Why 'Twilight' fascinates today's teens
Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series (in case you somehow don't know, that's four books chronicling the love story of a vampire and a human girl) has sold more than 17 million copies worldwide. On Friday, Nov. 21, the film version of "Twilight" will arrive in US theaters.
If you think you've seen "Twilight" mania at work already, just brace yourself for 11/21. There's a lot more to come.
Not too surprisingly, the media is all over it. This month's Vanity Fair features a big photo shoot of the "Twilight" cast, accompanied by an essay by James Wolcott that draws together various cultural trends in an attempt to explain the hold that "Twilight" seems to have on today's teens.
Alex Carnevale, writing for Gawker, notes that Wolcott pulls out the stops in trying to get a handle on "Twilight" mania.
Carnevale even keeps a tally: "Here's the full list of cultural references from Wolcott's piece: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, Vampire Academy, Gossip Girl, The Morganville Vampires, Vampire Kisses, The Vampire Diaries, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Into the Wild, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, Six Feet Under, Harry Potter, Debussy, Rudolf Nureyev, Chris Isaak, Michelangelo, Chopin, Superman, the gays, Sarah Palin, James Dean, David Lynch, Bob Dylan, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, and Brideshead Revisited. An impressive array, to say the least. "
