MTV: Still not killing the culture no matter how much it sucks now

Are they the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or do they just

suck?

So, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse won, like, a third of the awards at last night's MTV Movie Awards.

(That one-third figure is an estimate. I haven't had enough coffee yet for basic math. Here, you can add it up yourself.)

Between that and the baleful influence of Jersey Shore, I have become what I once hated. I've become one of those stodgy adults who thinks MTV is killing Western Civilization as we know it.

Nearly 30 years after MTV debuted, we've come full circle. Only now, instead of sexy videos ruining the culture, it's just endless crap: Team Edward, Team Jacob, Team Guido. Granted, I am aware that my sense of MTV-induced societal collapse is entirely a figment of my imagination, just as it was illusory when parents, pundits, and professional bedwetters complained about MTV back in the 1980s and early '90s.

But at least I have an appreciation now for why all of those anti-MTV voices felt the way they did: It was an aesthetic thing.

Here's my hypothesis: MTV's critics thought the music videos MTV played back then were raunchy, and, besides that, they hated the music, anyway. So, anything that aesthetically displeasing had to be bad for you.

Similarly, I look at a network that airs Jersey Shore and celebrates Twilight, and a little voice in my head tells me this insipid crap must be dumbing down the culture.

It doesn't matter that there's no empirical evidence for that. It doesn't matter that TV, overall, is more complex and requires more viewer investment than ever before. (TV shows from TV's "golden age" are really pretty simple. Compare Gunsmoke to Lost.) It doesn't matter that all of the stats show that pathologies like teen pregnancy and teen crime have been going down over the past 30 years. That voice in the back of my head won't shut up.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's important: Just because it's crap doesn't mean it's actually bad for you.

Culture Shock 08.27.09: Creepy movie merchandise watches while you shower

Not at all creepy.

As "Star Wars" creator George Lucas proved 30 years ago, the real money from making movies comes from merchandising.

Never mind the toys and video games. That's just the obvious stuff. There's also money to be made from bed sheets, T-shirts, pajamas, underwear, dinnerware, scented candles, unscented candles, Pez dispensers, wallpaper, drapes, velvet paintings, Halloween costumes, Halloween costumes for your dog, Halloween costumes your cat will refuse to wear, lunchboxes, lunch meats, breakfast cereals, cereal bowls, jigsaw puzzles, coloring books, colas, candy, cardboard stand-ups and even glow-in-the-dark light-switch covers.

A movie that fails to turn a profit at the box office can still make money if the licensing deals are right.

Yet with all of the merchandising opportunities movie studios routinely exploit, there are some they miss. And that's when fans have to take matters into their own hands.

Until they sold out, one Internet artisan was offering — by request — shower curtains featuring Edward Cullen, as played by Robert Pattinson in the "Twilight" movies.

Yes, as if Edward were not creepy enough, given all of his stalkerish behavior and the fact he's a 100-year-old vampire obsessed with a teenage girl, his disembodied head can watch you while you shower or sit on the toilet. (Actually, there's probably a scene just like that in the "Twilight" novels.)

Lucas built his Lucasfilm empire, in large part, with the proceeds from merchandising his original "Star Wars" trilogy. Back in 1977, no one knew just how much of a cash bonanza movie merchandising could be. Nobody got rich off of "Planet of the Apes" action figures. So, 20th Century Fox agreed to let Lucas keep 100 percent of the "Star Wars" merchandising rights. Now, Lucas has a net worth of about $3 billion. Sure, he lost $900 million in the recession, but he still has a larger GDP than some countries.

But not even Lucas can think of every merchandising possibility.

Earlier this year, online retailer ThinkGeek.com unveiled its tauntaun sleeping bag, based on the creatures Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are seen riding at the beginning of "The Empire Strikes Back." In the movie, Han slices open a dead tauntaun and stuffs Luke inside the creature's carcass to protect him from the cold.

Needless to say, the prospect of being able to zip open a tauntaun-shaped sleeping bag and stuff oneself inside it appealed to a lot of "Star Wars" fans, who thought this was the greatest piece of "Star Wars" merchandising ever. There was just one problem — the tauntaun sleeping bag was an April Fools' joke.

But demand for the fictitious product was so great that ThinkGeek is now trying to figure out how to make them for real. I'm sure Lucas won't mind, as long as he receives his cut of the profits. Besides, it's not as if a sleeping bag that simulates being inside a dead fantasy creature is the most bizarre licensed product ever made.

And it's not as bad as the new line of "Star Trek"-inspired fragrances, which include Tiberius, Red Shirt and, last but not least, Pon Farr, named after the Vulcan mating ritual.

Still, there is some merchandise that is so risqué that no major movie studio would officially license it. For example, there are no official "Twilight" sex toys. But there are sex toys that just happen to be marketed to people who would love to have an undead stalker/boyfriend.

Use your imagination.

Culture Shock 07.30.09: Comic-Con grows into Hollywood's biggest party

It's all over but the fumigation.

More than 125,000 people attended this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego this past weekend. To give you an idea how many people that is, Comic-Con could qualify as the fifth-largest city in Alabama, just after Huntsville and nearly 2 1/2 times the size of Decatur.

But despite the name, Comic-Con isn't just about comic books, nor has it been for the past decade. Comic-Con is now the biggest entertainment event this side of the Oscars, and in the grand scheme of things, it's far more important than any mere awards ceremony.

Comic-book writers, artists and their fans, like the 300 or so who attended the first Comic-Con in 1970, are now second-class citizens — make that third-class citizens — at their own party. They've been given a big, collective wedgie by Hollywood's entertainment elite. It's just like junior high school all over again.

