Growing up, our parents were never willing to shell out for NKOTB tickets or take us to see Tiffany at the mall, so when we were invited to join a group of teen magazine editors at an opening-night, midnight screening of Twilight, we jumped at the chance to witness a slice of hormone-driven teen hysteria first-hand.
At 10:30 p.m., after a thorough prepping from the editors about the intensity of teens’ passion for anything Twilight-related, we entered the theater, ready to finally be a part of the action. What we witnessed there was shocking.
First of all, nobody there was a teenager. Seriously. There were throngs of females, but everyone looked to be about 24—more Intermix than Hot Topic. (To be fair though, we did see quite a few of these tees). In fact, the SATC-ified crowd was so homogeneous, we couldn’t help thinking this would have been the perfect place to do a little targeted marketing—doesn’t YAZ have new pill packaging or something that they’d like to promote?
Secondly, where was all the chaos? Sure, sweet soprano bursts of “I’m in love with Edward!” could occasionally be heard above the din, and girls eyed each other territorially, carefully guarding their spots in line, but what about pushing? Unabashed tears of joy? Ear-shattering screams? Everyone was basically… calm.
We’d hoped things might heat up a little once we were allowed into the theater (maybe we’d get into a cat fight over seats!), but even that failed to deliver the drams; the movie was showing on four screens simultaneously, so we immediately found seven empty seats, dead-center, just four rows from the back—perfect. Sigh.
We won’t spoil the movie for you, except to say that it was at times unintentionally hilarious, and despite a severe case of over-acting, Robert Pattinson smolders hot enough on-screen that he showed up later on in the night in one of our dreams. Still, we couldn’t help but think the crowd’s reactions to his brooding stares were rather anemic.
In the end, we didn’t get to experience the complete adolescent bedlam we’d hoped for. Still, the night did manage to transport us back in time at least a bit: As we exited the theater, we briefly locked eyes with a raven-haired girl in fishnet stockings and a Twilight tee. Her face was powered white, her bangs carefully cropped into a widow’s peak. She scowled at us. “Ugh, goths!” we uttered disgustedly. Our adorable editor friends giggled and agreed — just like a bunch of bitchy teens.