis on virginity, not to mention its embrace of femininity. In what sense have I ignored either its conservatism or its religiosity? I don’t know — maybe it doesn’t count because I actually do think its take on those matters is (at least occasionally) insightful and moving and profound, rather than just touting them as some sort of ironic counterweight to Hollywood?
Anyway, Martin could well be better than Meyer. Twilight has its virtues, but they’re not overwhelming or anything. But I can’t say I’m eager to read Martin anytime soon based on what I’ve read of it and what I’ve heard about it. But…if you wanted to try to convince me, I’d love to have a post from you about it.
Your reading of the outcome from that scene doesn’t speak to whether it was rape. Everything you say fits my “only a man who can best me in battle,” too. Thus, you have to go to the scene, which you linked to above: There should be some terror, some horror, something other than being playful and impassioned if she was really resisting or troubled by Bond’s domination. She’s found a real man.
And however you define a Bond girl, my point was that there is no Bond girl (the main girl, on his side) that makes through the film as his love interest. Furthermore, the one they set up to be that girl is murdered early on. Yes, women have been murdered before in the series (Goldfinger, for one popular example), but not the one picked to be “the girl” for the rest of the film. It was like killing Ursula Andress early on in Dr. No.. (And, again, if that’s been done, I don’t remember it.) But more importantly: the reason behind it was fairly interesting as it says quite a bit about Bond and his villain, the relation between them, what they say about each other.
As for Twilight, I’m a bit burned on that. My memory is that you argued against me when I suggested that it was a defense of old religiously inclined values for women as a form of feminism, suggesting instead that it could be defended against many modern feminist reactions against it. You even resisted the argument that Meyer’s book is against abortion. It’s feminist, but not any kind feminism you usually trumpet. (It’s more that women should be able choose what the more radical sisters call patriarchal values if they want.) Compare your reaction to it versus Hunger Games. Talk about idiosyncratic …
Pussy Galore: as I said, she seems to enjoy it — but that’s entirely consistent with an ideology that argues that women enjoy rape. The scene and the film is about denying women agency and autonomy, and central to that is the insistence that women can’t have anything that they wouldn’t willingly give to men. The fact that the film insists that rape isn’t rape doesn’t mean that rape is not in fact rape, would be my argument.
For Skyfall, I just don’t see entirely mundane homosocial gender dynamics that are central to every single Bond film as especially daring or interesting. They’re more explicit maybe — but the explicitness is still very much in the context of homophobia and misogyny. But mileage varies in this as in all things, I guess.
And I talk about traditional visions of femininity as a worthwhile part of feminism all the damn time, Charles. Twilight’s pro-traditional femininity — which does not at all make it pro-patriarchy. You’re inability to make a distinction between the two probably has something to do with your constitutional inability to see non-violence (or for that matter, anything non-phallic) as worthy of theoretical weight.
Not to say that Meyer’s take on patriarchy is entirely negative or anything. Actually, thinking about it it’s (like many things in the book) pretty weird. There’s often a titular male head, but then there’s a strong emphasis on communitarianism; patriarchal figures are insistently feminized, but also sometimes opposed by female collective action…like I said, it’s very strange. I suspect part of it is Mormonism, which I don’t know well enough to really understand how it effects her writing precisely. It’s worth remembering, though, that Mormonism is pretty recent and itself quite odd — and also worth remembering that Twilight has been much condemned in the Mormon church, apparently. Trying to map traditional conservative politics onto Twilight isn’t going to work any better than mapping mainstream feminism onto it, I don’t think.
Charles: “But more importantly: the reason behind it was fairly interesting as it says quite a bit about Bond and his villain, the relation between them, what they say about each other.”
Noah, I don’t think Charles meant to imply that homosociality was the main thrust of that scene. I gather it’s meant as a play on Bond’s intense narcissism which derives from his mommy issues and disrupted development. Hence the watery opening and closing scenes of his return and exit from the womb. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure if this kind of thing works in the context of Bond films but I suppose it’s there.
Regarding the phallus, patriarchy and violence: correlation doesn’t imply causation. You should learn that, Noah.