The comics geeks who started Comic-Con are, as they say, victims of their own success. All it took was movie studios realizing the convention's attendees represent a demographic that can make or break a summer blockbuster. And a sample size of 125,000 is hard to beat, even if far too many attendees forget to bathe during all the excitement, no matter how many times con officials remind them.

Plus, most of Hollywood's top-grossing films of late, from "Spider-Man" to "Iron Man" to "The Dark Knight," are based on comic-book characters. If you have a big sci-fi or adventure movie due out in the next year, you skip Comic-Con at your peril. And you better arrive with some pretty jaw-dropping preview footage if you want to stir up interest on Twitter and the movie blogs.

Judging by Twitter, this year's big winner at Comic-Con was "Tron Legacy," the sequel to 1982's groundbreaking cult classic "Tron." "Tron Legacy" was a "trending topic" on Twitter this past weekend — meaning everyone was talking about it.

Once you've seen the test footage screened at Comic-Con, you'll know why. (You can view it here.) Not only are the first film's light cycles back, upgraded for the 21st century, so is the original's star, Jeff Bridges. And in more ways than you might suspect.

This year's "Tron Legacy" test footage was a more polished version of footage screened at Comic-Con in 2008. That screening created enough positive buzz to make Disney confident in greenlighting the sequel. Such is the power of Comic-Con.

The film positioned as 2010's early frontrunner, "Iron Man 2," probably didn't need the publicity, but disappointing the Comic-Con hoards would have been a damaging P.R. blunder. That's not how you reward an audience that helped turn a lesser-known Marvel Comics hero into a box-office champ, to the tune of $318 million in North America alone. So, this year, director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. wowed the audience with five minutes of footage, including glimpses of new co-stars Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Mickey Rourke (Whiplash) and great one-liners like Downey's Tony Stark quipping, "I have successfully privatized world peace."

Proving it is now a force on this side of the Atlantic, too, the British sci-fi series "Doctor Who" elicited cheers as preview footage of this year's Christmas episode debuted at Comic-Con, and I suspect more than a few fans in Great Britain are jealous their American cousins got the first look.

But just as sci-fi and adventure films have taken over what was once a small event devoted to comic books, this year yet another party crasher threw its weight around.

Legions of "Twilight" fans invaded Comic-Con to see new clips of the upcoming sequel, "New Moon." And the sound those "Twilight" fanatics made whenever they saw a shirtless Robert Pattinson could be heard by dogs in several surrounding states.

No, Comic-Con definitely isn't what it used to be. And that's not always for the best.

Culture Shock 07.09.09: 'Twilight' is the Lifetime take on vampire movies

There are things worse than "Twilight." Root canals, for instance. But when it comes to major Hollywood productions, "Twilight" is amazingly, stupendously awful.

How awful is that? It's somewhere between "Ishtar" and "Battlefield Earth" on the scale of movie awfulness. It's like a Lifetime Television made-for-cable version of a vampire movie, except it doesn't star Tori Spelling.

By this point, I realize, I've offended a lot of people. Millions, probably.

"Twilight" was the No. 7 theatrical release of 2008, grossing more than $191 million domestically. More than 3 million copies of the DVD sold on its first day of availability. And the four books that comprise Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" saga to date have sold a combined 7.7 million copies in just the United States.

The movie version of the second book, "New Moon," is scheduled for release Nov. 20, and it will probably be one of the year's top-grossing movies, too, because it seems a lot of people really, really love "Twilight," in all of its incarnations.

Now, I'm not one to idly engage in fomenting panic and hysteria. I'm the guy who usually uses this space to tell you not to worry, because video games, trashy TV, popular music and comic books will not turn your children into juvenile delinquents, teenage mothers or that most pathetic of social outcasts, game show hosts.

But I do worry that America is raising a generation that will think vampires sparkle in the sunlight.

Whenever I see some teenage girl reading one of Meyer's books, I feel like yelling, "When I was your age, our vampires didn't sparkle in the sunlight! They shriveled up and died! Why, some of them even caught fire! And the ones who didn't at least had the common decency to lose their powers during the day! And we liked it that way!"

Then I shake my fist and tell the girl to get off my lawn.

But not to be an old fogey, I recently subjected myself to "Twilight" — after putting it off as long as I possibly could.

Reading the book was out of the question. I skimmed a few pages, and that was about all I could take. People on the Internet are churning out Kirk/Spock fan fiction written with more style. So, I watched the movie, instead.

Did I mention the movie is awful?

Still, I learned a lot by watching "Twilight." For example, I learned that vampires are basically just superheroes who crave blood, except they don't have to drink the blood of humans. Only bad vampires do that, and the bad vampires don't show up — bringing the plot along with them — until the end of the movie. Also, vampires love baseball, which gives them a chance to show off their superpowers.

Is this a vampire movie or an episode of "Smallville"?

The rest of "Twilight" is like one of those Lifetime movies in which the girl is stalked by some creepy guy who turns out to be a serial killer. Only this time, the guy is the hero, and I'm supposed to like him because he's dreamy, plus he's a vampire. And the girl is, like, totally cool with him stalking her and watching her while she sleeps. Ick.

Did I mention the girl is a teenager and the vampire was born in 1901? But that's OK, because "Twilight" is the most sexless vampire movie ever. This is the only time that drinking blood hasn't been a metaphor for anything. Besides, the lead actors, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, have all the chemistry of a lump of lead.

Immediately after watching "Twilight," I felt like I needed to crack open my skull and scrub my brain with bleach. But instead, I watched a real vampire movie, "Dracula A.D. 1972," starring Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as the vampire-hunting Professor Van Helsing.

Dracula hates sunlight, and when he stalks you, it's not because he has a bad case of puppy love. Now that's a vampire.