NOTES FROM THE TWILIGHT DVD RELEASE PARTY

By Shannon Roberts, 04-29-09

Yes, I know. Twilight came out last week. Would you believe me if I said it took me a full week to process what took place at the Borders in Long Beach last Friday night? I might not believe me either, if I hadn’t been there. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the Twilight DVD release party I attended, but what follows is my best effort to make sense of a phenomenon which continues to confound me.

It was Friday night, a night for celebrating the end of the grown up work week, with happy hours usually followed closely by sad hours (you know the ones I mean). It’s a night for relaxing, unwinding, decompressing, and sometimes, though not always, a bit of cavorting. This particular Friday I had a mission – to infiltrate the mass of tweens congregating at the bookstore to eagerly await the release of their beloved Twilight. I had a notepad, I had a pen, I had important things to avoid doing, and most importantly I had a hickey, which is as good as camouflage in a room full of thirteen year olds. I was ready. I was going in. And I was taking my mom with me.

I don’t know what I was expecting. As we entered the store, I in my Ron Weasley t-shirt and my mom proudly displaying her “skin of a killer,” we saw, well, a bookstore on a Friday. People perused periodicals, students studied in the café, all was fine and mellow. Until we went upstairs.

In a quiet corner near the cookbooks was a roped off area filled with a group of people the likes of which I should have expected but still was not prepared for. In the crowd of about one hundred there were exactly four Y chromosomes, some obviously chaperoning teenage girls but one or two (shock and awe) actually fans! The remainder were girls and women ranging in age from twelve to fifty. I walked into the middle of a heated debate about the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob, the moderator of which at one point actually referred to as a “Sophie’s choice.” I knew I was in for it.

When the topic of Bella’s romantic discord had been satisfactorily addressed they moved on to an exploration of the signs that you might be obsessed with Twilight. The list went as follows:

· You have a Twilight screen name. (One woman in her fifties proudly exclaimed that her IM name was Bella. Original.)

· You run or subscribe to a Twilight blog or message board.

· You get twitter updates about New Moon (The upcoming second installment of the Twilight Saga).

· You have a countdown clock to the release of New Moon on your myspace or facebook page.

· You run a Twilight website.

· You took a three-day weekend trip to Forks, Washington or Cullen, Scotland (and yes, there were people there who had).

· You quote Twilight in everyday conversation.

· You have pictures of yourself at places with Twilight significance (Cullen St. etc.)

· You have named a child after a Twilight character. (Gugh!)

At this point a girl from the café came up with samples of the special “Twilight Cooler” which had essence of lavender in it “so it tastes like Bella.” The girl next to me summed that up nicely by swallowing a sip and stating “this is awkward.”

Once the contest for most terrifyingly obsessed fan concluded it was time for Team Edward vs. Team Jacob trivia, the longest trivia game EVER! It was as a result of this trivia that I began to wonder if perhaps I expect too much of people. For instance, am I an asshole for being annoyed that the moderator had to define the word “volatile” to a bunch of people gathered at a bookstore on a FRIDAY NIGHT!?! Also, I’m the first to admit that the concept of irony is a difficult one to grasp, which is why I am careful about describing things as ironic. As a public service, the dictionary definition of irony in literature is: a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. So, in no way is it ironic that Bella can’t stop eating eggs while she is pregnant, despite the boisterous declaration of a middle-aged woman in a shirt that said “what if I’m the bad guy.”

My personal favorite was an exchange following the question “how many chapters are there in Twilight, not counting the prologue and epilogue?” Guess #1: “26?” “Not counting the prologue or epilogue.” Guess #2: “25?” Yeah, even I’m not that bad at math.

I wish I could say that this intrepid reporter was intrepid enough to tough it out to the bitter end, but when the trivia had dragged on for forty-five minutes and no one was impressed by my hickey I decided it was time to pack up my notepad, collect my wayward mother and leave the results of the Twilight movie awards to the die-hards, or the undead-hards.

As I took one last look at the sea of Edward Cullen shirts, acne, and body glitter I couldn’t help thinking “Harry Potter is so much cooler than this…”