If you really want to see a rape scene that isn’t just playful violence between 2 people for whom violence turns them on, see River of No Return, where Mitchum’s character really does force Monroe’s character to have sex with him. After which, she’s dominated and begins to love him. She doesn’t appreciate the violence one iota in the rape scene. Whereas Pussy Galore does. The woman is quite clearly into what’s going on — that should have an impact on how you read the scene. She’s testing Bond, he passes the test, she romantically embraces him at the end. This might be complete horseshit fantasy, it might also play into rape fantasies (perverts can read rape fantasies into any kind of film), but there is no rape in the diegesis of that film. Pussy Galore is having sex with a man the way she wants to have sex with a man. Bond received her message loud and clear. The entire context of James Bond is fantastic, people don’t behave in realistic ways. Most of his interactions are violent. This is hardly the worst encounter he’s ever had if you want to treat him realistically. He murders a lot of people.
As for homosexuality in Skyfall: Suat adds a lot of metaphorical points that I wasn’t thinking about, but they make sense. Mainly, I think the scene was a commentary on Bond’s relations with women, using the villain’s (whatever character Bardem was playing) relations as a counterpoint. In order to not make this some traditional form of homophobia, the writers put in a scene where Bond is quite clearly not troubled by homosexuality. Ultimately, this is more about Bond’s version of masculinity (or his hermetically masculine world) than it is really about homosexuality, per se, I think.
There’s a lot of feminist discussion about the phallus, patriarchy, and violence, and how or whether they’re linked, obviously. And while correlation doesn’t indicate causation, it doesn’t indicate lack of causation…an inconvenient fact that that little phrase often glosses over.
People in James Bond don’t believe in realistic ways, obviously. They behave in fantastic ways — that is, in ways based on fantasies. The fantasy in this particular scene is that women, and especially lesbians, enjoy being raped.
I wrote about this a while ago here, Charles, if you want to be further irritated.
Suat, good point about the mommy issues. I think the mommy issues are pretty insistently linked to the homosociality in the film, as I said in my review.
Charles, I don’t disagree with your second post up there. I just am really unclear how different this is from other Bond films, is the point. There’s some glimmer of meta-commentary — but it’s more playful embrace than critique, per se, it seems like to me.
“I think the mommy issues are pretty insistently linked to the homosociality in the film, as I said in my review.”
Except when they’re linked to Bond’s problems, too. You’re just focusing on half of hero/villain mirror. You know, it’s a dialectic, blahblahblah.
“The fantasy in this particular scene is that women, and especially lesbians, enjoy being raped.”
If Pussy Galore is a lesbian and she’s representative all women and she was raped, then you’re right. You have a fantasy (a critical one) here, Noah, but not one that I or quite a few viewers share.
Twilight also has a sexual violence scene which is recuperated by the notion that the woman “likes it” right? Edward “feels bad” about bruising/wounding Bella (and then, of course, the sex leads to pregnancy, which kills her), but she forgives him, saying it was all worth it. Not so dissimilar from Pussy Galore…though not exactly the same. Not sure why one is sexist and the other isn’t….I admit I haven’t seen or read Twilight…but one of my students was pointing this out in a presentation.
It’s different because there’s a difference between rape and a situation where the guy says, “I don’t want to hurt you,” and then you get months of the woman begging him to have sex with her, and then he finally has sex and she has some bruising and he’s guilty and she tells him he’s being ridiculous. I dunno; the dynamic seems pretty thoroughly dissimilar. This isn’t Bella having a gleam in her eye or not being sufficiently resistant for some third party observer — this is a clear, repeated statement by the woman that she is into it beforehand, into it during, and into it afterwards. That doesn’t seem like a difficult distinction to parse to me.
Charles…you’re not seriously contending that Pussy Galore is not a lesbian, are you? (Or, at least — you do know she’s supposed to be attracted to women, right, whatever her interest in men? It’s clearer in the book than in the film, but it’s not exactly all that subtle in the film.)
She’s bi- in the film, pretty clearly i contend. It’s an amazonian trope.
Okay; fair enough.
While i don’t see a rape situation with bella, pussy galore at least has to be beaten in battle. Bella’s just a submissive (not that there’s anything wrong with that if it’s your thing).
Bella forces Edward to beat her in the first place, and then beats him up afterwards. Clear case of topping from the bottom.
Okay; she doesn’t actually beat him up; the book just goes out of its way to tell us repeatedly how she’s stronger than he is.
She does out arm wrestle his brother though.
