Robert Pattinson, and the Enduring Appeal of Broody, Pale White Dudes
What is it about vampires that so capture the imagination of young girls?
Perhaps it has something to do with the onset of menses and the complexity of emotions that are part and parcel to the experience. Along with the blood comes an understanding of mortality as well as the ability to bear life – this all ties in with the gestalt of the vampire. He has the power to both give life and take it by penetrating virginal skin and sucking out the viscous crimson. Psychologically it all makes sense…
…or maybe they just like broody, pale white dudes like Robert Pattinson.
When I was in High School, the ‘broody, pale white dude’ du jour was Robert Smith (lead singer of The Cure). He was the poster-boy of the whole Goth movement which included such notables as Siouxsie and the Banshees; the Sisters of Mercy; Joy Division and Bauhaus. Technically it was a pretty fringe group back then, but it had a following that was as possessed and die-hard as they come. In those days, if you were a sensitive outcast who much preferred reading comic books to playing football, your only hope of ever getting laid was to find yourself a Goth chick. I tried my best, donning the obligatory Doc Martens along with the clumsily applied eye liner stolen from my mother’s make up case. Unfortunately, it never panned out for me. I was far too surly to ever truly be broody. Besides which, I was a Billy Joel fan which automatically restricted me from full membership to the club.
20 years later, it’s all about Robert Pattinson and “Twilight,” which I just don’t get. Of course, I’m obviously not remotely the proper demographic for this stuff as I’m neither gay nor a 12 year old girl, but still… To me the guy looks like an effeminate, pouty pugilist, who’s taken one too many socks to the punim. His whole look is so overly stylized and contrived, I mean, what’s with the hair?
Early 80s Mickey Rourke called and he wants his coif back!
As far as his acting skills are concerned, from what I’ve seen he’s kinda like the bassist in Spinal Tap – luke warm water. Neither here nor there, just egg shell white, wall paper mundane-ity. Still, this kid is the hottest tween sensation since Kirk Cameron and that’s fine by me. Hell I’m no party pooper, let the little chicklets enjoy their new found messiah to their hearts content. However, it does give me pause. If our heroes are a direct reflection on ourselves as a society, then what does it mean when they’re all surface and no substance? Robert Smith set a legion of disaffected young ladies hearts a twitter with his rats nest hair and smeared lipstick, but underneath the cultivated façade was a genuine artist. Robert Pattinson is just another pretty face, which I fear is all anyone wants to aspire to be anymore.
Just something to ruminate on I suppose.
As far as the whole romantic Vampire/Goth aesthetic is concerned, I personally could never really get with that program anyway. I mean, the ‘undead’ should be be creepy not kissable after all.
To me, Nosferatu will always be the ultimate “Prince of Darkness.” Now THAT guy was bad-ass!
OK, obviously whoever wrote this has not factored in RPattz’s appeal to the older women as well- I’m part of the Over Thirty group, and we are just as crazy about him as the tweens. So this must be a chick-thing, rather than just a chicklet thing.
And yes; vampires SHOULD be evil bloodsuckers, not broody white guys. In Dracula, Stoker describes Dracula as being too cruel to have his good-looks appeal. Now that’s what a vampire should be.
Okay, then. At least we’re sort of in agreement already. lol. And if that’s your main stand, then I wouldn’t contest. Coz I respect other people’s opinion. I never take personal grudge on those who criticize his acting. As Ana above said, acting ability is something that can be subjective. It all depends on the viewer. Except for those critics, of course, who judge his acting when they don’t even get the storyline or his roles in certain films… I think they just do it to spite and strike the fans’ ire for reactions and just cause Rob is so famous right now. And that’s unfair. And those people who judge the fans and say we just like him coz he’s gorgeous coz they don’t know us. That, too, is unfair.
Good day to you Zeitgeisty.
About the ‘acting abilities’ of Robert Pattinson: it’s so funny that in your opinion he can’t act while, after I saw Twilight with my daughter, I was most impressed with his acting. He performed this unwordly character in an almost autistic way and I founded it the right way to do. It seems to me that it’s very difficult to express a tortured and restrained character all the time and in my opinion he nailed Edward. I can’t imagine another actor who could bring Edward ‘alive’ as he does.
As I got intrigued by Rob I tried to see his other movies and I’m not at all disappointed, on the contrary. Did you see ‘The haunted airman’? I won’t discuss the film or the script because it’s a bit messy but I was stunned by Rob’s performance of the traumatized WWII pilote. It was just brilliant and I can know this. I’m a psychiatric nurse and for many, many years I’m working in a psychiatric unit where I meet all kinds of people with mental disorders. So I think that,more than any reviewer, I can judge the acting abitities when it comes to perporm psychotic characters. In other films I was often irritated bij the ‘over-acting’ such as screaming, agression, while it’s most of the time more an inner proces. Rob understood this and acted more subtly although you could feel his fear and his falling apart. In the scene where he was forced to receive an injection from the nurse and he was fighting against it I felt so bad. I had to do this myself several times in my job and the way Rob acted was exactly the same way my patients were behaving theirselves in these moments. I assure you I didn’t sleep well after this film and I wondered all the time: how could he do such an amazing job, he was only 19-20 years old when he played this part.
