Sylvia Plath wrote that every woman loves a fascist. Maybe an exaggeration, but there's a lot of evidence that every teenage girl fantasises about a stalker. Sorry, romantic lover. There is no difference. Look at Edward Collin. Indeed, look at him for some time, for he is quite beautiful, having the look of a young Brando at times, and the most sympathetic of Gothick lighting - at least in Twiglet sorry Twilight - all the time. Feast your mincers. Then worry about the character he is playing.
Judging by the teen scream queen team reaction, Edward Collin is every girl's dream. As beautiful as he is repellent, he wanders about, chalky complexioned and designer clad, sporting reddened lips and so much hairspray his scalp must snow flakes of fixative. He pouts and sulks and is stupefyingly rude for the first part of their acquaintance. When I was a teenage girl I found it is hard to like somebody who is apparently going to upchuck on me, but I am out of date. Perhaps this is why so many girls fare so much better in the pursuit of boys than I did. It doesn't seem a recommendation.
Things really don't improve when he declares his Undying Love for her as of course he must. He comes out to her as a vampire, and she skips after him hooting "I'm not afraid". Well of course not, he is a voluntary vegetarian vampire. He doesn't drink human blood. How crap is this? If blood-sucking is a metaphor for sex, this makes the Collins a celibate community. How disappointing to find yourself involved with the only undead anti-necrophilia society possibly ever to exist. Edward is so right; liking disappointment for this heroine is key. Worse is yet to come. Because it would also seem that, if bloodsucking stands for sex, the monkish Collins clan are no better than fawn fuckers. Surely there are places no girl wants to go - possibly where Bambi has been before her. Whether being eaten by the Collins was a let-down for Bambi history does not record.
It isn't just the milk-and-water vampires who don't drink human blood (who are therefore NOT VAMPIRES, but just weirdos), though. Edward - even while being stunningly rude to her - follows her about in his car and lurks about in her room when she is asleep, watching her. The word for this in modern times is stalking. Or being Father Christmas, but since he is an employee of the Coca Cola Corporation one hardly expects a high standard of behaviour from him. Edward Cullen has no such excuse. He is an idle slackademic, retaking his High School Cert for the umpteenth time, so without any need to be the puppet of a evil corporation. Particularly after he has passed up the chance to be a handmaidenboy of the Ultimate Evil.
Edward is unable to control his fascination with Our Heroine, partly because he cannot read her mind, thus reducing him to the horrors of conversation. He proves a bit of a blunderer at this, soon running out of things to say and falling back on telling her of his mind-reading abilities. Which she buys, in spite of the fact that his line is "I can read every mind in this room except yours." Does she respond like a normal person, "How suspiciously convenient"? No, she swallows it whole - even when he gives a brilliant demo of his Mind-Reading Talent, by telling her that everyone in the restaurant is thinking about sex and money. Not only unable to read minds, a normal sentient life-form would conclude, but REALLY UNIMAGINATIVE. Does she think this? No, for she is too besotted. Or, indeed, stupid, which suggests an alternative reason for his inability to read her - there is nothing in her cranium to read. He wouldn't be the first man to fall for the illusion of depth created by mental vacuity.
It is a great puzzle. Clearly they are both hopelessly daft, but in terms of Uselessness the Vegetarian Vampire or the Wannabe Undead? Go figure. It's what every girl longs to be.
