Jul. 14, 2010 - Issue #769: Musician’s Survival Guide
Queermonton
Sucked dry
Eclipse catalyzes critical reflection
There is a new flavour of Froster at your neighbourhood Mac's store: a Twilight-themed pomegranate concoction, meant to simulate the crimson fuel of Stephanie Meyer's vampire heroes. As religious a moment as one might have at Mac's (save, perhaps, for the hangover pilgrimage for Gatorade and pizza pops), the existence of this product is just another sign of the cachet held by the commercial enterprise of Twilight. With this, it is now possible to not only read, watch, sleep and eat Twilight, but we can now suck it.
Indeed, like the beverage, the empire's latest film, Eclipse, seems at first glance to offer scant sustenance to critical queers of any sort. With Edward the moral vampire, Jacob the sexy shapeshifting werewolf and Bella the unremarkable and sought-after heroine, the film traces out the tired lines of the heterosexual love triangle with a protractor’s precision. This, the third film of the series, reintroduces viewers to Bella's desire to convert into a vampire, and with Edward's tortured desire for her but reluctance to lead her into un-human existence, especially via sex, which would apparently do her great damage.
On this level, the tale valorizes the deferral of desire, plays into fear-mongering about contagion, blood, and self-control, and, with Jacob's native heritage, reproduces the equation of aboriginal people with somehow more primal or animal instincts and urges. Those sides of the film, much like the slushie, are syrupy, cheap and best taken with either a grain of salt or a handful of Tums.
Laughably overwrought denial/morality narratives aside, let's move on to the steamier love scene of the film. Setting: a tent in the woods. Scenario: some new evil vampires are after Bella. She is in hiding with Edward, but due to the Edmonton-like winter temperatures and Edward's inherent vampire inability to produce heat, Jacob must crawl into her sleeping bag and spoon her from behind as Edward watches on. Few times has Eve Sedgwick's theory of "homosociality", which describes the ways in which men indirectly relate to each other through women, literally using women as conduits and alibis for their male-charged economies of desire and selfhood, come so fully alive. No coincidence, then, that Sedgwick's book is called Between Men–precisely where women, including Bella, are positioned.
This scene is the one occasion in the film in which Edward and Jacob let down their aggressively-masculine stances towards each other. Spoken in soft tones over Bella's sleeping body, they admit that if only they were not natural-born enemies, if only things were different, (pregnant pause) then they might really have liked each other. Sometimes it's the haunting presence/absence of queerness that tells us more than queer sex: here, the men connect to each other, show vulnerability and reveal the sexually-charged roles that the other plays in their respective architectures of desire. But not when the woman is actually awake , of course; then there is attention and valour to be won. Duh, dude!
In a similarly "homosocial" fashion, myriads of woman-based forums and fan groups abound. A critical mention of Edward apparently earns bloggers and critics thousands of words of angry critique from those quarters. I don't suppose many of those folks are hunched over Vue, scrutinizing Queermonton, but I hope they are. I wonder what it means that Edward's jealous and devoted character is thought to be so dream-worthy, so out of step with what is available in our culture. Is he really? Let me know!
In the meantime, I'm flipping through the long history of explicitly queer vampire narratives, pondering the infection-panic of this blood-focused tale, Googling for Twilight slash fiction, and sitting back and taking a long slow sip. V
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