Lessons learned from "Twilight"

[voluptuary_manque]

But it's so handy there!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Have a lollipop instead.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Have a lollipop instead.

Why thank-you. I appreciate that.

 

[3113]

Sady Doyle is talking about the way we judge girls for their juvenile preferences, and do not judge boys accordingly

Granted that VM got the wrong idea of this article--but as valid as Doyle's argument may be in regards to sexual biases, two wrongs don't make a right. Teen boys may have as dismal literary taste as teen girls, but just because they don't get mocked as ruthlessly over it, doesn't make the teen girls (or thirty-something ladies') taste in literature any less questionable.

And I think Cloudy's point in this thread is well taken. We will grant that there is plenty of bad fantasy literature that is pure escapism, and popular for being candy. It's not good for us, but we all indulge. And there's no reason to fret overmuch (usually) at which candy has hit the juvenile zeitgeist.

On the other hand, is it a little disturbing to see the painfully hard work and honest pain and agony suffered over the last two-hundred years by feminists in hopes of gaining a meager amount of equality and respect completely ignored in the Twilight novels. It is hard to see girls going backwards, as it were, and giving into that Mary Sue paradigm yet again which says that if their task in romance is to suffer, be put in danger, and be rescued (and put on a pedestal of adoration, of course, because they're special)--never to do or act--and to believe that marriage (and motherhood) is the end-all/be-all.

Which makes me wonder if such fantasies are just one of those things common to girls (or women) at a certain age and there is no escape from it, rather like other such fantasies (equally foolish?) are common to boys (or men). Maybe there is no escape from them however disturbing they may be and whatever tragic results they create in real life.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Granted that VM got the wrong idea of this article--but as valid as Doyle's argument may be in regards to sexual biases, two wrongs don't make a right. Teen boys may have as dismal literary taste as teen girls, but just because they don't get mocked as ruthlessly over it, doesn't make the teen girls (or thirty-something ladies') taste in literature any less questionable.

And I think Cloudy's point in this thread is well taken. We will grant that there is plenty of bad fantasy literature that is pure escapism, and popular for being candy. It's not good for us, but we all indulge. And there's no reason to fret overmuch (usually) at which candy has hit the juvenile zeitgeist.

On the other hand, is it a little disturbing to see the painfully hard work and honest pain and agony suffered over the last two-hundred years by feminists in hopes of gaining a meager amount of equality and respect completely ignored in the Twilight novels. It is hard to see girls going backwards, as it were, and giving into that Mary Sue paradigm yet again which says that if their task in romance is to suffer, be put in danger, and be rescued (and put on a pedestal of adoration, of course, because they're special)--never to do or act--and to believe that marriage (and motherhood) is the end-all/be-all.

Which makes me wonder if such fantasies are just one of those things common to girls (or women) at a certain age and there is no escape from it, rather like other such fantasies (equally foolish?) are common to boys (or men). Maybe there is no escape from them however disturbing they may be and whatever tragic results they create in real life.

And it is a high tragedy, one that an Attic Greek could have written about. Similarly, outside the rampant enslaving of children for the sex industry in Western countries, a great deal of the slavery in places like India is tear-jerkingly hard to eradicate because the debt slaves won't even accept freedom. Twilight reassures girls that they never need to grow up so they can stay pretty and helpless forever.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Girls want Romance without a doubt. But it's not the end of the world. It just depends on what else they get with the romance.

My girl cut her romantic teeth on Elf Quest; Cutter and Leetah's love affair. It pretty much spoiled her for teh stoopids ever after... She appreciates a good yearning UST as much as any Twilight teenybopper-- she just got a different one that had a far more egalitarian dynamic.

And there is also a real lack of respect that Bear, and other commentators, show for these *very* young girls, vis; "I hope that will come later."

Yes it will come later. And you will find a growing dissatisfaction among these same girls, with the bodice-ripping premise that they will be the object of affection for the Big Strong teeth-bearing boy. I follow the fanfic communities, and have watched three generations of fic writers-- Invariably, I see young women begin to place themselves into these stories, with their own set of fangs. They don't want to be lesser. They know what that means in the wider context.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

One of the speakers at the La Jolla Writers' Conference used to write the Sweet Valley Twins series. As she said, "I outgrew that." That's good. But for some of the little readers in my classroom, given the environment they come from, such an outcome is uncertain.

 

[Stella_Omega]

One of the speakers at the La Jolla Writers' Conference used to write the Sweet Valley Twins series. As she said, "I outgrew that." That's good. But for some of the little readers in my classroom, given the environment they come from, such an outcome is uncertain.