———————
Charles Reece says:
That battle sequence with assassin in front of the neon backdrop is the best sequence to ever be filmed in a Bond film.
———————
I couldn’t agree more! It was dazzlingly stylized — the battling silhouettes against a background of biomorphic, flowing neon shapes (like glowing Portuguese Men o’ War floating past) — yet still retaining the life-and-death menace, fearsome danger of fighting in front of a shattered window umpteen stories up…
———————
And I loved the fact that the took the typical gay henchman and made him into the antagonist, playing with the homophobia of previous Bond films.
———————-
More thoughts on the “evolution of gays in Bond movies” to come. The most striking factor is how Daniel Craig’s Bond not only fails to be freaked by Silva’s attempt to get a rise out of him…
…we’re talking Bond movies, so a cheap double-entendre is a must!…
…but Craig comes back (SPOILER ALERT) to Silva’s suggestion of a “liaison” with a “What makes you think this would be my first time?” (Quoting from memory.)
Can you imagine the reaction of Connery’s Bond, back in the 60s, to a similar situation? Goldfinger’s laser beam wouldn’t have been remotely as discomfiting.
Reading on, I see that Charles has already noted most of these details. I tip my hat…
———————–
Noah Berlatsky says:
Hey! I really liked Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace!
————————
There’s hope for you yet…
BTW, food for thought: Ian Fleming called his mother, “M.”
————————-
Charles Reece says:
It seems pretty silly to bring up ‘rape’ in the context of that Pussy Galore scene. It’s all so light hearted, where she’s clearly playing along with him. It’s more of a “I could only fall for a man who can best me in a fight” than any sort of abuse. She’s clearly titillated by the whole thing. But if anyone were to suggest that Pussy is bi-, not strictly a lesbian, that would make sense.
————————-
While looking up stuff online for the “evolution of gays in Bond movies” bit I started writing (I’d forgotten there were so many!), saw where http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Galore explains how in the novel, “Pussy explains to Bond that she became a lesbian after she was sexually abused by her uncle at the age of 12.”
And, though “Pussy’s backstory is suppressed in the movie, while her sexuality is never openly discussed; traits of lesbianism are subtly suggested (though not without plausible deniability) throughout the film,” the actress playing the role, “Honor Blackman, in the Bond Girls Are Forever documentary, mentions she knows that Galore was written as a lesbian, and played the role as if she had been abused in the past.”
So, you could say the character was someone who turned away from men out of trauma, and thus not one of the women who knew she was attracted to other females since childhood.
————————–
Noah Berlatsky says:
I don’t think the Pussy Galore scene is nearly that clear. I rewatched it recently (and actually talk about it in my book.) I think there are a lot of assumptions that go into your argument that she doesn’t show sufficient fear or isn’t sufficiently upset. To me, your reading just boils down to, “well, the rape wasn’t sufficiently traumatic, so it doesn’t count” — an argument, which has a really unpleasant pedigree. What we see in the film is a woman being overpowered and forced to have sex.
————————-
I like how you have Charles arguing that the scene was rape, just not “sufficiently traumatic,” where in fact he argued against its being rape at all.
What you actually see in the film is Bond forcing her to…kiss him. (The horror!) Whereupon she is won over by his sexual magnetism and freely fucks him. Absurd stuff, but hardly the same.
So now we go from Bill Clinton’s “a blow job is not having sex” argument, to the über-feminist reading that kissing is having sex; “forcing someone to kiss you is rape.”
Don’t just take my word for it, see the scene from “Goldfinger” — thank you, YouTube! — and judge for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88
Note how, rather than continuing to struggle throughout, er, Ms. Galore, upon contact from those Bond lips, passionately clutches him to herself, kisses him back.
Clearly, the ensuing “rumpy-pumpy” will be consensual!
And the über-feminist judgment will be that if you don’t see that scene as obviously depicting a rape, then you’re another one of those misogynistic Neanderthals who thinks women are meant to be beaten, trampled on and subjugated by the Patriarchy…
That’s a good point, Mike. At worst, it’s a forced kiss that turns into consensual sex.
Even the dialogue suggests an amazonian reading (from memory): “What would it take?” “More than you’ve got.” And she strikes first, saying “you asked for it.”
Noah, so Twilight’s last film contains a bunch of phallic displays of power? Brings a tear to my eye.
