The Philippine Online Chronicles

Continued from part 1.

Simplicity is key

The desire for simplicity in themes is essential precisely because Twilight is meant to be escapist entertainment that serves as a reprieve from the world outside of the cinema, where you have people, relationships, and work to worry about, where you need brains just to be able to cross the street without getting run over by a bus or jeep. In a corporatist, consumerist and capitalist society, everything must be accounted for – a minute late in logging in on the office Bundy clock is a capital offense and there are metrics and measures for all sorts of “performances” and “productivities.”

Just like in school, truly training us for the real world, everything is standardized and graded, including entertainment. Entertainment must stick to simple themes that are visually stimulating for us human magpies who love all that shines and shimmers, to relieve the mind from the mindless routines, trials, and tribulations of everyday life. In a global society focused on raking in the big bucks, time is money, and the concept of rest rests on the same framework. Rest is now packaged as that commodity called entertainment. Even on weekends and your rest day, you can now take part in pushing money around by buying movies, coffee, clothes and trips to Boracay. The power to choose is the power to buy, and entertainment is no exemption.

Sentimentality

All this points to why the entertainment industry should couple with the marketing world to relentlessly promote Twilight and force it so deep down our throats that in pornographic parlance, it can be called deep throating, where we the viewers are on the throat end. Twilight's appeal, however, is not just about the money per se.

Twilight also embodies the spirit of entertainment: sentimentality. As a historian pointed out, “sentimentality is feeling that shuts out action, real or potential. It is self-centered and a species of make believe... so far is the sentimentalist from being one whose emotions exceed the legal limit that he may be charged with deficient energy in what he feels; it does not propel him.”

Lessons in sentimentality can never be too many if the goal is to ensure an obedient work force and consumer base who will do anything to eke out a living and buy what is sold.

Through Twilight and other glorified products of Hollywood, we are taught the valuable lessons of limiting emotion to the dark of the movie house: root for Edward or Jacob, commiserate with characters facing enemies, and sigh with relief at the happy endings. Once the movie ends, however, be sure to go back to your obligations at the office and resume the role of empowered consumer who saves the world and his own spirit by buying green tea and designer jeans packaged in 100 % recycled shopping bags. Within this world, the most subversive that you can do is to leave your Coke bottle and popcorn bag on the movie house floor, or sneak the 3D glasses out.

Films and forgetfulness

Sentimentality also helps us to forget our discontents. Flip through the newspaper and you will see protests happening from Africa to Wall Street, which gives us an idea of just how tired and unhappy the world is with the way corporations and governments run the world. Through Twilight and other forms of escapist entertainment however, our collective discontents and frustrations are channeled into sentimental feelings for Edward and Bella so that in the end, we effectively forget our rage in order to work another day in the office and save up money for the next film to watch.

Twilight is appealing, if not to all viewers then to the culture and systems in control. This is because of the power of entertainment and media to divert us from boredom. Boredom is a powerful force that tells people to stop the program, critique it, and make something new, innovative, and revolutionary. Boredom propels and challenges, which is exactly why it is necessary to combat it if a society, system, or culture is to preserve itself. Through films such as Twilight, we are entertained, we forget – everything, including our boredom and discontents – and go back to the same routines once the credits roll.

Poster used here for purposes of review. Copyright is believed to belong to Summit Entertainment.