Hi, I liked your post criticizing the toxic dynamics in the Dracula family in Hotel Transylvania, and I want to ask for your thoughts on the movies in general, as well as your opinions on the concept of "zing", the way Mavis and Johnny's relationship is written and if the movie handled its message about acceptance well.
Personally I dislike the concept of "Love at First Sight" which zing basically is, because it robs a couple from getting to know each other, but also because it portrays an unrealistic view of love and romance. Real love can't come from mere physical attraction but has to be built.
HT also uses monsters as a metaphor for minorities to tell a message about acceptance and freedom from prejudice, which a lot of other media do, so Im curious about your opinion on if the movies handled this theme well.
Hi~! So sorry for the late response ^^
First of all, it's so nice having asks like this!
In terms of how I feel about the movies generally---they do have some likable characters and they do unfortunately hold some semi-dearness to my heart due to me enjoying it as a child. But as a 20 year old woman, I am MORE than aware of how deeply messed up these movies are---and as someone who does enjoy the intricacies of story writing, the Hotel Transylvania is very disappointing in that regard.
I agree with you on the 'zing' thing. I've come to despise the whole 'zing' concept because it reminds me of 'imprinting' that's used in other supernatural romances. Either way, I see it as a sloppy excuse or shortcut creators use to make characters have 'chemistry' without having it genuinely be earned.
Johnny is the everyman trope---a stupid regular degular dude who gets the manic pixie dream girl. Johnny's a monster fanatic---and Mavis is a vampire with limited knowledge on the world thanks to her piece of dookie father. The way Johnny and Mavis' relationship is written hits all of the wrong notes for me.
Regarding the whole minorities thing, as a woman who is part of a minority group herself, I can say for certain that if portraying metaphors for minority groups and acceptance was the goal, it didn't just miss the target---it actively didn't even hit the circle.
That's not to say that I can't *now* see where that might have been intended. But I think it still doesn't hit if that's what they were going for. Because throughout all of the movies, Dracula never genuinely learns his lesson. And sure, realistically, there are *some* people who never overcome their biases towards certain groups. But the franchise often tries to trick us into believing he's changed when he never does. He doesn't even improve.
Heck, he even mentally, emotionally, and physically endangers his own family for his own personal gain BECAUSE of these biases. From what I've seen, Dracula cares more about his own agenda regarding these groups than he does his own family. And regardless of how realistic it is or not----if the goal was to showcase acceptance (which I have a hard time believing it was), it did AWFUL.
There's a major difference between tolerance and acceptance, and Hotel Transylvania never evolves past tolerance. The humans had already accepted the monsters. In fact, the monsters very VERY beloved by the humans. It's DRACULA and those like him that seemingly never evolve.
Even in the fourth movie, despite MARRYING a HUMAN (a van HELLSING AT THAT), Drac lost his CRAP at the possibility of Johnny inheriting the hotel BECAUSE HE WAS HUMAN. I could understand if it was because Johnny's a doofus (which he is), but for being a HUMAN?!
Yeah, as much nostalgia the franchise brings, Hotel Transylvania fails IMMENSELY in terms of genuinely good writing and supposedly handling minority themes. Which is very disappointing because a (well written) series about a monster hotel would've been so great.
I hope that answers your wonders about my perspectives. I apologize for going on a tangent there ^^
Thanks for the sources! Will definitely be referencing these.
I have rarely, if ever, had trouble hitting a minimum word count. I like to explain things. I like to look at things in depth and from different angles. But what I love is the simple distilled truth of something. There is elegance in brevity. (Which I don't often attain to, as you can see. :D) There is also, usually, a lot less room for deception. This is one reason I favor the pro-life position. When I see pro-abortion arguments, I typically see three pages of mental and verbal gymnastics that have to speedrun through logical fallacies and into advocating ableism, discrimination, eugenics, and more on their hasty way to explain how it's actually "compassionate" and "moral" and "forward-thinking" to murder babies. Oh, sure, there are a few tired, pseudo-pithy mottos that can be tried: "the freedom/right to choose!" and "equal rights!" and "my body, my choice!" But I or anyone can drive a truck through the plot holes in those slogans with very little effort. - For example, "Freedom/right to choose!" becomes a lot less nice-sounding when you ask, "Freedom/right to choose...what?" Because it turns out that most sane people actually have some strong opinions about giving someone else the freedom and the right to choose to murder people. - "Equal rights! Human rights!" Great! So what about the rights of the human in the womb? Ask this, and you'll watch the pro-abortion crowd either fall over themselves to deny science or to reveal that they actually don't believe in equal rights for all humans -- they instead believe in equal rights for some humans and not others, based on physical and arbitrary characteristics like size, degree of development, and location. Which is what we call "inequality" and "discrimination". - "My body, my choice!" Sure! Except it's not your body that's getting torn apart by forceps or starved of nutrients, obviously, so it's not really your choice -- you're just taking it away from the baby. Not to mention that EVERY civilized society restricts the lesser right of autonomy in the event where it infringes upon another's primary right to life. (Otherwise, have fun explaining to people why you believe there shouldn't be any laws against assault, murder, rape, drinking and driving, etc.) - BONUS: "YOU'RE KILLING WOMEN!" Um, no -- you are. Where do you think women come from? Rocks? And feel free to look it up -- there is a difference between triage, tragedy, and murder. And in no medical case is an abortion the "treatment" necessary to save the mother's life -- oftentimes, it can actually put her in even more danger. Meanwhile, while the proponents of abortion have to either write essays and essays futilely attempting to claim otherwise to maintain the moral high ground OR abandon it altogether and lean into the whole infanticide-worshipping cult thing, me and any other pro-lifer can state our position as a whole pretty simply without having to do any of those things. It goes like this: "Hi! It's wrong to murder babies. Please stop doing it."
