As someone who has watched most of his videos, I just don't see it. I may not always agree with his opinions but I don't always agree with FIYH, either. Sometimes, I think Doug's reviews completely miss the mark (Last Action Hero). Sometimes, I find him really insightful and thought provoking (AI, Tribute to Roger Ebert). Most of the time, above all else, he just makes me laugh, hard (The Care Bears Movie, The Shining miniseries, Pearl Harbor).

Plot-hole-culture? Huh. Never heard that before.

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I feel I should clarify something. I saw Twilight (the first film) and was surprised at myself for not hating it. It's beautifully shot, well-directed and contains some unironically, interesting and entertaining moments. I'm not even opposed to the basic idea of the material: Teen girl moves to a new town where she doesn't know anyone, strikes up a relationship with a boy who turns out to be a vampire and together, they must save themselves and each other from the threat of a secret society of other vampires who want the girl for her rare, virgin blood.

     On the face of it, that has the potential to be very compelling, exciting and unique. You could even treat Bella's blood like a weapon that could be used against the human race if the vampires succeed in trying to harvest it from her. Maybe work it so she discovers she can take control of her body and use her blood against the vampires (like, they have to perform some kind of ritual and kill her before the blood can do what they need it to do). Because her blood is pure, it burns Vampires like holy water. Some self sacrifice could take place at the end, in an effort to save one of our protagonists.

     The werewolves could be brought into the story as well. Subvert the trope of them being snarling, mindless killing machines and have them be a more peaceful race that are one with nature, stay away from humans and only eat animals in the forests and don't like to get involved in the warring factions between the two different vampire clans. Despite all this, Jacob and Edward are longstanding friends and when Edward asks for his help, Jacob and his people initially refuse. However, Jacob and Bella begin to inadvertently develop feelings for each other. This causes tension between Edward and Jacob at first, testing their friendship. Ultimately, Edward (being the much older and wiser one) feels that it's not right for either of them to fight over Bella and treat her like a prize to be won and it's best left up to her.

    Trouble is, Bella is having a hard time making such a decision, especially given that a supernatural war is eminent and she's still a teenager. On the one hand, she met Edward first and she likes his dark, potentially dangerous nature. On the other hand, Jacob would be a more secure, practical way to go. He wouldn't out live her and he's her best bet to a normal life.

     The war goes down and the "bad" vampires hold Edward hostage, in an effort to get the "good" vampires (in this case, the Cullen clan) to hand Bella over. She starts to agree, just so she can hopefully save Edward, when Jacob and his people arrive as reinforcements, as Jacob has convinced them it's the noble thing to do. They save Edward but he feels the war will not stop and Bella will always be in danger. So, he sacrifices himself by drinking some of her blood, thus making it impure but killing himself in the process. Though at the cost of Edward's life, Bella is safe to have the life he never could and her new relationship with Jacob helps to bring the werewolf clan out of hiding, so they can live in unity with humans.

Or something.

Get a competent, female writer to pen that and I would totally read/watch it.

Just tell me there's a scene where the anime stops dead in its tracks so the creatures can play sports for no good reason.

I... Wow.

LOL!

It's well past my bedtime, so I shall attempt to be brief.

The main reason I disagree with this stance is because a work's socio-politics are an important part of the world-building,  and because social and political ideologies are often clear thematic elements in a work. Dismissing social criticism of media altogether would ignore analysis of a legitimate aspect of storytelling. We often give note to the socio-politics of a show like Game of Thrones, because, as an obvious work of fantasy, it's important to understand how things work in its fantastical surroundings. But I think it's just as important to pay attention to these details even in something like True Detective, which is assumed to take place in the "real world." It's one way to understand how and what an author or filmmaker is trying to communicate with her audience.

Twilight takes place in a modern setting, which is largely recognizable, but has a number of fantastic elements. Both vampire and werewolf societies have rules and assumptions governing their interactions with human beings and each other, and these rules and assumptions impact the story. Although Bella comes from a world that we recognize, the same is true for the human society she occupies. Saying that I have problems with the ideology of Twilight is another way of saying that I can't connect to the material. Not because I have a problem with teen romance, but because Meyers has created a world in which the characters' actions are inscrutable and disturbing.

