The Occidental Weekly

Issue date: 9/16/09 Section: Opinion

What has happened to our generation? If you grew up in the '90s, you remember when life revolved around Saturday morning cartoons like "Doug," "Hey Arnold!," "Pinky and the Brain." The list goes on.

These days, if you turn on Saturday morning cartoons, you will find that there are some truly disturbed minds behind the production of the horrendous shows that the children watch. What happened to the '90s spirit of humor and action that defined the shows we watched while growing up? This brings about my main point. A fad has recently come about which lacks many of these qualities that we cherished, and brings into question the spirit of a new generation. . . Vampires.

Would you have ever thought when you were twelve years old that a love story about bloodsucking teens would sweep through your middle school like a wave of girly screams at a Jonas Brothers concert? Because I certainly wouldn't have.

The few instances where I've actually considered vampires cool are when they're flying around sucking people's blood and wreaking havoc - not falling in love with other vampires. These stories lack the action that used to make them interesting, and are now laden with love and gossip. This simply shouldn't mix with vampires.

The series that spurred this vampire obsession is "Twilight," a sappy love story about teen vampires. You can't go into a bookstore, video store or entertainment venue without seeing the walls littered with Twilight books, DVDs, posters and other vampire memorabilia.

HBO's hit show of the moment, "True Blood," is a series about vampires and humans living together in society. It has become their most popular show since "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City." The CW just premiered their newest show, "The Vampire Diaries," a series about a brother and sister in high school who become involved with a family of vampires. When you type "Robert" into Google, the first name to pop up is "Robert Pattinson", the star of "Twilight." In 2008, he was voted one of the "Sexiest Men Alive" by Glamour Magazine. The man is considered a teenage heartthrob.

This is where the problem lies. The key similarity between all of these examples is the word, "teenage." Our youth's idea of quality in entertainment has been reduced to love stories about vampires, when it used to be a good car chase or a bloody shootout with guns blazing and bullets flying. With that image in mind, what happened to classics that defined our generation, like "The Matrix" or "The Sixth Sense"? What happened to the great action movie that blew everyone's mind when it first hit the big screen, the thriller that people wanted to watch over and over again?

Now it's "Twilight."

I can only hope that this fad isn't immortal, because frankly, I can't stand watching any more previews about teenage vampires falling in love. It's just ridiculous.

Gil Alcaraz is an undeclared sophomore. He can be reached at galcaraz@oxy.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools