Ask a stupid question
I really want to do a rant about the book/movie Twilight, because i have fairly strong feeling about it being not just harmless entertainment, but pornography for young girls.
But i won't, because it would be useless, and really, in the long run, what does it matter? Who am i to swim against the overwhelming stream of salmon who love love LOVE it? Plus i know i will catch hell.
Ahem.
Do people ever ask you questions that leave you standing there with your mouth open, waiting for something to come out of it, but nothing does?
Today someone asked me if i think i'm "complicated?"
What the hell does that mean?
Complicated compared to other people? And how would i know having only been myself? It's like asking someone if it feels different to be them than it does to be you.
"Oh, yes. I'm VERY complicated."
Seems kind of an arrogant thing to say.
I finally answered that i think we are all simple AND complicated. How's that for not answering a rhetorical question meant to be a real question?
Simple as in we all just want a beautiful immortal person to come along who will love only us forever and ever and will save us and take care of us and make us live forever and ever too. A fictional person that will give us an unrealistic idea of what love is really like, that it takes work, and that no one is perfect, thus dooming all future relationships to disappointment.
Ooops, slipped back into the Twilight rant. Sorry. I know i'm taking it too seriously, but i just can't get over the icky feeling that it's worse than just incredibly badly written crap.
***pant pant****
Where was i?
Oh, complicated.
And complicated because everyone has baggage and buttons and experiences and....all those things that give us the deep psychological scars that make us so interesting in later life and keep therapists in toys and cookies.
I should have just replied "Huh?"
29 comments:
Actually your supposed "non-answer" was the answer. We're all both simple and complicated.. just like nature. You know, just like we're a part of!
I'm not familiar with Twilight. :)
~*
Rant, its okay.
The expression I am picturing on the person's face after that answer is priceless.
I gave up on vampires about the time Anne Rice should have, but I think I'm getting the gist of your complaint. About as appropriate as Grease was for me at the age that came out.
Hey, it's just a new Prince and Princess fantasy, isn't it? Except with vampires to reflect for our new pre-apocalyptic world? Years from now, instead of dressing up like Ariel or Snow White, little girls can be Bella for Halloween! "Wheee! I'm the teenage girlfriend of a vampire, give me candy!"
(So does this mean you read/saw the thing, or are you just having popular culture exposure reactions?)
As for "complicated" -- I'd be insulted as perhaps the person intended? I think that's one of those thinly veiled "oh you think you're so smart/special" comments.....
My instinct is to say the individual who prompted the question, revealed more about his or herself than an answer from you would have revealed. It sounds like the individual in question doesn't understand how people can view the world differently from him or herself and therefor, they become complicated.
I read that dam book. (don't ask me why)
Crap! I say. Crap.
Nothing like romanticizing death.
Yeah, that's what the kids need.
chani, consider yourself lucky.
say it, thank you! I will.
de, different than Grease. sorta. Lying lies.
daisy, yes, i actually read the first book, given to me by Em, and i saw the movie. I don't think the person meant to insult me, i think she meant for me to ask her the same question back, so she could explain herself.
patches, i hadn't thought of that! Good point. It's true that she and i are from different planets.
brad, yeah, crap is the right word. I'm ashamed that i read it too. But i was at the beach. Does that make it okay?
yeah, i'm not into it either. we can rant together when I'm in town.
And complicated because everyone has baggage and buttons and experiences and....all those things that give us the deep psychological scars that make us so interesting in later life and keep therapists in toys and cookies.
That paragraph leads me to believe you are simple enough to put a question to rest instead of sparking a deep and meaningful coversation that could be full of crap and bravado.
You have friends who ask weird questions. Your answer sounds about as good as one could come up to an impossible question.
I don't know anything about that movie or the book either. Guess I am just not into teenybopper stories.
I'm with ya. I read the book and saw the movie with one of my daughters. I hated both. The book is a great example of how talentless people can write best sellers.
Who, me, jealous? Nawww.
And then about your being complicated. I'd guess that "complicated" is a synonym for "interesting" and "difficult" and even "different."
I'm sure I would have made a face, scoffed, and scuffed my toe along the pavement.
never heard of the book, couldn't be bothered to see the movie - looked like drek.
usually when someone says something like that, they aren't asking a question, they are making a thinly veiled statement.
If it helps, I find you simply complex.
how's the move coming?
I just took my younger daughter to see it last Saturday, and then she, her older sister and Mom went back to see it together the next day. The daughters loved it, thought it was awesome. Me and the Mom thought it was teengirl crap, although Mom is reading the books and I suspect she's liking them and won't admit it. It's no different than my boyhood fascination with Superman, and in the long run I'm sure it won't be any more or less harmful on them than that was on me. I do feel somewhat sorry for the guys their age who now have yet another impossible bar to reach, until I remember just what those guys are after with all their strutting and posing.
Oh, I want to hear your rant. I suspect I will agree. While I enjoyed the 1st book, I quickly got tired of Bella's helplessness. I am still not convinced I want my own daughter to read this series when she becomes a teenager because I do agree that the "love" part is realistic. However, as someone who has always enjoyed a good, silly romance, even while knowing it was unrealistic, I could not blame my daughter for wanting to indulge. :-)
I love your blog so much because of how much you make me think. To question my beliefs and reflect on who I am and why.
