jaunthie | Morning Giggle

For your enjoyment:

If the link above doesn't work for you, click here.

This is all kinds of funny to me, and not just because of the current Twilight phenomenon. So much of the last thirty seconds of that clip (from the moment of interruption onwards) just rings exactly right in my mind.

"What the hell are you thinking?!?" sums up my attitude pretty well about a lot of popular trends in TV/movies/literature right now. The massively desaturated and cold-lighting look - what's up with that? When did color become a sin? For that matter, when did looking healthy become de trop? Okay, yeah, the increasing-trend-towards-utter-anorexia has been around for years in various degrees, but heroin-chic (or corpse-chic) didn't really need to make a comeback, guys. It was ugly the first time around. I remember. And then there's the whole popular culture love for vampires, which has annoyed me since I had to deal with mobs of Camarilla members and wanna-bes at a science-fiction/fantasy convention back in the '80s. (Yes, before Buffy, before Laurel K. Hamillton, and certainly before Twilight. Vampire-vamping comes around every few years like a really nasty common cold - everyone catches it.) Many of the would-be bloodsuckers were beautifully dressed and perfectly mannered and a lot of fun. Many, many more of them were pretentious annoying twats. I will always adore the opportunistic and savvy vendor who observed what was going on with all the vampires on the first day of the con, and came back the next day with a great big ol' pile of cheap wooden construction stakes for sale in his booth, conveniently labelled (in black Sharpie handwritten letters) on the pointy end: "Place Vampire Here." I wish I'd bought one; the memory still makes me laugh all these many years later.

Don't get me wrong. I still am quite fond of the the original novel by Bram Stoker. I am aware that vampires can be done well (see: Robin McKinley's Sunshine, Joss Whedon, and I'm sure there are other examples out there that have escaped my notice) - although it's very, very hard to do. I am just tired to death of the current mania and the sloppiness of it. The same can be said of a lot of other popular genres. Something gets popular, and the sloppy "let's run with it" books and movies and TV shows come out of the woodwork. It's just particularly bad with vampires, especially since I find them kind of boring and meh to begin with. I mean really, if you're going to crush on a monster, why that one?

Anyhow, I hope this brought a chuckle to your day. We now return you to your regularly scheduled life, already in progress.