Wolf Gnards

I will not hold Twilight against anyone, no matter how terrible and full of insipidness it may be. We all have our sweet teeth for the mundane, and if I’m allowed to drool over a thousand vapid (but beautiful) actresses in sci-fi flicks, I will not deny Team Edward to anyone. I have no problem with mediocre prose (as you can see, I’m full of it), no problem with bad acting, no problem with poorly sketched characters and half wit motivations. I don’t even have a problem with Robert Pattinson’s constipated facial expressions (someone needs to explain to Pattinson that teen angst has nothing to do with bowel movements).

The one thing I do have a problem with is the glitter! Why in the world would vampires sparkle? By making vampires that glitter in the sunlight, Stephenie Meyer unwittingly unraveled the very heart of being a vampire.

Problem with Twilight’s Vampire Mythos

Vampires were not always loveable, huggable twinkling heartthrobs. To understand what’s wrong with Twilight’s sparkling teenpires, you have to understand the legend behind vampire mythology. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for instance, vampirism is a thinly veiled metaphor for venereal disease, in Twilight it’s an even less veiled metaphor for being a teenager. Stoker’s message is if you’re partying all night, bad things will happen—namely blood sucking and gonorrhea. Twilight’s message is that being a monster is awkward and vampires get sparkly zits.

The reasons vampires come out at night is because it’s scary. Just a scary camp fire tale. The night is scarey, super strong dudes creeping around at night with fangs are even scarier. That’s not to say a vampire in the day light is better, it’s actually much worse because there’s nothing to stop him. That’s 24 hours of feeding. Stephenie Meyer’s vampires though are only stopped through social embarrassment. Part of being a monster is being socially unacceptable, so being looked down upon socially is hardly a deterrent for being a monster. That’s like saying a werewolf won’t attack because of a bad hair day. If I am a Twilight vampire, I go on a sparkling rampage. Sparkling would not deter my blood lust. I’m going to eat humans like they’re Twinkies, and I would have no problem being the world’s fattest vampire. I have no qualms about glowing in front of people or my food thinking I’m ugly. In fact, most hamburgers have very few nice things to say about me.

Twilight takes away the terror of vampires and replaces it with minor anxiety. She’s created a world where vampires are all but unkillable by human standards. No stakes, no garlic, no sunlight. Her vampires must be ripped apart by something as strong or stronger. Where are the limitations? What’s to stop them? Oh, yes, endless love. Meyer’s vampires can love. Of course, their love is roughly the same as domestic violence, “I only suck you, because I love you.” Loving a human for vampire is probably like loving your cat. 3.2% of the world are actual vegetable eating vegetarians, if those numbers are the same for vampiric vegetarians then 96.8% have no problem starting the day with a nice hearty slab of human.

How Long Would it Take Twilight’s Vampires to Destroy the World?

Let’s say a vampire needs to feed once a day, then a healthy vampire family of seven with no restraints could devour the planet in about 2.6 million years. Not too much to worry about, but the Cullens could go through a small town like Forks, WA (population 3120) in a little over a year. And yes, they’re only eating pets, but doesn’t someone notice that thousands of poodles are missing?

I’ve been known to be perhaps a tad over critical of Masi Oka. But the only reason is because he’s one of the few Asians in popular culture right now. Every generation, we get one Asian—just one—and for the moment he’s it. Unfortunately, that means that all Asians are judged by Masi Oka’s actions. The problem is Masi is in a very strange zone. His popularity is an off shoot of his cuteness, but his cuteness is based on dopiness and emasculation. Which reflects poorly on Asians everywhere. Here’s the thing though, all popularity, be it movie box office or music or high school, is based on the principle of girls wanting to grind up on it. This is what Freud might call The Phallic Stage or what Digital Underground might call the Humpty Hump. The very foundation of what is attractive is built upon unicorns and Care Bears.

Vanity Fair explains his cuteness as:

One theory, which has been proposed by a lot of Japanese artists and academics, is that, after the humiliation and emasculation of Japan in the postwar years, Japan developed this quasi-queer position of ‘little brother’ or ‘little boy.’

Which is close, but it’s missing out on the mass produced industrial side of Asia. The plush toy is perhaps a closer analogy than little boy, but both are fitting. However, that is not to say the stuffed toy is not without it’s appeal. The unicorn can be sexy?

Let’s look at the three highest grossing movies of all time: Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean. It just means that girls want to have sex with Leonardo DiCaprio, Viggo Mortensen, and Johnny Depp. But there’s more to it. Let’s say for the sake of argument, that Frodo drove girls to Lord of the Rings, and I think it can be established that no girl wants to have carnal knowledge of Frodo (Sam… that goes without question, but live human females I’m not so sure about). But they do want to HUG Frodo, and a hug is a grind. If we rewind our sexual development back to the beginning what we find are Teddy Bears and stuffed animals. Cozy, snugly, innocent, just good, clean grinding fun. These top grossing movies, offer not just sex appeal, but two types of grind.

