I was re-watching Movie Eclipse and Bella’s ending monologue struck me, especially when she affirms that her decision to become a vampire was “not all about” Edward.
Bella: I’ve always felt out of step. Like literally, stumbling through my life. I’ve never felt normal. Because I’m not normal. I don’t wanna be. I’ve had to face death and loss and pain, in your world. But, I’ve also never felt stronger...more real, more...myself. Because it’s my world, too. It’s where I belong.
Edward: So, it’s not just about me.
Bella: No, sorry.
So nice of the screenwriter to take Meyer’s careful notes on the love triangle and plunk them nigh artlessly in her script. But this mess of an adaptation still does a bad job of portraying this for these reasons:
The movies all but removed Bella’s “abnormality.” Bella being emotionally (and perhaps physically) neglected by her mother and even by Charlie, her parentification, doesn’t exist in the movie. Movie Bella doesn’t cook or clean for Charlie and her relationship with Renée is so wholesome and squeaky clean it’s sickening. Without this backstory, Movie Bella’s attraction to Edward and vampirism in general makes no sense. She is just a normal girl and her home life is fine. Edward even wants her to keep her human life and friends. Why go full vamp?
The movie never portrays Bella as “out of step” in the human world or at the La Push. At times she seems to mourn its (future) loss more keenly than in the books (especially that scene with her mother), whereas Book Bella decides on a proper farewell out of responsibility and obligation. The first movie does this a little better, but it still deletes many small incidents of her friends not getting Bella back (her sense of humor, her values, etc) and how boring Forks is as a small town. Nor does the screenplay have Movie Bella out of step at La Push or with Jacob. Movie Bella seems much more comfortable with Jacob even though Book Bella was genuinely irritated and downright raging at him. Only the punching is kept, and that just reads as out of character for her film self.
Bella’s longing for vampirism is canonically tied Edward, and the movie’s weak attempt at undermining this in the name of feminism is downright laughable. Sure, she would still be fascinated with the world sans Edward, but immortality would not be as strong as an allure. What the movie doesn’t realize is Edward is Bella: He is her other half. Star-crossed lovers and all. It is about the transformative nature of love that leads people into being “better” versions of themselves. Bella gains power and confidence while Edward becomes humanized and more understanding of Bella. Just because it is about Edward, it doesn’t mean it isn’t also about Bella herself.
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Barbieland isn't "The Patriarchy But Flipped." Barbieland is what little girls imagine a world run by women is like. It's like the settings of cartoons made for girls, where girls and women are powerful and magical while men are not as important to the world but certainly not oppressed. It's the world of the original barbie movies, where barbie shines and ken is perfectly fine standing behind her, because this is a story for girls, and there are enough stories for boys. Barbieland is that Girl Power feeling of magical girl cartoons, pink footballs, and princess playtime dresses. The knowledge growing up that the gender you were being raised as used to be oppressed but clinging to an imagined and naive belief that sexism was over. But then one day you're playing on the playground and the teasing between the girls and the boys about who is better becomes sincere, and you realize that you are actually viewed as less than simply for wearing a dress. You look around your world and find that you are still surrounded by the ideas of misogyny you thought were dead and gone. It's painful, leaving Barbieland. It's painful, seeing the boys you played with grow up to hate you. It's painful, seeing girls ridicule other girls for not abandoning girliness fast enough to fit in the grown up world, as if girliness was something to ever feel ashamed of. Barbieland is simply a world where women feel comfortable to be whatever they want to be, and the fact that that idea is seen as radical makes me want to claw my teeth out.
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post 10 of your favourite comfort movies & tag 10 people
Thank you both @suzuki-ecstar and @renaulonso for the tags!!! I don't rewatch movies very often so I feel like these are moreso movies I've actually watched several times more than they are comfort movies lmao, also in no particular order!!
Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse
Ford v. Ferrari
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc
Star Wars: A New Hope
Casino Royale
Young Frankenstein
Inglorious Basterds
Interstellar(not comforting, makes me sob every single time)
Ocean's Eleven
Blazing Saddles
I tag: @sweatyflytrap @antimonyandthyme @ayceeofspades @sewellove @schumigrace @ellearts @huginn01 @hungriestheidi @skeleton-gluvs @sebbuh (sorry if you've been tagged already!!!)
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Comfort Movie Tag
tagged by @vestiges-of-cirice
*thanks Ryu! And by comfort movies I'm going with ones I run back to and love over and over.
Rules: List 10 comfort movies and tag 10 people. (i'll only tag a few)
1. Se7en
2. Child's Play
3. Dolls
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. A Silent Voice
6. The Addams Family
6. Summer of '84
8. Heartbeat
9. Coraline
10. Elvira:Mistress of the Dark
*Holy fuck there's a lot of horror on this list... I'm sure that says something but I'm too tired to care lol
tagging @cardinal-copia-popia @meowsaidmissy @the-cardinale @vampghoulette @alaskarostova@the-hole-in-terzos-shoe @ramblingoak @captaingrebelguf @honey-bunches-of-nope13 @thischapelofritual @aghoulettewithnoname @terzosprimemover @waytoocatty @whatawonderfulexistence--blog @hallowed-be-thy-username @monstranceglock @fruitmanstyles @zombiequeenblog @bewitchingmoonlight @dipendancesld @denanocturna @nocturnal-birb @jennmakesitweird @empressbookwyrm @i-fondued @jar-of-moondust @marigold-magpie @ladyrevealedofcloak @lady-necropolis @
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Me, two minutes into watching Brave for the first time: Oh damn, someone put effort and research into this! You can basically guess as to the decade this is set in based on the clothing styles.
The movie moments later, and also continuously for its entire runtime: how cool would it be if these aesthetic choices were in fact symbolic foreshadowing and reinforcement of the very themes of this whole movie? That would be so silly and fun.
Me: 😻
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