As a housewife who is relatively poor with no college degree and a lover of the Twilight saga I often feel that I am dismissed as being simple. My ability to articulate my thoughts is limited by my lack of education and by the fact that I am a math/science minded person more than a literature/grammar type. I feel dismissed as not being complicated.
On the other hand I know people who are always in the midst of a major complication. Years go by and it is one drama after another as if they are addicted to conflict.
My interpretation of the plot of Twilight was a bit different. To me it was about two people who fell in love and despite the insurmountable complications they chose to fight for their love. In the second book he leaves her for her own good and she falls in love with another boy who is less complicated. In the third book she has to chose between the two and ultimately choses the more complicated more work involved one. In the fourth book she becomes a mother and more powerful than everyone and saves them all. To me it was a way of showing that what a mother does, makes a home and provides a safe bubble away from the rest of the world where her family can thrive is the ultimate power and more important and powerful than the dragon slayers.
I love art. I have traveled the world and seen some of the world's most renowned pieces in person. I cannot say that the stuff my grandma's best friend paints in her retirement home isn't more beautiful than the pieces hanging in the Louvre. The same can be said about books. I love books but I am often times drawn in by a book of questionable literary value more so than works that are held up as being great. I love a good character, someone with whom I can identify and care about. I found that in Twilight and enjoyed sharing the experience with my daughter. Stephanie Plum is still my favorite though.
Hhmmm... all teens said Twilight is the best, except you, so I'm sure you aren't a teen (phew)! :)
You know, I could very well be the person who asks if the other party is complicated, partly because of I might be inexperienced socially, but mainly because the limited choice of words I could use (in conversation) to convey my message. At one stage, in order to create small-talk (ie blend in the American culture), I thought I should ask obvious questions like "can you walk in those shoes?" (obviously she could, because she was wearing one!) But I really thought it's the norm here.
qt, when you gonna be here?
ttq, i am a simple, yet complicated person, like a fine wine.
dick, not a friend. The thought of you reading Twilight makes me giggle a little.
eve, plenty of talentless people write bestsellers. Why not us?
bob, oh, things are complicated with the move. :) la la, delay, la la, changes, la la, in a year.
mamlujo, my daughter, who has read all the books and seen the movie twice, claims that it's going to produce a whole generation of girls sexually fixated on statues. Which cracks me up.
cagey, she really is a ninny. And god knows i love a good crappy book, but there's something about this, because of the phenomenon it's become, that strikes me as more pernicious than just crappyness.
marsha, i would say that this right here belies your proffesion to a lack of articulateness. And to repeat what i said to cagey, i have no problem with crappy books, in fact, i love and read them regularily, but there's something about this, because of the phenomenon it's become, that strikes me as more pernicious than just crappyness. Or maybe i'm just a crabby old hag.
mother hen, my teen recognizes it as crap, but is addicted all the same. We giggle about it, then she goes off to re-read. It's one way to start a conversation i suppose. I stick to the weather. See how simple i am?
May I just say how much I enjoy reading your writing. That was like a hammer hitting a nail right on the head.
Life, like people, is simple and complicated and messy and sweet and brutal and bloody and endlessly captivating. And when you die you will leave everything unfinished. And never know how anything ends.
I figure it's the same as my teenage crush on Lestat. At least they are reading books instead of sniffing paint somewhere right?
As for complicated, I personally think the goal is to be uncomplicated but since I'm just a dreary, unenlightened human, I make stupid complications for myself.
I suppose I'm uncomplicated enough that I only buy books from thrift stores, hence I never even heard of the Twilight series until it became a movie and now I feel kind of dumb. It's very very complicated.
huh would have totally worked out
I am just totally bewildered by the "Twilight" phenomenon. Sounds like something my hub would enjoy. He never missed a "Buffy" episode.
I think the person who asked the question is simple minded and wants to know what it's like to have substance like you.
I am not familiar with the movie or the books. But I do know that the gorgeous redhead who plays one of the caracters is from Montréal.
Who cares right?
I think people who ask asshat questions like that are really just making a statement in question form
bugs me when people do that so I usually turn the question back at them
clowncar, oh stop, you're making me blush. Now, go on! :) No really, thank you for that, i appreciate it.
franki, i see the similarities, but at least Anne Rice can write.
andrea, don't feel dumb, feel lucky.
flutter, what? :)
luckyzmom, buffy at lase KNEW it was camp.
caro, really? what fun.
maggie, you made me laugh. <3
dianne, i was too annoyed to be that clearheaded. next time!
I can't take it seriously enough to get pissed about it.
It's escapist harlequin romance for the Goths and the silly romantics.
One thing I'll say in favor of it and any other fluffy lit. It has kids reading who don't normally read, kids who usually sit on the couch with a bag o chips watching Jerry Springer. So I say, reading just about anything is better than not reading.
(However, I refuse to read it.)
well, to me, complicated people are far more interesting....
and, as far as twilight, i think we've already passed the age of "understanding" this one....
Complicated? Only to dimwits, I suppose. I think you're wonderful.
egads. Twilight. will it EVER end.
anyhow. loved this post.
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