ContraPoints
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New Video: Twilight
🕑 Added 2024-03-01 22:25:00 +0000 UTCHi friends,
Here is the longest video of my career. It’s about Twilight. For a long time people have been asking me to make a video about love/lust/limerence. I consider this to be that video.
I began work on this in summer 2022, and things got out of hand from there.
Originally I'd planned to make a video called “Top/Bottom” or something like that, about feminist debates around sex and power. But I worried that wouldn’t be a suitable topic for YouTube, increasingly a “family friendly” platform.
So I turned instead to a more PG-13 version of these same issues, namely discourse around Twilight, which was having a pop culture renaissance at the time.
Research on Twilight sent me spiraling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of adjacent topics, from the psychology of fantasy to the philosophy of desire to the history of the romance novel. I also cannibalized many of the notes for what would have been "The Hunger (Part 2)."
The result is a video that’s kind of about Twilight, and kind of a defense of psychoanalysis against the sexual ethos of my generation.
I’ve been living with this project for so long now I genuinely have no idea whether it’s crazy good or crazy bad, but fortunately that’s for you to decide, not me—let me know what you think!
I’m going to take a week off to recover, and then let’s talk Tangents.
Thanks as always for your patience and support.
Ilysm,
Natalie
Comments
Heather
Circling back to this as required reading for my Twilight Forever festival stream watch party… Ms Points please can we book club the new Renesmee/Jacob book 😩
Rose Dombegh
I feel like the rewatching of this video is itsself erotic ... built on the tension and release of a really really good argument being artistically laid out then brought altogether.
MJayBee
I'm rewatching this again, and the way this spirals into different aspects of sexuality is brilliant... but of course, it's just about Twilight
flyx
Rewatching this video reminded me of this very old SMBC comic, which matches quite well with the masculine/feminine fantasy, but back in the day I didn't have the words to describe it: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-05-21
Connor G
I'm curious if anyone has a full bibliography/reading list for this video?
Ariel Lowrey
It's been over a year since this video came out and I still come back to re-watch it regularly. I generally prefer not to post at all, including comments on videos, but I wanted to leave a comment on this just to say that it is one of my favorite videos of all time. I recommend it to friends regularly. It's funny, insightful, and interesting, and I am very happy that you brought it into the world.
Steffi
It’s also gone in Germany and Austria WILL IT COME BACK??this video is what’s keeping me going 😩😭
Albertyna Varga
this video being removed is kinda devastating
Seiya
I've watched this video like 5 times since it came out because it's just that mega crazy good. Also you look gorgeous in all the looks. Thank you for serving them!
Lina7
Hello Natalie. I've been working on the French subtitles for your Twilight video. I'm happy to say that they're now available for downloading on Captionfy : https://www.captionfy.com/video/youtube/bqloPw5wp48?caption=fr-6Rr I've sent a mail at info@contrapoints.com a few weeks ago but I think it was probably swept up in your fan mail 😁. Here's to hoping I can do another one with Envy next. Wish you the best !
David
So grateful for this! Is it possible to also update the website w/ a transcript of this one? https://www.contrapoints.com/transcripts/
M
Rewatching this after the Surreal Videos tangent is even more enjoyable than before, because now I recognize the Lasagna Cat structure.
Lina567
Hello Nathalie. You probably won't see this message, but just in case, I'd like to propose helping with making the French subtitles (the automatic translation can do in a pinch but some sentences missed the mark in way that is a bit funny but also cringey. Usually I put on the English subtitles but I showed your video to a friend a few days ago and had to often correct the French subtitles). As a fan of your work, I don't mind doing it for free, pour l'amour du langage, le défi de trouver le bon mot (I'm an editor in real life - who is about to get their holidays time) afin de traduire au plus proche des expressions difficiles ("gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" for instance) et afin de participer même de loin à ton entreprise philosophique et artistique. If interested, let me know !
Daria Costea
Im curious what do you think about the couple morticia and gomez in light of all this
Ali Williams
This is genuius
Matias Blanch
Question: do you share your video scripts with bibliography for members?
Lina567
Thank you for such beautiful work in both content and shape. A burning question: did you - do you still - like to read Twilight? They say art should entertain and teach. You taught us Twilight has a lot to teach. Does it bring you pleasure too?
Alisha Halgren
Love every single thing you've ever done. Thank you for your work!! ✨️💐🩷
autumn leaves
i love you so much
Collin Estes
This video essay made me so happy; thank you so much for your thoughtful and deep analysis! So, Stephenie Meyer and I actually became friends because we both joined a writing forum around the same time in the early '00s, and I helped proofread the manuscript of Twilight (book 1). Despite the fact that Steph was (at the time, anyway) more on the conservative side--you know, Arizona Mormon, etc--it always really bothered me how critics accused her of being both anti-feminist and also somehow dangerous to conventional morality. Plus, they totally overlooked her great sense of humor! This video essay made me feel proud and honored to play a very small part in the Twilight phenomenon
Mark Nugent
Been catching up with your work, I'm an ASD completionist, and I have to say , so far, all killer, no filler. I appreciate your smart, funny, confrontational, artistic content. Who knew there was so much mine in Twilight? Thank you Natalie.
TheLovingAvoidant
Watched this over three days and understand myself and life so much better now. Going to need to rewatch it probably a few times in the coming months to absorb and synthesize into my own articulation of the most resonant aspects as they connect to other beloved ideas.
Tasha 3D
would be interested to hear your thoughts on The Love Witch if you've seen it. The director is working on her next film a take on Bluebeard, she talks about "bluebeard films" in which the protagonist is unsure of her/their lover wants to kill them. Twilight is a bluebeard film, beauty and the beast is a bluebeard film
Bearsly
<3 thank you, such a nourishing video. you do excellent work!
Grace Carroll
Sidenote I remember reading Anne Carson as a classics undergrad and not understanding it at all so you will have made my supervisor very happy for finally helping it click
Grace Carroll
Like a lot of people commenting here, I've watched this about five times, and it is honestly mind-blowing, thank you. It's difficult to remember that there is a lot of value in psychological approaches to sex and gender when all you have been bombarded with since you first started to understand these concepts was political rhetoric. Not to say there's no value in that, just that it's important and reassuring to remember that our minds are not always in control of themselves. It's given me a lot to chew on - and made me come back as a patron actually. I only left for financial reasons but when this came out I was like nah dude gotta catch up on those tangents lol
DorothyA
It's been almost a month and this has turned out to be one of those special bits of media that has actually changed the way I think about and interact with the world in the day-to-day.
Liz
Such good work. Thank you. And I have never watched or read a minute of Twilight. Even the madeleines looked good and I don't like madeleines.
