Welcome to a new column called Reaction to Fiction. In this I discuss the merits of a franchise and its multi-media effects and how it impacts society at large.
Twilight
so a few things. I have read the first book(trash). I can say the movies are getting progressively better at telling these stories. There are still the obvious fundamental problems such as this being a story of necrophilia, Bestiality and Pedophilia, and abusive male figures. I do intend to see and review Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. I am not planning on reading the books but I have read the wikipedia articles and learned their plots, themes, and messages. I am also am a Feminist and equal rights activist. Thus many flaws beyond the writing come jumping out at me.
And you can't blame the vampire craze on Twilight since all of this happened in the 90's with the Anne Rice novels. It's just now with the internet people realize they are en masse.
I will point out that just because something isn't exceptionally written can still be enjoyable. Harry Potter for example. It has it's issues certainly, but it is still a fun coming of age adventure that captured the hearts and minds of a lot of people. Twilight isn't fun. Twilight is a chance for a generic girl to identify with a generic tale that basically sums up as a disney movie ala Cinderella. Seriously let's look at the two plots. Girl lives a life where she isn't pleased with her conditions. Girl finds man who is everything she isn't and from a different way of life. They fall in love without knowing anything about each other and are then abruptly torn apart. The boy then eventually realizes he must be with this girl and goes out to find her and marry her. The reason Twilight is more popular is that it aims its age target a little higher. It takes it to the PG-13 level and introduces teenage problems like Sex and the dream of Marriage(because obviously teenagers are stupid to get married but like to think of it anyways). So why does Cinderella work where Twilight doesn't? Because Cinderella's plights are real. She isn't worried about being uncool in school, the center of attention, or bored. She is, for all intents and purposes a slave. So the need to escape that life is a necessity. The story works further because of its time period. The story is from a pre-women's rights era. Therefore women didn't often have a lot of power to break from their own bondage. And that's not to say they weren't capable of the power, simply that they were systematically denied the rights and the chance to be equals. This is still true today, but it is much more subtle. You can also say similar things with Africans that were actually slaves. But we are here to talk about Twilight. But to complete the obvious parallels I need to point out that Vampirism is used as a metaphor for marriage/sex in the Twilight universe.
These books are clearly the signs of women in abusive relationships surrendering to gender expectations and being passive and incompetent. Meyer's work is doing more harm than good. She is glorifying being subservient and if I hadn't seen her speak I would assume she is just a pen name for some misogynist. Actually Meyer is a misogynist. She has no respect for women nor their ability to make rational decisions. Meyer offers up Bela three options. The first is the stalker that she stalks back. He is mysterious and abusive using phrases like "Get in the Car" and mysteriously being at the same place she is when she is in trouble. Meyer tries to distract you with the fact that He is stalking her by the fact that he saves her. The reality is that she doesn't show us most of the scenes where he is there just watching her and not saving her. And how creepy this is. More so, the one time she does we instead see Bela embrace him for doing so. Then in door number two we have her other would be protector, Jacob. Jacob and Bela's relationship is actually built up. We start by finding out that he is her childhood friend and he slowly becomes a good friend to her. Jacob's previously subtle attraction to Bela slowly grows more obvious to the audience(and possibly to Jacob too, but that' level of detail to a supporting character seems outside of Meyer's level of skill). Jacob is presented as the good guy. The safe bet. The non-dangerous one. That is until he becomes a werewolf. It is here that we begin to see that Bela is only attracted to bad boys because it isn't until this point that she ever truly considers embracing Jacob. And lastly there is the third option where she chooses neither of them. Oh wait, Meyer never presents this option. Meyer has the issue where she thinks that the character she set Bela out to be in love with is the character she should be in love with. It doesn't work out that way. In every way Meyer has set up Jacob to be the healthy relationship in her world and yet she ultimately treats him like dirt and makes him a pedophile. Meyer puts Bela through nothing but unhealthy relationships. Bela is constantly being treated like she has no personality and no ability to make decisions and thus they are always made for her by male figures in her life such as Her Father, Edward, Edwards "father", Jacob, and numerous others. Logically Bela would want to marry her creepy stalker right? Right? Okay so yeah, it doesn't make sense at all. Even in the context of the story it doesn't make any sense at all. Bela is trapped in a cycle of abuse and it is treated like a positive thing. Most of all, I feel bad for Meyer's husband. What must he be like if this is what Meyer thinks all relationships with men are like.
So here is where this all is a huge problem because this isn't the first novels to be like this. Harlequin novels do this all the time. So why is this a problem? It is because it IS so popular. By being a fan of this series you are saying you are a fan of abusive relationships and that's what you aspire to. You basically are telling everyone that you wish to NOT be in a healthy relationship. That you WANT guys to stalk you and treat you like dirt and be disrespectful. So long as they love you. Because that is what is happening in these books. It is the rationalization that it is okay to be in an abusive relationship because he loves you. Now I of course have been dodging the words Physically and Mentally in conjunction with abuse. That is because both are equally wrong. And they both leave scars. And because both are apt. All of the symptoms, all of the actions of an abusive relationship are the same. It is all a matter of where you are being hurt. And you wouldn't stay in a relationship like that would you? I hope not.
When I hear the phrase "I want an Edward" I cringe because it is like saying "I want a stalker that I can be in an abusive relationship with". Oh and the reason he sparkles is to make it even more obvious that he isn't a person, but a toy to be used. There is a phrase when it comes to a capitalistic society which is you pay with your wallet. So the more you pay to see and read these stories the more you tell the money counters, this works, we should make more of this. But it gets worse. You also tell the world this is what you believe. This is how you see things to be. It may not be true, but its what you desire and consider your idealistic view. And it is really bad. People wonder, "Why do crappy movies keep getting made and make money?" It is because you don't pay attention to critics and instead want to see it and then are surprised when it isn't good despite the critics telling you otherwise. The more you embrace popular items the more you try and homogenize what comes out in the future. This is because the moneycounters want to make more money and know that you will go see something that looks familiar than you are to try something new. You'll notice that until the movies came out, most of the books never got passed a second printing. Now they are at their umpteenth printing and the series is like a raging fire. However, the movies are their own beast. With each film, the story telling is getting better. They are getting better performances out of actors, better directing, they are paying attention to what needs to be cut and what deserves more attention. They know the source material sucks so they are making it better. Now that is not to say they are making good movies, but for example Eclipse is watchable and coherent. If your girlfriend takes you to it, it won't kill you. It is better than Last Airbender and last years Transformers 2. That isn't saying much, but it is something.
And before I give you my conclusion I just want to say that Bella as she is written is a thinly veiled allusion to Bela Lugosi, the original actor who portrayed Dracula in the original black and white movie Dracula.
I want to use Buffy the vampire slayer as an example of why Twilight is so bad. Buffy has a similar plot. Human girl falls in love with Vampire boy. But she eventually says something really important which is a cookie metaphor. she calls her self cookie dough, that she isn't ready to be done baking yet. And thus she needs to learn to be a person more before she can make a decision about who she should or shouldn't be with. Buffy shows Maturity to make rational, adult decisions. Something Bela like never could.
So, I want you to think about what you believe, what you want people to think of you when you give your support to that franchise. Is this really how you think of yourself? Is your self esteem really that low? Because I guarantee you that Freddy Kruger is better boyfriend material than Edward Cullen.
And then Buffy staked Edward the end.
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