Keep Calm & Love Halloween -- Here's Why I LOVE Halloween...

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday. And no, it's not the vampire fangs, fake blood, and gaping wounds (though those can be fun as well) but the fact that for ONE day there is freedom.

For ONE day a year, without restriction, you have absolute permission to be ANYTHING you desire. ANYTHING you can think of in the whole wide world, without limits. I love that! You can easily wear a cape to work and no one calls the looney bin on you for it.

What happened to that?

What happened to that freedom of imagination that we all had as children, somehow cut off by social parameters to which we all (or almost all) subscribe? That innocent carefree land of your wildest dreams that becomes somehow shut off and diminished - the threat of social repercussion making us conform to a suit-and-tie mentality.

But all that falls away on one day a year. (Or multiple days, if you have a few parties to go to....)

Yet even then, being dressed up for a work party the day before Halloween, in line at Subway people chide "You're a day early!" Um... we have a work party. "Oh, because Halloween is tomorrow...."

Yeah, what's up with that?

It's like in becoming an adult somehow we think it behooves us to mock and belittle others? OBVIOUSLY we were dressed up for a reason, but why does there HAVE to be one?

I for one, fully support costumes year-round. Movie premiers, birthday parties, random Thursdays... it all sounds good to me. Sometimes we get so bogged down in the misery, the struggle, the challenge... we need something to make us laugh, lift our spirits, and get us out of "ourselves" for a while.

So all of you that take the spirit of Halloween and make it your own, I salute you! And yes, I'm dressing up tomorrow too!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

The Anti-Twilight League... or Why I Hate Kristen Stewart

Anyone that knows me knows that I am not a particularly argumentative person, normally. I usually prefer to be a part of the conversation and not the fomenter of dissension.

Except when I have my strong opinions.

Like about llamas. Or seafood. Or Kirsten Stewart...

Which is what this blog post is about.

Now, I do not know this woman personally. So my opinion is formulated solely on my experience with her through public appearance, roles in movies and popular culture knowledge.

To be blunt, I am not impressed.

After complaining incessantly for years about how much I don't like her, I finally started my own board on Pinterest called "The Anti-Twilight League" and posted gobs of hilarious anti-Twilight and anti-Kristen Stewart cartoons. (Alright, hilarious to ME, anyway!)

First let's talk about acting ability. Or apparent lack thereof. Now, I stumbled into the first movie by horrible accident. My husband and I were headed to see another movie entirely, though the movie phone misdirected us and we ended up just picking any other movie that was close to the showtime of the one we inadvertently missed.

I watched Interview with a Vampire back in the day, and while not an enormous vampire movie buff, I'm not violently opposed to them either.  So with no prior knowledge, we unwittingly went to the show. There have been only a couple movies that I've been ready to walk out on. Meg Ryan's "In The Cut" which was basically bloody violence, sex, violent sex, bloody sexy violence and no plot. The next was MacGruder... which by the time the carrot was inserted into an uncomfortable place I realized I'd lost 2 hours of my life that I would never get back. I could feel my brain dribbling out my ears by then. And finally, the atrocity that is "Twilight".

The plot was ridiculous, the acting barely passable, and then.... the sparkling. At that point I literally could've just left entirely, but sheer macabre interest kept me in my seat. Honestly, I've seen a wall with more facial expressions. If Kristen Stewart and Kevin Costner had children they would be baby bricks.

My friend gushed to me "OH! But you HAVE to read the books! They're *SOOOO* much better!" I dutifully borrowed them, and gagged, rolled my eyes and finally gave up a couple chapters into the inanity. Nope! NOT FOR ME!!!!!!!!

However, I reserved my final opinion until I saw Snow White & The Huntsman. I wanted to see a different side of Kristen. Maybe, like Natalie Portman playing Queen Amidala, she was directed to be stoic and barely emotive. Perhaps she just needed a different role to really break out and become something spectacular. I was not surprised by the same wooden board performance. Even her rousing speech to the troops (while in her nightgown) did little to stir me to any semblance of passion. It seems as though she is (barely) capable of nothing more than additional volume, with no emotional attachment to her character, her lines, or her motives.

Thankfully, Charlize Theron was creepily beautiful enough to bestow much saving grace to the film, and Chris Hemsworth was actually quite startlingly good as The Hunstman.

However, I couldn't believe that she was actually HIRED for another job. Did the director not even see Twilight? Oh wait! That's right - APPARENTLY he had ulterior motives...

And with that segue, the scandalous affair with her director did nothing to enhance my opinion of Ms. Stewart, though it would take a miracle to change my dim view at this point.

The problem with Kristen Stewart, however, is not necessarily even her acting, for me. The entire Twilight series is truly and deeply flawed in a way that is positively INCOMPREHENSIBLE to me that it endures. More than just teenage girls crushing on young male actors, even WORSE is the fact that grown women are raving fans of the books as well.

The presentation of what their "relationship" entails (quotes intentional) is not what I would consider normal, healthy or a good model for naive young women (or not-so-young women) for that matter. The presentation of a co-dependent girl who would surrender her relationships, her family, and even her life to be with the "man" she is idolizing is the perfect example of what a healthy relationship should not be! And since when does stalking behavior constitute romanticism? AND WHY IS EVERYONE OKAY WITH THIS?!?!!!

Of course there are other folk who are as anti-Twilight as I am, but why has this phenomenon swept through the ranks of females like a plague, patterning themselves as part of "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" as violently divided as Superbowl fans at the big game. But, in my estimation, none of the relationships presented in the series are a good model for our young women to follow.

Why are we promoting dangerous relationships comprised of unhealthy behaviors? Why is it okay that a (theoretically) old undead dude is stalking a high school girl? And how is it that women aren't downright burning this books in violent protest to the unrealistic, unhealthy and risky behaviors demonstrated in these books?

If I were to have a daughter, these books and the hype surrounding them would prompt a serious discussion about what healthy, normal and acceptable parameters for relationships would be. And these books, my friends, are NOT it.

So why is my hatred and loathing centered on Kristen Stewart? Well, technically it isn't. I can't believe that these are published, accepted by the mass populace and gaining publicity. Sure, Robert Pattenson, Taylor Lautner and the rest should be embarrassed that they're promoting this kind of misdirected relationship modeling, but Kristen Stewart is a woman, and therefore setting herself up to be a role model, for good or ill.

Is this to say that Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, or other women who play abused, maligned women in dysfunctional relationships should equally be embarrassed? Of course not. In their instances, I feel that these are stories of overcoming. But when you put a young woman into a movie that idealizes this kind of horrible behavior (including her willingness to kill herself to be with the man she "loves") then you are creating a scenario where this type of interpersonal interaction feels accepted and warranted.

As a woman, as a feminist, and as a women's rights advocate, this kind of media frenzy should be in decrying these series, not promoting them. If this becomes the fantasy for teenage girls, then we are allowing our young women to believe that the dysfunctional "love" between these two is justified, and the model to look up to, the type of relationship they seek and the kinds of behavior that they will allow.

I hope that there is some delineation between the perceived fantasy world, and a healthy and normal interpersonal basis for interaction. My hope is for a loving, supportive and healthy relationship for all women (and men) and that vampires wouldn't be creepy pedophiles stalking teenage girls, and instead use their powers (of sparkling?!) for good causes. I'll still revel in my True Blood, and enjoy movies about vampires, women struggling to overcome incredible odds, and so on. I'm not entirely prejudiced, but promoting bad relationships gets my ire up.

And yes, I still intensely dislike Kristen Stewart. And Llamas.