*Mic drop* That's it. That's literally it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. :D
Aww man, I want a heart shaped mouse 3:
Its the most beautiful thing ever
Retro RV 1950 Chevy with 1946 Spartan Camper
Reasonable reaction, cuz like what, who wrote the scene? Never let them write again 💀
I don't think I'll ever be convinced by the "clump of cells" argument people like to use for abortion. "It's just a clump of cells---" Okay, and what are we? What are we made of? If anything, adults are just giant clumps of cells, so does that mean I can take life from you? "Oh, but we can feel---" So can a tree but you can't hear trees scream when you cut them down with a chainsaw, can you?
I'm just saying, two plus two doesn't equal three, it equals four :/
I know I'm gonna ruffle a lot of feathers when I say this, but I think this is something people don't really touch on when it comes to the topic of female modesty (at least not too often).
A big criticism I have when it comes to the topic of female modesty (especially in some ‘Christian’ spaces) is that most who speak on it often approach it from the lens of “Immodesty makes men lust.” And regardless of how true that is, lots of women roll their eyes when they hear it because lots of us have experienced harassment (and a lot of women even sexual abuse) from men REGARDLESS of WHAT we are wearing.
Whether or not the message of “dress this way and men won’t harass you” was your personal intention or not, that is unfortunately the message that has been pushed on a LOT of women from the time we could first walk by OTHER people.
Sure, clothes have an effect on how people perceive us, I’m not gonna pretend it doesn’t. You obviously can’t walk into your office job wearing a low cut halter top and booty shorts—you have to dress for the environment you’re in (durr).
But clothes definitely have not stopped people from doing what they want to do to us at the end of the day. I think the main reason why lots of women roll their eyes when the topic of modesty comes up is because we’re being told the solution to a problem that we know for a fact has not actually worked.
If people kept telling you that wearing a helmet prevents serial killers from targeting you, but serial killers kept targeting you anyway, would you be more convinced to wear a helmet? No, because wearing a helmet didn’t change anything.
Lots of women realize this reality and so I think that’s why a lot of women dress with the mindset of “I’m gonna wear whatever the heck I want because it clearly doesn’t matter what I wear or don’t wear—men are still gonna behave the same.”
I’ve gotten harassed by a male ‘friend’ who bullied me in highschool and snuck around to obtain my phone number (without my permission) so that way he could flirt with me despite me telling him to stop (pretty tame all things considered). And all throughout high school, I wore nothing except big hoodies, jeans, and sometimes sweatpants.
Modesty is important, I agree. But stop promising women that it provides GRAND changes in how men will treat them. So many women have experience that proves it really doesn’t. Because it’s not about the clothes and never will be about the clothes, it’s about the character of the men we interact with. So if the only way a man can respect a woman is if she covers herself head to toe like a box, I don’t know if I can consider him a respectable person.
Sure, modesty can help people respect you more---but stop telling women that it ELIMINATES mistreatment from men---because it doesn't. And to tell something that isn't true is a lie.
Here's the thing: As much as I enjoy these concepts or tropes, they don't make sense when you take the time to think about it. Don't believe me? Let's go down the list then.
Vampire romances: The concept of a vampire romance really doesn't make sense when you take just five minutes to add all the aspects together.
Sure, it can be intriguing or whatever (especially if there’s a unique way in which the premise is handled), but let's really boil down the contents of its true implications here.
A vampire is a creature that feeds on human blood. Vampire romances USUALLY (not all the time, but usually) involve a vampire falling for a human rather than a vampire falling for another vampire.
Let me say this again. Vampire, which eats humans---then has stories where they then fall for humans.
That's like a chupacabra hooking up with a goat. What sense does it make for a creature to fall in love with something it usually tends to eat?
Even if the said predator of this relationship has no intention of eating their mate or harming them---would you, as a rational person, feel comfortable knowing that your partner has to harm YOUR species and eat them for their own survival? I highly doubt it.
"Oh, I know you kill people and drink their blood, but I know you won't kill ME! I'm just DIFFERENT--"
It literally makes no sense.