The Orlando Bloom Paradox

Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean both featured Orlando Bloom… coincidence? Or is this Unicorn Sexy in action? Orlando Bloom is the equivalent of a stuffed animal that you can have sex with. For all us meek and adorable, we know the worse thing to be is cute because somewhere along the line the teddy bear loses its luster. But Unicorn Sexy is the principle that there is a level beyond, and cute in fact folds on itself to become sexy. Sexy become cute, cute becomes androgynous, which becomes homely, then cute again and back to sexy. Understand?

Or to put it otherwise, Viggo Mortensen becomes Frodo who becomes David Bowie who becomes Orlando Bloom. In theory, at least. Skinny Leonardo DiCaprio was the sexy unicorn behind Titanic (two grinds in one), and Masi Oka could be the sexy unicorn of Heroes. This is where we hear the collective… say what!? But it’s true. Yes, it brings us back to Hiro and the emasculated Asian. Because is he truly emasculated or just a glam rocker waiting to happen? The reason NBC puts Masi down is only because they’re afraid he’ll loose his plush-appeal. Executives know he’s popular because young girls want to buy stuff Masis (or is the plural form of Masi still Masi?), and they’re afraid by giving him a meatier less racist role, he’ll lose that fan base. But what they aren’t allowing for is the natural progression of gyration.

In case you missed it, Hiro was awesome this week on Heroes. Definitely some positive points on the old Hiro Meter.

I thought this was going to be another Hiroless episode, and he wasn’t in it much, but what he was in, was great. Also, it makes me think, I do hope Masi Oka gets paid the same way whether he’s in the episode 30 minutes or 30 seconds. And not only was Hiro acceptable, but the episode marks the Return of Suresh. Shows can have multiple ethnicities on a single episode, you don’t have to space them out over the season.

Hiro… +2 for the saving Mohinder, and getting that much closer to getting his kiss on.

I saw this at the store and couldn’t resist the limited edition Jones Soda Candy Corn. I saw the wolfman and thought there needed to be the an official beverage of Wolf Gnards. Sounds kind of gross, and I probably wouldn’t classify the flavor as good. But it’s not as bad as a candy corn soda could be. The drink actually tastes a little more like cream soda. Like it or not, who could say no to a tall glass of werewolf?

Check out some of their other spooky flavors.

Someday all men will be viewed as equal and on that day they will be wearing silver matching jumpsuits. A vast see of wearable aluminum foil. Silver jump suits are the ultimate in future apparel, but the question has always remained when? When will the future arrive? When will I , too, get to be a future man? Perhaps, today!?

Bundle Up in Lite-Brite

Captain Electric and Battery Boy is the clothing line of the future. All of it functional, none of it practical, this is what we will be wearing when we’re tooling around in our flying cars. The fabric necklaces named Itchy (using static electricity to power lights around the neck) is perfect for finding lost keys… around your neck or lighting dark spaces… around your neck. The Captain Electric project was to incorporate kinetic energy into clothing. Three different designs were demonstrated: Itchy, Sticky, and Stiff.

Itchy

Sticky

Why, yes, her arms are attached to her waist. For what purpose? Only time will tell.

Stiff

Hmmm… will humps be coming to fashion week? Actually, it holds some sort of boom box because iPods won’t be available in the World of Tomorrow.

Bangs of the future.

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It takes a very particular breed of hot girl to be into Cosplay and Live Action Role Playing. The phenomenon really grew from Lord of the Rings. Of course, there has always been the stray hot girl at conventions, the occasional gold bikini Leia or Seven of Nine, but never have the cute geeks come out of the woodwork like when Lord of the Rings first came out. What is it about swords and Orcs that drive the women wild? In all honesty it might have had more to do with Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen than Middle-earth. Whatever the reason though, the geek girls found a safe place to play a little dress up. And I like it.

And as cute as girls look as elves, they may have moved on to something new and slightly more high tech. The steam punk movement is picking up steam (sorry about that, couldn’t resist). Comic-Con girls are trading in their bows & arrows for steam powered rifles. Steam punk is the new Lord of the Rings: the hot cosplay for the hot cosplay girls. Why the change over? Could be a change in reading, we’ve shifted from high fantasy to more Gothic Horror, and while they’re not quite as trendy as vampires, steam punk certainly fits the bill. So, what is it about Steam Punk and Elves that brings out the fan in fangirls?

1.The Accessories – LARP lets girls dress a little slutty without being all the way slutty because while you’re wearing a cute dress the sword lets the world know you’re not to be taken seriously as cute. It makes being sexy safe. And nothing has better accessories than steam punk, nothing distracts from excessive cleavage like mechanical wonders.
2.Phallic Symbols – Waving around a sword is good, miles of hot piping bursting forth with white steam is better.
3.All the Nerds are Doing it – Follow what the other cute nerd girls are doing. Even geeks have cliques. And popular nerd girls get cute nerd guys, or even better other cute nerd girls. Lesbians are much loved in Steam Punk, it’s the mechanic tom boy in them.

Steam Pink (Steam Punk Girls)

Photos from:
Joystiq
Helix90
Bizarre Magazine
Geekologie