Hah, yes I am and I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation. I don't feel "mansplained" to or shouted down at all, personally. Believe me, I've been shouted at before (usually by my sister, because I'm often not strident enough in my beliefs to suit her taste) and this is much different.

I don't like Twilight because it disturbs me that it shows an abusive, controlling relationship as something pure and romantic and to-be-striven-for. I consider myself a feminist, and I understand that some people do love the story, and that's fine. My co-counselors and I at summer camp spent some time talking to our campers about the content, acting it out with rag dolls (gotta do something in Arts & Crafts, there are only so many friendship bracelets one can make) and having them re-imagine scenes with Edward described as being ugly, instead of gorgeous. Amazing how something romantic can turn offputting in a moment as soon as you reverse all of Edward's adjectives! I wasn't trying to stop them from liking Twilight, and some of them do still enjoy it, but we wanted them to think about the content instead of just soaking it in without any critical thought. (And many of the girls who, as 14-16 year olds, loved Twilight, are now horrified by it.)

There was a scene around the end of the second season (I think) of The Vampire Diaries (TV series, not the books) where Elena tells Stefan that she doesn't want to become a vampire, because although she loves him right now, she's sixteen years old and she can't be sure that she'll love him forever. She wants a chance to grow up and change her mind, and have a family, and be normal. And he accepts that. (Sadly the show stole all of Elena's agency in later seasons and rendered itself unwatchable, but that moment was a big middle finger to Twilight and I for one loved it.)

I respectfully disagree. For me, social commentary is one of the most compelling and interesting parts of any story. I don't really care much about how it's shot or what genre it is in, as long as it speaks to me on some level. I don't mean I have to directly relate to it (though it sure helps) but I have to see some kind of bigger picture in it for it to mean something to me. But that's what I'm interested in and that's why I write, to explore those kinds of ideas.

ALL OF THIS!

Socially conscious media criticism is varied. There's writers who do excellent work taking that approach, and then there's some lackluster stuff. Lots of my favorite critics (like, ever) belong to the former category, and some of the worst pieces of criticism I've ever read belong to the latter. What turns a lot of people off to this mode of work, it seems to me, is that for some of the folks writing it there's something of a soapbox effect, the sense that her/his passion for the artform pales in comparison to her/his passion for whatever ideological position is being advanced. This might be related to what Doc's getting at. The best socially conscious critics tend to come off as equally passionate about aesthetics and social justice. (Just as the best socially conscious films tend not to be too heavy handed.) Those are the critics I like reading, the ones who come to the enterprise out of a love and fascination with movies/media and then explore that love and fascination through a socially astute lens. The ones I don't have time for are the ones who just seem to need a good solid club with which to beat the things they don't like, and so they'll use movies because, hey, everyone likes movies.

Ideally, critics should be focusing on what, if anything, the movie is saying, and how well it's saying it. Whether you agree with the point or not should come into the process very late, if at all. It does, though, too often devolve into just using the movie as an excuse to give their point of view. I remember a "wonderful" review of the Next Generation pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint", in the free Communist newspaper left in the University of Buffalo Commons. Their opinion was that it was great when Q was going on about how humans had fucked up and nuked the planet, but did not go NEARLY far enough in that direction. Very amusing.

Yes, that was in fact Roger Ebert who said that.

While it's vague enough to theorize on multiple meanings from it, I think the main thing he was saying was:

     Regardless of similar genre or plot, not all films are created equal, so presentation and execution counts for an awful lot. For example, you can have two films about a zombie apocalypse but how you choose to tell that story can play greatly into whether or not a zombie film, uh, zombie likes one over the other, or even if he likes either one at all. To put this in a more topical context, look at the core through lines from Twilight and let's say, the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A romance between a human and a vampire. Strip everything else away, and that's the single, consistent narrative that touches and changes everything else. Both properties, when you get at the heart of them are about watching these two characters fall in love and try to have a relationship and make it work, despite their stations in existence.

     Everything else is either reversed or completely different, right down to the film stock, storytelling format and aspect ratio. All of this will influence and inform the viewer's opinion and assessment of that basic story idea. If you're a fan of that "human loves vampire" theme, because of all those other differences, even if you do in fact love both properties, you're going to eventually prefer one over the other.

Personally, the only "critic" I've seen that tends to review things from a generally shallow, almost narrow-minded perspective, the way in which I think Ewing is raging against would probably be Confused Matthew but maybe that's just me.