Foxy immortal teens and their virginal prey

[proggrrl]

Oddly, all the truly hawt photos of the TWILIGHT kids are...inside the issue?

This is good...this is much better... (HT mediocrechick)

So why go with the less sexy shot on the cover?  Toning it down or sumptin'?  Hmm.

I laughed, but was very interested, when I read this:

Because Edward is a vampire who has renounced sucking human blood (he and his coven feed on animals), he struggles to keep himself under control. Bella risks her life to be near him. "He has to hold back," says [TWILIGHT's director Catherine] Hardwicke. "That's the sexual tension, the thing that keeps people reading. Is he going to turn her into a vampire?" Time magazine's profile on the 34-year-old Meyer calls it "the erotics of abstinence."

Interested...mainly because the ideas of vampires and eros are so utterly, permanently entwined in my head, that this concepts of vampires and abstinence is...intriguing.

Comments

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon so the books are all about NOT having sex. Hence its non-sexually-threatening popularity with tweens. *g*

[proggrrl.livejournal.com]

Aha.... *nods*

Well, that's just one more reason I am so much more psyched for TRUE BLOOD, then. *g*

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

the erotics of abstinence?

I never realized Twilight was such a cultural/intellectual minefield before. Though this definitely furthers my personal disinterest, it certainly gives me more to chew on.

[proggrrl.livejournal.com]

You know, I just added a final line to this post...see above. But really, if this idea of abstinence-eroticism squicks you...let me direct you to TRUE BLOOD. It's going to go in a VERY different direction. Check out the novels the show is based on while you're waiting...NO ABSTINENCE THERE.

No siree bob.

:D

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

I agree - vampirism and the erotic are definitely intertwined and part of the vampire genre for forever, so the abstinence bit is a new twist. but I am so bored with the concept of denial and restraining desire as morally superior, to me it just seems like more of the same non-genre thematics of post-modern longing under the guise of anti-genre ingenuity.

Course True Blood is definitely on my radar :D I'm hoping the Futon Critic mixed-review is not a sign of what's to come, cuz I loooooove Anna Paquin and Alan Ball.

[proggrrl.livejournal.com]

I saw the first leaked pilot, and I liked it. I've heard both positive and negative comments from friends.

It's somewhere in the continuum between Anne Rice and NEAR DARK for me (interestingly, Alan Ball said this week that's his all time fave vamp movie, btw).

I am so bored with the concept of denial and restraining desire as morally superior

One of the ways that True Blood (and I suppose in some ways, even Twilight) deals with that idea of restraint, is the "do I turn my loved one, or not?" issue. To join the immortals, or not. Immortals who have become convinced they do not want to bring anyone else over. It's an interesting wrinkle...with many sexual metaphors, as always.

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

YAY! Because I really really want to like/love it.

I've got Near Dark in my Netflix for this week :D YAY. I watch so many random B vampire movies, a lot of which are only on VHS, that sometimes I miss the staples >.>

See that - the turning issue - is compelling and adds complexity to desire, because really it's about competing desires. I love anything about negotiating desire or that explores a person's relationship to their own desires. I just can't stand the black-whiteness of longing and denial as romantically superior (or more often, symbology for deeper love than those who indulge).

[proggrrl.livejournal.com]

I just got NEAR DARK via Neflix too LOL...along with one of my other favorite sexy/scary/campy vamp flix: DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS. It's got one of my all time fave mod 60s euro actresses in it: Delphine Seyrig, as this luscious lesbo vamp. Belgian film, if I recall right.

Young gorgeous Adrian Pasdar FTW!!!!!

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

Sweet! Adrian Pasdar is super-awesome. DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS - another Vampire film that's somewhat easy to get your hands on, I still haven't seen *facepalm*... those undergrounds keep me too busy :P course I have seen Vampyros Lesbos about a dozen times so maybe that's not an accurate excuse >.>

Also - you're right, a Belgian film, about Elizabeth Bathory. She's like a genre of lesbo vampire films all to herself. Actually, there are two new films about her coming up (though long delayed so who knows when): one stars Julie Delpy (THE COUNTESS), the other Anna Friel (BATHORY).