Twilight is upon us! From the frenzy surrounding the release of the second movie in the smalltown-teen-vampire-romance series, you'd think someone had opened a vein.
The books in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series — Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn — have sold over 85 million copies — a rare home run these days for the publishing industry. The first film, grossed over $385 million domestically, making Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson household names (or, at least households with teenage girls in them), and making the smallish Summit Entertainment a sudden Hollywood powerhouse. The saga's second installment, New Moon is set to break all kinds of records (if the media's slavish drooling is any indication...or last night's $23.6 million box office!). All signs point to this movie being an uber-super-gigatic-mega-hit. Really, it already is.
Like it or not — like any wildly popular series, Twilight has many haters — but the saga is part of our literary zeitgeist (swap "Volturi" for "Muggles" in the must-know nomenclature, and you're on your way!). Just like Harry Potter or Mad Men, I and my colleagues at Mediaite couldn't help internally casting our favorite media figures as characters in the saga. (After all, if there's any mythic creature that media characters resemble, we think "soulless vampires" and "werewolves" come pretty close.)
Jessica Gold Haralson, who is a crack expert in all things vampire and werewolf, broke it down and assembled a cast o' characters including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Ann Curry, Shep Smith, Anderson Cooper, Erin Andrews, Keith Olbermann and Meghan McCain (and wrote most of this introduction, too). Here's her take on our immortal, blood-sucking media, Forks style. Warning to the faint of heart: R-Patz ahead.
Charlie Swan: Geraldo Rivera
He's protective. He's obsessed with crime. He just looks Dad-like. He's got a moustache. Bella Swan's overbearing pop, or Geraldo Rivera? Totes interchangable.
Renee Swan: Kathie Lee Gifford
Stephenie Meyer never explicitly states it in the series, but Bella's mama is a hot mess. Described as "erratic and scatterbrained," she acts first and thinks later. We picture her as the kind of woman who would flirt inapropriately with Bella's high school friends after one too many gin and tonics. She has the best intentions, though — but still, Bella is grown-up in that relationship. She's loud, excitable, and somewhat incomprehensible at times. Sound like a certain 4th hour host to you? (Or at least the SNL version.)
Bella Swan: Ana Marie Cox
In the Twilight saga, almost everyone (except for some meanie vampires) loves Bella Swan. Young, lovely, but with attitude — sounds a lot like Ana Marie Cox, who spread the sunlight of blogging onto the Forks-style darkness of MSM political media. Okay maybe that's reaching. But she's maintained her outsider cred even while becoming one of them (oh look, there she is reviewing Palin's book in the Washington Post!). Ana has way more spine than Twilight's titular character (and swears more), but they certainly share the ability to collect fans: Cox is one of the top media folks on Twitter with 1.3 million followers and counting (ahead of Newt Gingrich, yo). And that little WaPo icon with Tucker Carlson almost looks like a Twilight poster.
This post is has been slightly modified from the original posted at Mediaite.com, and continues there.