Mike, the idea that lesbianism is caused by trauma is a quite standard homophobic trope. They have been wounded, but if only they had a real man all would be well, blah blah blah. Why the fact that she was sexually traumatized in the past is supposed to make it okay to present her as enjoying being raped in the present is really unclear to me…but of course the point is male fantasy, not female psychological complexity (or even really female psychological existence, for that matter.)
Charles, like I said, Twilight is fairly complicated. Newborn vampires like Bella are stronger than older vampires, so she’s stronger than everyone — and there is an arm wrestling contest where she beats the supposedly strongest vampire. It is presented as phallic contest…though also as transparently juvenile and ridiculous, though fun. But…Bella’s greatest triumph is managing a non-violent resolution to the vampire battle, and that solution is pretty clearly presented as a function of feminine-coded virginity.
FWIW, though, there’s little doubt that, as the series are presented, Bella as vampire could beat the tar out of both Pussy Galore and James Bond at the same time, and do it literally without breaking a sweat. It’s also true that, as Charles suggests, that kind of physical mastery would be seen as morally significant in the Bond books (“at least she could defeat them in battle” to paraphrase Charles). It wouldn’t necessarily be so in Twilight though.
I mean, if you’re interested in disentangling patriarchy and violence, Twilight has some interesting things to say. The Cullen patriarch gets his moral authority specifically from renouncing violence and power, and from an ethic of service (as a doctor) which I think can be seen as feminine. I think this links up with the fact that Christ-as-wound and Christ-as-servant, not to mention Christ-as-visible-body is gendered feminine in a lot of ways, and I think Meyer is aware of that and using that. At the same time, the women in the coven are defined in fairly restrictive feminine roles…Esme isn’t really any more of a person than Pussy Galore is. In general, I’d say those issues — patriarchy, violence, gender, phallicism — are ones that Meyer struggles with and thinks about, not always successfully. Bond, in films and books, is just a lot more certain, schematic, and dull in its handling of such material.
Isn’t the withholding of known power a show of power? You, the reader, know how powerful these vamps are, so by their choosing a road less traveled, it gives you an added charge of decency (sort of like Spider-Man’s dictum). It’s using your power while keeping it in reserve. Bond’s just more honest about his appeal than Jesus and Carlyle.
Right…that’s the case if power is the only theoretically relevant datum. If you’re assumption is that power is the real, then any eschewal of power is automatically just deceptive — a power move itself.
My argument would be that, in fact, power is not a base, but another discourse. Power isn’t the real; it’s a symbol and an ideology. You could as easily say (and with some justice) that Bond’s projection of power is a deceptive effort to hide weakness, and that Carlyle is in fact honestly accepting the state of weakness which is the truth of the existence of men or vampires. (This is especially relevant to the abortion discussion, right? Bella refuses intervention; it’s a choice for non-action, which occurs I’d argue in a Christian context.)
You’re claim that you like the traditionalist aspects of Twilight is somewhat undermined by the fact that whenever you get down to specifics you opt for Nietzsche (or Foucault, if you’d rather).
This dovetails nicely with phallic logic too. There’s only one unitary basis for truth, so any alternatives are automatically already just the Thing displaced. This is why people talk about a link between violence and phallocentrism. If the sole truth isn’t to be power, you arguably need a sex which is not one.
——————-
Noah Berlatsky says:
…the fact that she was sexually traumatized in the past is supposed to make it okay to present her as enjoying being raped in the present …
——————-
There you go again! You look at that scene ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88 ) and all you see is RAPE. It’s literally impossible for you to see it as anything but.
You must be wearing a feminist version of this guy’s outfit: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/9895/lightbox/TMW2012-11-14colorKOS.png?1352493572
And sure, that “lesbianism is caused by trauma” is dumbass psychology. Yet the “Goldfinger” novel was published in 1959, the film released in 1963. And it wasn’t until 1973 — after much pressure from gay activists — that “the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_psychology )
…Different times!
There are various readings of the scene possible, as with anything. I’m comfortable with mine, which incorporates yours and Charles’ quite easily.
Well, I note that you’re going on about what the scene supposedly represents and responding to that, rather than the scene itself. But I enjoyed arguing over it, nonetheless.
I’ve never seen myself as much of a Nietzschean, since truth isn’t reducible to power. I figure power exists if enough people buy into your having it.