Zombie romances: Zombie romances make even less sense to me. Because now instead of a creature that simply wants your blood, it’s a creature that quite literally wants to rip your stomach open and eat your intestines like Twizzlers.
At least with a vampire, you could just have IV blood bags for them to drink to put off their thirst for a WHILE. But when it comes to zombies, they literally rely on eating the WHOLE entirety of the human.
Once again, it’s like a chupacabra dating a goat. Oh, but what if the zombie doesn’t want to eat or harm their partner?
Well, then we get into even more ethically concerning details on the human’s part. Because aren’t zombies walking corpses that eat people? And if a human is willing to date or become uh…'entangled’ with a zombie, isn’t that a form of necrophilia since the zombie is literally just a man-eating corpse?
Sure, we could argue whether or not zombies are living or non-living. But let's be honest here: the majority of the time, zombies do not look cute. They are rotting parts of their bodies, they look dead, they smell horrible, they’re covered in blood, and sometimes missing a limb or two. If you’re unironically attracted to that in real life or something (not including those who JUST like the stories for the stories), you are mentally ill—there’s no way around it for me. You are attracted to something that looks like a corpse. That in itself is necrophilia and it’s honestly gross from an incredibly literal standpoint.
Even if the zombie were to look like some cutesy/idealistic anime character or something, it still doesn't change the fact that this thing's practically DEAD.
Sure, like vampire romances, it could be interesting depending on the intricacies of the story. But it still makes no sense when you write it down on paper. Wow, you’re dating a creature that looks dead and has to fight off the urge to eat people every single second they're on this planet. How quirky.
Ghost romances: Ghost romances also don’t make sense on paper. Now, this one is a bit more loose in my opinion since ghost archetypes are often experimented with in terms of what they can do or not do. It’s just one of those things where it really depends on the story world and the premise it's placed in. However, from the very cultural and general stance of how ghosts work, they can’t touch anything (except when it's to conveniently scare people, so even then, their intangibility is transient) and they can’t age.
I’m sorry, but aren’t the driving points of a romance being able to see the characters display affection and/or get old together? And if a ghost can’t touch anything, what’s the point in being romantically involved with someone you can’t kiss? I get there’s long distance relationships, but if they’re in the same room with you—why would you want that?
Even if the subject of physical intimacy wasn’t an issue, there’s still the prospect of aging. Because if your boo (pun intended) died young and is a ghost, that means they’re physically stuck at that age forever. Even if they were to be centuries older than you, wouldn’t it be weird to see some elderly person smooching on a young looking supernatural?
Let me put it like this. A human woman at 25 years old is in a relationship with a male ghost. The said male ghost died at 30. Sure, she could get away with dating him for another five or ten years, but eventually, the human woman ages in appearance physically and looks older than her ghost partner. And if she lives long enough, she’s gonna be 80 while her boo still looks 30. You’re seriously telling me that DOESN’T look weird from the outside? Wouldn't you be weirded out if some super old person was smooching up with someone decades younger than them?
At that point, to avoid any oddities, you’d be better off killing yourself in whatever spot they’re stuck to so you wouldn’t have to worry about aging out of proportion in the relationship (and if not aging, then to touch them). That sounds like a lot more work than it’s worth.
Werewolf romances: Werewolf romances are the only sort of supernatural romance I could possibly get behind—and even then, it’s still highly dependent on how the said story chooses to handle the workings of lycanthropy.
At least with this partner, they most likely can turn humans who won’t HAVE to kill you out of survival. You don’t have to be sorry about some super weird complex age gap. And you can touch them. Sounds like a pretty decent basis so far. BUT there’s always a catch.
A werewolf is (duh) a person who can turn into a wolf (or wolf-like monster). When it comes to these beings, it really is a roll of the dice. Because some versions will make them seem they have no thought process or control at all—whereas others give them complete control. So to call a werewolf automatically dangerous to the well being of their human partner is rather tough to say off the bat. Though, I do know that all of that fur that sheds off of them will be annoying to deal with (and that’s not even counting all of the things they might chew up---like your shoes).
And while I would be inclined to agree that being in a relationship with a werewolf could most definitely be a form of beastiality, at the very LEAST a werewolf can revert back into a human the majority of the time. So as long as you’re only doing stuff with them as a human, you should technically be fine, right?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t find much appeal in becoming romantically involved with someone who can become some giant creepy wolf abomination, but at least there’s SOME things in there you COULD manipulate depending on which universe you land into.
Overall, while I do think supernatural romances are indeed a fun concept (and I DO tend to enjoy some of these stories), there’s no way in HECK I think they’re ACTUALLY plausible (unless you add some major--MAJOR--plot armor).
The bags under my eyes are Gucci. Feel free to simply call me Ben or Bennie.Unapologetically pro-life, plus a superhero and anime fanatic.Have a good day :)Current Age: 20
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