What-if-Wednesday: Twilight Swaps Decades…

“No blood, no foul.” Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen from Twilight

In the 90’s, the term “doggy-style” was just the name of Snoop Dogg’s first album. Hip-hop’s stay in society was creating an “us vs. them” complex for the conservative right, looking to platform these artists as leaders of moral decay. Homosexuality was still a taboo, a group of faceless people hiding with their sin in the streets of San Francisco. Not to mention, human rights, things like gay marriage, and respect for others sexual preferences were dismissed by the media and politics. In the decade, America was fat and prosperous, looking at its lowest unemployment in forty years.

Why upset the apple cart?

Game two of the 1991 NBA Finals, between the Bulls and Lakers, saw  Michael Jordan caress fans with a stunning switch hand lay up between three Laker defenders. The moment was followed perfectly by Marv Albert’s military toned, “What a spectacular move by Michael Jordan.”

But Mr. Albert, not so spectacular on your end of things. In 1997, the man known as the “voice of basketball,” the lead broadcaster for six super bowls, NBA finals, and Stanley Cups, was caught acting sexually bizarre, with a pair of pantie-hose, and a biting lust for women’s butt-cheeks–when his forty-two year old mistress turned the great into Virginia authorities, for forcibly sodomizing her (this charge was dropped), then biting her rear-end twenty plus times.  Albert denied the story, yet his DNA was found embedded in the skin of her butt. Wow.

At the time TBN, with its zealously bad dressed prophets, held as much value as the president’s State of the Union Address.  Literature was the same (see Harry Potter), as Christians aimed their attacks at books of magic, one of which the Harry Potter series for its use of what they called “witchcraft” . At the time, vampires were  dark-demonic mythical figures, distancing society from God, and courting women with sexual explicitness. Interview with the Vampire, the biggest vampire hit of the 90’s, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, attempted to use pretty actors and actresses, to paint the line between both good and dark.  Yet the film ended as expected, embodying the vampires as the demons most people saw them as. Because of this, Albert was dead in the water. He’d done many things wrong, but the biting of the butt, in a culture full of missionary positioned lovers, was like putting the noose around your neck, then kicking the chair from your feet. See Marv Albert’s mug shot.

Fifteen years later, America has become more pastor’s kid, than we are pastor. We are now the rebellious religious: re-interpreting scripture, philosophy, sexuality, and gender. We have odd groups walking our streets. One of these groups, the Furries,  get-off dressing like bunnies and bears in public places, before going on to have orgies with their mask on.  We have groups of dark-hooded vampires, wearing cheep Thrifty’s teeth, with Heinz sauce dribbling from the edge of their lips. And gay parades where men dress as women and women dress as men. Why? The cultural norm has changed. Living in a post-modern society, America’s principles are up for interpretation.  We have grown more concerned with human rights, than we have with an infallible Christian principle.

Currently, our cultural pop icons include: “Snookie,” “The Situation,” “Jenna Jameson,” “Chris Brown,” and “Robert Pattinson.” Robert Pattinson? A fairly quiet natured British actor, with school boy dimples, a feminine body, and perfectly bad hair? Yes. Pattinson’s leading role in the hit movie series Twilight has taken over the entertainment world, and evolved America’s perspective of vampires forever. It is now sexy to stare at a person’s neck like a drunk pervert in a Tijuana bar, lust over their blood, and eat live animals in the forest.  Sexual taboo is more “yahoo,” pushing and molding the bounds of the tech world.

Try sitting in any Twilight movie (yes I admit to it, forced, but admit to it), and not at least five hundred times, hear the “ahh, so cute” each moment Pattinson’s character Edward Cullen admits to wanting to tear the neck off his human girlfriend Bella. Then comes the werewolf Jacob to the rescue. Whether he’s the buffed out Native American kid, or the wolf (literally), the pre-teen eleven-something’s (disturbing I know) whistle and dream of dating the wolf clad furry.

It’s all so disturbing. Escapades in hotel rooms, dressing in panty-hoes, and biting the butt of your lover sounds more like the missionary now, then it did hellish then. I am not going to pretend Albert did not have sex with his mistress, nor deny his love for interesting sexual experiences. Men will be boys, always, forever, no matter how much we attempt to not be so. Every one of us has a memory of scoping out one of his grade school teachers (Ms. Hill), hoping to catch a view up her mini skirt.

So who are we to judge? Maybe the pleasure of soft panty-hoes frees the bondage of the soul, furthering our exploration into manhood. Okay not really. Marv whatever floats it floats it.  I will say that I feel for you, as you did a sexual act at the time, more explicit then some of Diggler’s earlier films.  Because of this you were crucified and torn apart by a media searching for “criminals” like you. But what if Twilight swapped decades with Interview with the Vampire? How would the cultural change have affected your career?

