Slog Comments

This series is like a hard drug. You decide to check it out just once, to "have the experience" and know what all the fuss is about, knowing full well what could happen, how the stories you've heard could become yours. But you watch it. You watch the whole first movie, and you can't stop laughing at the ridiculous makeup, the not even halfhearted acting, the bad special effects. But then afterwards you think, "Well, the first movie was pretty bad, but I really should see if the next one is any better or worse. It's supposed to all be pretty terrible, so the next movie should be just as much fun, right?" And before you know it, you've watched all of them, multiple times, because you have to show your friends just how bad it is.

And then, one day, your husband comes home earlier than you expected, and he finds you watching it without irony. And he's aghast, furious, betrayed. He rants about how this isn't the real you, not the woman he knows, the one he fell in love with. The one he married. The girl he knew watched good movies, or at least kept herself away from the obviously bad ones. He deletes them off the hard drive. He cancels your shared Netflix membership. He forbids you from visiting a video rental store (if you can find one) to get yourself another hit. He tells you, over your sobs and wails, that he loves you, and this is for your own good. He begs you to watch something else, anything else. "You want structureless films with bad actors that you can laugh at? Watch Showgirls! Watch anything directed by Uwe Boll! Watch Plan 9 from Outer Space! But please, for me, don't watch any more of this horrible schlock! I love you, and I don't want this to destroy you!"

I know, because this happened to my wife.

Now, thankfully, after weeks of pain, of tears, of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 detox, I have my wife back. Our marriage may never be the way it was before Twilight--the chance will always be there that she could try it again, to surreptitiously torrent it and watch it one more time "for nostalgia's sake"--but next time, I hope, she has the strength and the firsthand knowledge to resist that temptation.