Monika Bartyzel of Cinematical has written
a fantastic post on why men seem so disconcerted about the reaction of girls and women to New Moon. It's because the guys are the ones objectified this time, and this is a skin flick for women.
Twilight isn't just a rampant fangirl phenomenon of pent up adolescent and homemaker lust. It's a female skin flick for the younger set, both in marketing and execution.
And no one seems to know how to react to that.
For the women-folk, it's old-hat. We've grown up with neverending waves of objectification.
As Monika points out, how many decades have women had to sit through the slow-mo boobs bouncing beach run scenes, or all those bikini babes in 80's music videos? And just this summer, Megan Fox, anyone?
Skin... It was, and still is, everywhere. It's just always been of the smooth and feminine variety. We're used to seeing women de-robe, jump into the shower, and slowly rub themselves down, watching a film pause and linger on a woman's curves as they change, or seeing contrived plot points that require mass amounts of female flesh.
And now we've got the female version of skin flicks merged with a virulent fandom, which means a pervasive spreading of all things wolfy, vampy, and skin-laden. One sheet upon one sheet, clip upon clip get released of boys taking off their shirts and displaying their rippling muscles, whether they're carefully honed or painted-on washboards.
I've talked to many Twilight Moms since Friday, and we're all saying the same thing - OMG Jacob Black. That scene where Jacob takes off his shirt when Bella falls off the motorcycle made all of us a bit hot and bothered. How many guys have you ever seen rip off their t-shirt to mop up blood? I heard many a mom say they gave an involuntary and audible, "Oh, my." We're all trying not to think about the fact that Taylor Lautner won't be 18 till February 11. Although, some of my friends proposed we have a party in his honor that night to celebrate!
Boy, has there been some backlash to all that gratuitous skin:
The Twilight-phobic are fed up with the skin everywhere, and it's led to a lot of hostility and animosity while revealing a rather amusing double standard.
Men are finally forced to face the fact that prudishness isn't the only reason why rampant skin on the big screen can be annoying. The Twilight Saga is forcing them to see lots of male skin and lots of hunky men tantalizing the womenfolk. In this cinematic franchise, the men are the commodity, the physical object of desire, and it's played up to the nth degree. It's the first real opportunity to see how annoying rampant fandom of skin fluff can be; how "perfect" embodiments of men on the big screen can taint real-life expectations. The tables have been turned.
And with record breaking box office for the opening day of New Moon, we women have flexed our financial muscles in appreciation of all those pecs on display.
The masses just have to realize that straight girls have finally found their slow-mo beach scene, and have the fiscal power to make it popular.
Amen, Sister. Read the
whole great article on Cinematical here.
Even Kristen Stewart commented on the turned tables in EW:
"It's a trip to sit back and look at the sexual objectification of these dudes."
