Why Twilight was the Sunshine of 2009

By Ranjan Yumnam *

This is my first article of the year 2010, and in a very quaint old fashioned manner that writers sometimes use past as the fodder for their creative yarns, let me confess that my true love in 2009 was the Twilight series of books and movies. Hmm. Did you sigh? Okay, I am not young enough to profess my love for teen fantasy in the public without feeling embarrassed and attracting sniggers, neither am I old enough to discuss arcane philosophy of metaphysical world.

But Twilight and its sequel New Moon did me in. I am out-and-out an unapologetic fan of Stephen Meyers' story that makes teenagers around the world swoon over a vampire. This vampire is not a blood sucking hideous monster that is the stereotype imprinted in our consciousness from watching hundreds of Hollywood's vampire flicks.

This vampire sparkles in the sunlight, runs faster than almost anyone else, never gets old, has the ability to read human's mind, is extremely handsome, and then falls for this moody teen girl studying in his class. And they break rules.

The first rule they break is the unthinkable idea of love itself that would develop between a human being and a vampire who would normally go wild at the sight of blood and the smell of human being. The underlying repressed sexual current between Bella, the girl, and the Edward is one of academic interest. Already, feminists have seen red in the white-as-chalk Edward's romance with the tender as tendril Bella. The gender roles, in the sexual sense, have been swapped between the two protagonists.

Bella is head over heels in love with Edward and wants to show affection for him with the most passionate intimacy. The boy says no because it is impossible for a vampire to resist the temptation of sucking the blood on contact with a human being. In other words, Bella is begging for it, while the boy slaps a warning of abstinence!

The other fault that feminists have dug up is the unquestioning loyalty and subservience of Bella to the wishes of a male vampire. Bella lies to his father, gives him a cold shoulder despite his best fatherly love and care, and spits heartless and hurtful abuses on him before she leaves him-all done to follow a male lover.

Now, it's my turn to see red in the pink feminists. Bella seems to me and is portrayed in the movie as a very independent girl who is capable of expressing her sexuality without any inhibition and she has the choice whether to go ahead or not. Again, abstinence is another petticoat idea of the so called empowered women. Either way, on both counts, Twilight celebrates the idea of being a woman and put her on a gilded pedestal.

Halt! This is not supposed to be a movie review, and those of you who haven't watched Twilight, this column may be wastage of precious newspaper ream and worse, I may be suspected of being paid by the Summit Entertainment to run a plug for the movie in Manipur, which I wish it were true.

So, if you can squeeze some time out, I recommend that you download it from the internet or buy DVD and enjoy the human-vampire romance that is the brainchild of Stephen Meyer, who was a stay-at-home lonely housewife, that is, until Twilight broke records at the publishing world and box office. (I watched New Moon at PVR Gold Class seated on joystick-controlled adjustable sofas that doubled as bed, surrounded by unctuous waiters who served apple juice in wine glass and provided blankets. The experience made me poorer by Rs 750!)

Enough of mushy feelings, huh? This New Year, I made no resolutions, and one friend told me that the decision not to make any resolution is in itself a resolution. It seems post-modernism bug has caught on with every one of us, with the uncertainties of our life magnifying the tendency to think in out-of-box manner to fit in this suffocating box that our society has become.

For me, that tendency cannot be always translated into action as far as this column is concerned. The topic on which this writer can dwell upon in MY TURN fortnightly column is very limited-to a large extent diminished in range by the fact of his being on the payroll of the government.

There were times when I wanted to blast the powers-that-be in the most acerbic terms but have had developed cold feet because of the obvious reason that a dog can't bark up its masters. Yet (watch)dog is what a vibrant press, of which I consider myself a small part, should be in a democratic system to sniff out the rotten wheeling and dealing and expose it to the people, with whom it is said the ultimate power rests. There is a moral dilemma here. You are a dog in the press but you can't be a real dog that can bark and bite.

The solution is simple: stop being a dog; don't bark and bite. Rather, start selling chewing gums that everybody likes by not trying to antagonize anyone but largely by writing about general topics of common interest and avoiding as far as possible controversial and political issues that involves local biggies.

This was the rule-of-thumb while choosing a topic to write-for example, BT road incident will never feature in my column- and in all likelihood guide my selection of subject matter for my essays in the rest of this year unless I decide to write under a pseudonym and say whatever I want in the most, yes, acerbic tone against whoever-you-name.

So here is what you can expect from me in 2010-as if it does matter to you at all. Local political issues will not be touched even with a barge pole. This column will focus on cultural trends, international issues, technology, movies, education reforms, anything under the sun from yoga to Tiger Woodian human follies-minus local polarised issues.

Now that the ground is clear of what I can write and what I can't, let's go to the serious business of the month: celebrating the New Year and leaving the stained past behind. And in this, I wish you all success while I wait with bated breath the release of Eclipse, the third installation of Twilight.

Ranjan Yumnam

* Ranjan Yumnam, presently an MCS probationer, is a frequent contributor to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at ranjanyumnam(at)gmail(dot)com. This article was webcasted on January 03, 2010.