I tell you this to show that there aren’t parameters to use in considering someone a good actor or not. For you he can’t act, for me he’s a young actor with a big talent, a raw diamond that needs to be cut and polished a bit but not too much. Rob will always take challenging and diverse roles and in most of them he will succeed, in some perhaps he will fail but I prefer this to actors who prefer their bank accounts by playing the same roles over and over again.
Sorry, English isn’t my native language but I did the best I could.
Don’t dis on my boy YO! Youz gonna get it!
You did great, Anne!
And yeah, I totally agree about your assessment of him. That’s what I’ve always been saying to people, too. About not judging him based on how much his previous films made. In almost every role he’s done, he completely transforms into character, you forget it’s Rob. Honestly. The directors he’s worked with in the past have all said he has always been very professional on the set. Even in Twilight, a month before they started shooting, he went to Portland by himself so that he could start getting into character and absorb the environment they were gonna shoot in. Most actors would just practice their lines. For Little Ashes, he studied and researched Salvador Dali thoroughly – reading every book he could find about him, checking out his works – so that he could understand him and portray him better. And I think he nailed that one, too. Some people criticize it saying it was too weird a movie, that his acting was exaggerated and all. Obviously they don’t know about Dali. Because Dali WAS an exaggerated person/character. He was an attention-whore. I have done a bit of studying myself and I had goosebumps reading about him, because it was exactly what I saw in Rob in Little Ashes. Even the way he always got his photos taken, the strained-look smile… there are a hundred photos of Dali where he looked exactly like that.
That said, I can’t wait to see his other movies in the future! Bel Ami is another character-play. And I really hope WATER FOR ELEPHANTS is gonna materialize with him on the cast.
Despite all the long, boring comments defending Mr. Pattinson’s acting ability, it is still a fact that he SUCKS at acting.
hey old ladies, most pasty british dudes have unpeeled bananas. just sayin’
oh my god, the comments in here are pathetic.
American women must experience great sex often. Because obviously someone has fucked their brains out.
Who could’ve guessed so many,many years ago….
Appearing as if you’ve spent the week in bed afflicted by the flu would be considered….so..sexy.
Hmm…..Speaking of the opinions expressed by the self described as huge (overweight?) fans of The Flu God….. and menstrual cycles and women……
Never……. Never, trust anything/anyone that bleeds for 7 days and doesn’t die.
[...] a recent article I wrote on “Robert Pattinson and the Enduring Appeal of Broody, Pale White Dudes“ I was totally bombarded by an irate swarm of “Twilight” fanatics out for my blood. In their [...]
I’m a woman in my 30s with a “thing” for Pattinson…..except my “thing” is more of a general disgust than anything else.
My theory is that if you’re a woman in your 30s who is gettin’ seen to pretty well and regular-like by a real man (and by that i mean any male in his 30s who isn’t a sullen, whiny dick and has good personal cleanliness) then there’s no need to spend your time in the shallow end. Ditto for vampire movies.
I’m somewhat taken aback by these women my age who like these young, unwashed boys.
I didn’t like 20 year olds even when I WAS 20. What gives?
Looking forward to the three Musketeers movie
I think Robert Pattinson is not an amazing actor but I would not call him a bad actor either. I think he has a quality about him. When I first saw him in Twilight, I paid no attention to looks and had heard nothing of the film or the books, and it impressed me as an overall good film and interesting story. I wasn’t thinking that I shouldn’t like it because it’s a chick flick or a tweeny, teen movie. I’ve since seen Pattinson in a few other films and I think that the scripts let him down more so than his acting letting the success of the film slip. One film that was great was Little Ashes, where he portrays Salvador Dali. He is believable.
I think people are quick to judge the actors that are marketed for teen audiences. Look at DiCaprio. When I was in high school, mid 90s, he was the teen heart-throb, and he annoyed me then. Watching Titanic seemed worse than being stabbed in the eye. Now, not only does he not look 12 years old anymore, but he has moved on to many great films and great roles. I adore his latest films and love watching him. I think he will be noted in history as a great actor of this century. He, like Pattinson, has a certain quality about him. They have an air of nostalgia about them, as if they are from another time, perhaps the silver screen – they could have acted among greats like Bogart.
Sullen and whiny, Melinda? My opinion is, he isn’t a boy and he isn’t unwashed, ha-ha… he is a man with talent, and bonus – he’s handsome too.