I think they definitely say something about Meyer’s view of women’s role (note, I find this hilarious and disturbing.
I think it’s problematic that there are huge amounts of young women out there absorbing these - but I’m even more concerned about the adult women who encourage the same. The “love” in Twilight isn’t love - it’s obsession. Even the concept of the werewolves
imprinting on specific women - even if they’re newborn at the time, so that their future mate is determined SOLELY by the man, regardless of the woman’s (or girl’s) opinion of it.
Don’t forget about it more or less snapping Bella in half, or the evidence of mind control.
If I was writing the books, I think I would have snapped by this point, and written Renesme the way I see her: the unholy lovechild of a genestealer and an Alien-style xenomorph. The climax would have featured fire. Lots of fire.
It’s also misogynistic in a meta-sense: its continued popularity among women reveals some things about female psychology that feminists would prefer we forget. (The desire for the stratified vampire class structure, and for strong men who as mentioned upthread, misbehave by any feminist metric.)
Eh, more like stoned. Ordinarily, it would be. But then, this is a book where the guy climbs in her window at night to watch her sleep, disables the engine of her car to “keep her safe”, etc. So it’s “romantic”. :rolleyes:
No, the weirdest part is that:
Apparently vampire sex is soooo rough that Edward is so frustrated by holding back (even though she ends up injured anyway!) ends up biting up a pillow and Bella ends up covered in feathers.
What’s REALLY funny then is that a fan, not realizing what the term really means, named her blog:
As much as I hate to defend Twilight in any way, these are books targeted at the adolescent market. It’s typical for books for younger readers to have fewer words per page than books printed for adult readers.
To the OP, we’ve had several threads that discussed the disturbing sexism and very unhealthy depictions of romance in the Twilight novels. I read about 1/3 of the first book aloud with some friends, and at one point I remarked “This is like a blueprint of an abusive relationship.”
Since we never finished the book, the next time I visited these friends we watched the movie (they had a coupon for a free rental). As Bella and Edward’s relationship progressed, there were scenes that actually had us screaming. I don’t think I’ve ever said “OH GOD NO!” while watching a horror film, but I did just that when we learned that Edward’s been breaking into Bella’s room to watch her sleep every night since before they started dating. Then there’s the scene where Bella said she couldn’t dance, and Edward says “I could make you.” Not “I could teach you”, it was “I could MAKE you.” <shudder>
By the end of the movie, Bella’s in the hospital and Edward has invented a fishy sounding story about how she had “accidentally” become injured. Her injuries are actually the work of an evil vampire who Edward saved her from, but the whole thing was disturbingly like watching a battered woman agree with her abuser’s cover story.
That’s basically my feeling about Twilight as a whole – it’s like the fantasy a battered woman might come up with to justify staying with a man who could barely keep himself from killing her.
I think you’ll find that many popular women’s romantic and sexual fantasies are misogynistic. I’m sure their widespread appeal really butters the bread of some evo psychs.
Twilight may be written at the level of an adolescent, but it’s not a book for adolescents. I might let my daughter read them when she’s a teenager, but definitely talk to her about how horrible the relationship is. As my wife is getting paid to read the books, watch the movies and learn everything she can about the overall franchise for work, we’ll be well armed. She cannot find enough ridicule for how horrible they are. Which is kind of amusing since her job is specifically to help franchises improve their literary merit.
Well basically her company is a specific niche called ‘Transmedia’ which refers to the narrative across multiple platforms. Their particular role is to help them keep a logical continuity. You know like how annoying it is when the Comic book breaks continuity completely from the movie? Their job is to stop that sort of thing. They also believe that a good narrative enhances your product. Some franchises care more than others about how good the story is. You would be surprised at which organizations actually give a shit and which don’t. Microsoft Games Studio actually gives a shit about Halo for instance. I won’t specify which franchises don’t.
She’s not actually working on Twilight, this is just market research for some project they are working on.
LOL actually she got the job because of me. She was looking for an internship in college so I got her the job with my friend’s company, she is now the lead editor 5 years later. She actually has a BA in Theatrical Design.
Her boss started off in comics and RPGs and has been working in fantasy fiction genres for many years from Palladium to Valiant Comics.
I can leave the Twilight reading part though.