Pattinson’s character, Edward Cullen, has taken over the pop and fashion worlds. His skinny jeans with the tight v-neck t-shirt and the stubble baby chin are seen as this era’s sexy. When things become the “sexy”, they become the cultural norm, thus giving the most popular culture the power to sway behavior. The persona of each form of “sexy” whether it be rock-star, model, preppie, or hippie, causes people to role-play for most of their lives. We know it is this, with a derivative of entertainment, that continually evolves and re-interprets things.  Interview with the Vampire did just this, pushing the boundaries between good and evil. The use of Pitt and Cruise, two sex icons, beautified the mythical being, who had been terrorized throughout its inception, as a metaphorical figure of sin.

Yet unfortunately when things get popular, the minority leaders economically (moguls, wall street execs, and political figures) grow in popularity as well. At that point, popularity is not truly the “popular.” It becomes a representation of the Aristocratic minority,  those in charge of the popular entities, with the power to dictate society’s direction through finance and the use of their celebrity. This causes issues in society, when large masses of people believe they are the ones changing things, when in fact they are only those buying the products that are governed by a few men or women manipulating things in their favor. Which is exactly the reason Interview with the Vampire ended with the half-rotted face of Cruise, courting the old way; a Christian approach to things that demonizes abnormalities. It was as if entertainment wished to skate the moral fence of society, but backed off in time to get the earnings necessary for the film.

Twilight on the otherhand, has not done this. In fact, it has done everything opposite to this. Its creative beauty is seen in its demonstration of the raw reality, that love can overcome oddities.  Pattinson’s character admits early on that he wishes to suck Bella dry. That his lust is not in fact sexual, rather an obsession with the smell of her blood.  And yet she does not attempt to stake his heart, nor run from him, but rather grows fond of the social outcast and learns to love him, taboos and all. This is the evidence of our cultural shift. America is learning to embrace its differences.

Which argues, with a bit more Pattinson, we get to have a bit more Marv. With a cultural swap, Twilight for Interview with the Vampire, his breaking story in the late nineties would pale in comparison to Egypt, homosexual rights, and Iraq. It would get squelched sooner in the mainstream media, salvaging Albert’s name, and allowing his career to stay afloat. The case wouldn’t have led to his firing, after twenty years with NBC, shaping the NBA media forever. Five years after his firing, NBC lost its contract with the NBA, to CBS and ESPN due to poor ratings. Which leads one to wonder, whether or not their ratings would of sky-rocketed, with a cultural shift, retaining the outside- the- box sexual forerunner Albert’s . Without this exchange, reality hit hard. Their central voice (Albert) had taken a nose-dive as a broadcaster, and jumped ship to TNT, hoping to gain ground as a Prime Time voice again. His departure opened doors for greats like Bob Costas, but even this hit hard, as Costas grew in fame, and went on to bigger and better things with companies like HBO. Had Pattinson been around in the 90’s swooning girls, re-interpreting things sexually, causing revolution, Albert’s vampire ways could of been less severe, not to mention fun, from his mistress’s perspective. This means NBC would  still be the NBA’s media source, Albert’s arguably the greatest broadcaster alongside the late Chick Hern, and Costas still a strong go-to-half time voice. Without Pattinson, Albert caught his mistress off-guard. His antics were too out there, too boundary breaking. As were Snoop’s, when he blared popular media with the term “doggy style;” a description many married and unmarried men thank him for today.

With the culture swap, I imagine the conversation goes a bit like this:

Marv: Hoes, ahh, plenty of pantie hoes, so soft, so velvet, so furry; just great.

Mistress: Yes, my love, this time wear the teeth.

Marv: What a spectacular (with authority, Jordan moment-esque) idea!

Mistress: You mean move? (Snickers, as she relates his Jordan moment to the evening)

Marv: (Places teeth in his mouth, wearing pink underwear, high heels, and horse hooves on his hands) Ever seen this before?

Mistress: No, but oh, so outside the box Edward, you know how I love Edward, but have always wished he was both vampire and horse.

Marv: Learned in T.J. Just kidding (winks).

Mistress: No you are not. (She smiles)

Instead, Albert’s co-worker in the art of escapades was ex-president Clinton, who was more into cigar dipping than he was into changing the culture’s perspectives on sexuality. Edward Cullen was the sexual savior, but fifteen years too late. As for Marv, now the current voice of the New Jersey Nets, he and Clinton were two men alone, lambasted for their abnormal behaviors. Due to this, Albert has become more of a front-man for maschochism and sexual addiction than he has the game of basketball.

Take a cruise on a Thursday night in downtown San Luis Obispo. Surrounding you are thirty something families, with children under five, taste testing strawberries, listening to music, eating great food. It is all so peaceful and sensational. Vendors are kindly offering their products to a culture of people in the middle to upper middle class economically, so the environment is void of stress, void of fear.  Yet, take a good look. Wade past the high school jocks, with their emaciated blond girlfriends tied to their fifteen inch biceps. Stare a bit. Ignore the girl who calls you a weird pervert, as you stare past her. What you’ll see is both real, and odd. The wolf dancing with the children tugging at his/her hand, is not like a Disney character taking a picture with children. Trust me.

–Luke Johnson