Plenty of buzz is brewing for the upcoming film version of Stephenie Meyer's first YA vampire novel,Twilight,with an MTV preview poster just being released and the first teaser trailer flying about everywhere.
While the movie is being marketed for teens(who are the intended audience),I know that plenty of grown-ups will be waiting in line on opening day to see Edward and Bella make their on screen debut and most of them won't need to bring a teenager as their beard.
While I am one of those folk,it still is a little startling to see such open fan love being displayed by adults. Silly to still have such feelings at times,but I do occasionally hear that little voice in my head that says "Silly rabbit! Vampires are for kids!" Then I watch something like the Twilight trailer and that nag shuts up like a clam:
True,I could stick with the "mature" vampire offerings out there like Moonlight but
I would just be kidding myself there,literally. After all,one of the most powerfully appealing aspects of the show is the romanticism of the characters. Mick St. John and Beth Turner are as besotted with one another as Bella and Edward,not to mention that Logan Echolls is a regular member of the cast(I still find it amusing to see him as a snarky 400 year old bloodsucker).
Also,Mick is no stranger to major sacrifices in the name of love like this recent pivotal scene,where in order to rescue Beth from the clutches of a vampire plastic surgeon willing to sell her rare blood type to haute cuisine blood drinkers(don't ask,I beg of you),he asks Josef,aka Logan Echolls, to turn him back into a vampire:
The crossover teen/adult fan love of the paranormal genre you could lay right at the doorstep of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Before BTVS,grown folk watching teen shows or even supernatural themed programs did so under the cover of darkness and the term "guilty pleasure."
Yes, kiddies, there was a time before the internet,when a tired mom or a home alone on a Saturday night single gal had to seek her solace from the everyday cares of the real world by circling up to Dark Shadows on her lonesome,with maybe one good friend to talk about the show with who wouldn't mock her.
Thanks to be Josh Whedon and the online fan communities that sprouted up around the show that those days are long past. Yes, this is most directed at women because it seems like open admiration for genre fare is something that men seemed to be able to embrace long before we did. Nowadays,ladies are joining in,just as eager and excited about the lives and loves of their otherworldly favorites.
The whole Buffy/Angel saga alone knocked down quite a few walls there(I'm more of a Spike/Buffy fan,but that's another discussion altogether):
From Buffy and Angel's footsteps,others gleefully followed down the genre garden path . Part of the big reason that the Harry Potter books did so well was due to the adult fan base and is it really that surprising that the Twilight movie found it's leading man from the cast of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Truly a small world after all.
So,whether you prefer to dance with the devil in the pale Moonlight or Twilight,don't feel that the fan party has an age limit. Everyone can dance now,all
together with fangs and fun that no longer have to be hidden:
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