I’m 38. I’m a mom. I love Twilight. So, what better place for me to spend the night of November 19th than the local theater? Being a latecomer to the world of “Twilight” and completely oblivious to everything last year, I didn’t know exactly what to expect going to a midnight showing of “New Moon”. The thing that surprised me the most was how anxious and excited I was all day long on Thursday. I had adrenaline coursing through my veins from the time I woke up until the time I finally went to bed around 4:00 the following morning. I was jittery and bouncing around like Alice Cullen on a shopping spree all day. Considering my age and the fact that I take care of two little kids all day long, I feared getting too comfortable at home because I didn’t want to get sleepy before I headed to the theater. When I learned that my theater was doing a screening of “Twilight” at 9:00, I logged onto Fandango and bought a ticket. I was thrilled that I would already have a nice, comfortable seat in one of the theaters instead of sitting on the cold tile floor in the crowded lobby for hours.
I wondered what the night would be like – would I be the freaky “old lady” in a sea of tweens and teens or would there be others like me. I found that there were, indeed, plenty of others of “my kind” in attendance that night. Seeing how the next day was a school day and my town has a curfew for teens, the teens and tweens were greatly outnumbered for the midnight showing at my theater. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of the people there were in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and even their 50s. I saw several men as well – some rockin’ cloaks like a bunch of Volturi wannabes. There were even a couple of guys dressed like Felix and Demetri.
This being my first big Twilight Saga event, I quickly learned how everyone is so friendly with one another. Being a people watcher, it was an interesting study in human nature for me. No one seemed to be judgmental of anyone else that evening. People were extraordinarily pleasant. I didn’t witness the usual cattiness that tends to arise whenever more than two women are gathered in one place. Everyone was there for a common cause, regardless of whether you were Team Edward or Team Jacob. That night, it was Team Twilight. To paraphrase Sam Uley, it’s like we’re all “good with weird.”
Before the previews began for New Moon, the atmosphere inside the theater was like a party. Women and girls were checking out one another’s Twilight-themed shirts, jewelry, etc. There were discussions about what we didn’t like about the first movie and what we hoped to see in this installment. We talked about the cast appearances on the various talk shows during the week. The lights dimmed and the shhhh-ing began. What was once a raucous crowd grew quiet…until the trailer for “Remember Me” appeared on the screen and the ooh-ing and ahh-ing over our beloved Robert Pattinson kicked into gear. A russet brown Summit Entertainment logo appeared on the screen and the crowd became as silent as a bunch of church mice.
Once the movie was underway, it was only a matter of time before the catcalls and squeals began. One of the many things that I wondered about myself was whether I would be among the viewers who participated in such things. I got my answer when Edward walked out of the trees into the meadow in Bella’s dream. It wasn’t a crazed fangirl scream, but I did let out a little catcall.
I don’t know how I managed, but I was able to observe the crowd around me and watch the movie. One of the many things that jumped out at me was how big of a following Jasper has. There was a group of about 25 women sitting behind me that went absolutely batsh*t when Jasper first appeared on screen. The other thing that really surprised me was how many grown women went absolutely off-the-charts batsh*t when Jacob was shirtless. The demographics of my particular theater were probably 80% women and 20% tweens and teens. It was easy to discern from the tenor of the screams who the catcalls and squeals were coming from and it wasn’t the 20%. It’s not that I don’t appreciate Taylor’s body and all of the work that he put into getting the role of Jacob, but I cannot get past the fact that he’s still just 17. He’s jailbait! I just cannot see that boy as a sex symbol – I’m old enough to be his mother and so were the women who were squealing like fangirls and letting out the catcalls. One of my friends kept saying, “I just can’t see him like that – he’s Sharkboy!”
The movie continued and I clapped and cheered when Alice returned. I think that I probably might have even been blushing when a shirtless Edward appeared on screen. I clapped and cheered when Edward proposed and I let out a, “Nooooooooo!!!” along with the rest of the audience when the screen went to black.
I rolled out of the theater at 2:30 AM with a few thousand of my closest friends, drove home to a quiet house with my family sound asleep and I was too keyed up to sleep. I finally conked out around 4:00 AM and was up again by 7:00 AM to send my kids off to school. After getting the kids to school, I promptly sent a message to my little posse of Twilight Moms telling them that they must mark the night of June 29th, 2010 as a night for the dads take over (or we ship off all of the kids for a couple of days) so that we can go to the midnight showing of “Eclipse”. I’m sure that it will be a completely different experience since school will be out for the summer, and I am already looking forward to it (especially since it has more Edward)!
Stop by our forum to tell us about your midnight viewing experience – was it difficult to hear the movie for the fans screaming? Did you see people in costume? Were the teens and tweens outnumbered by the “older women” and were men well-represented in your audience?