That's why you have to sneak it into the reading material they will stick with. For some girls, it's all about romances.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

For the present, I'm grateful that they will read anything. I tolerated Sweet Valley Twins years ago and I try and feel benevolent toward Twilight. Like all the other things kids do that drive you nutz, it's a perfectly normal stage in maturation. Most of them outgrow it and everything is fine. I just keep my claws crossed for the remainder.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What do the boys read during this time, bear? (asking because I don't know)

 

[voluptuary_manque]

What do the boys read during this time, bear? (asking because I don't know)

Boys at this age tend not to read fiction, at all. Books that deal with blowing things up, snakes and lizards, computer games and such will get a great following among my boys. One year I had half my boys reading Peter Hathaway Capstick's yarns of African safaris. My most facile readers can be brought into science fiction though such books as A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels. I haven't convinced any of them to begin Heinlein's juveniles, yet, but I have been having some luck recently with Terry Pratchett.

 

[Stella_Omega]

why don't we indulge in the same moral outrage over the blowing things up material that young boys read? Why do i never see "lessons we learn from" whatever those books are?

Yay for Terry Pratchett!

And yes, Wrinkle In Time is good reading material for girls-- you get the romantic subplot, and the Nobody Understands me that girls love-- and the Girls save the day message gets kinda snuck in there.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

why don't we indulge in the same moral outrage over the blowing things up material that young boys read? Why do i never see "lessons we learn from" whatever those books are?

Yay for Terry Pratchett!

And yes, Wrinkle In Time is good reading material for girls-- you get the romantic subplot, and the Nobody Understands me that girls love-- and the Girls save the day message gets kinda snuck in there.

An excellent question. That's why I do my best to find them something else to read. My own military career was centered around outsmarting the opposition, not killing them. As I explain every year to my boys, if you kill someone they're just dead. If you outsmart them, they know they're defeated. It's so much more satisfying. And you know? They believe me!

BTW, my smartest boys like Wrinkle, too. That is also satisfying. I like Abel's Island. If the girls want a Romantic Hero, Abel the mouse (a very upper-crust mouse, of course) really fills the bill. His year-long quest to recover his wife's lost scarf and their reunion at the end makes my little girls feel so good. And it teaches the virtues of ingenuity, endurance and steadfastness as well. Another great book for the boys is Armstrong Sperry's Call It Courage. It's very short but the message of facing and overcoming one's fears is a classic.

And I read The Hobbit aloud to them every year.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I wonder if they would like Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell trilogy. it's very English in its slang and references, but really satisfying...

 

[3113]

why don't we indulge in the same moral outrage over the blowing things up material that young boys read? Why do i never see "lessons we learn from" whatever those books are?

Because the boys are at least learning to do, act, be leaders, thinkers and independent. They are being taught not to rely on anyone else to save them from the enemy--they're being taught to blow up the enemy themselves.

I'm not saying we shouldn't fret over them wanting to blow things up, I certainly do. But once again, two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the boys don't get the moral outrage doesn't mean the girls shouldn't. And this is especially true if the girl's message encourages them to be passive, to expect to suffer, endure and not be a thinking, active individual. I'm afraid that worries me far more than teaching boys to blow up things.

We need to shift back this discussion. It didn't start out--and shouldn't be about whether girls get picked on for their literary indulgences, but boys do not. That's dodging, evading and obscuring the issue. This discussion started out and I think should remain on whether Twilight has any redeeming value as a romantic fantasy. Yes, it is a romantic fantasy. But as you point out, there have been and are others with egalitarian ideals. And certainly, there are a lot for girls to choose from in this day and age currently on the shelves.

Yet this is the one they latched onto in a big way. And what does that say? I'm more interested in that then I am in in whether girls are being unfairly criticized over it. Right now, it's the blockbuster. It beat out 2012 and it may beat out Avatar, the boy's fantasies. And that makes it fair game no matter who its audience is.

It doesn't get a free pass from being brutally criticized because it's being watched by little girls. To do that would be to say that little girls can't take the heat of criticism like little boys can. I think they can, and I'm not going to go easy on them just because the boys aren't currently getting the same heat--not if the material deserves it, which I think it does.

 

[Stella_Omega]

It made the big time because it appeals to the female gaze.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

One of the points Sady makes in her article is that the girl's love object, this vampire, is the most un-masculine of characters. He's physically male but acts just like the teenage girls who love him. I suspect that this is a key feature of the appeal. A wise old equestrienne once said that all girls should take up horseback riding. Why? The horse is bigger and stronger than they are, just like men are. She has to learn how to control the beast and that is a good lesson for life. Twilight, on the other hand, tells them that they can find a soulmate who is just like them, dreamy and helpless. Another bad lesson for girls.

 

[Stella_Omega]

either that, bear, or boys can, someday, learn that girls do not always want big, blundering macho fuckwads as mates

That would be one of those "it's only girls, what do they matter?" things. Except that, if you guys are right, and women control this stuff? y'all can start learning to let your lip tremble some.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Wow that sounds much more hostile than i intended it to.

here's the thing;
Remember James Dean? He cried. He was a sensation for doing it.

Some women do like big traditionally masculine appearances. But-- an awful lot of women don't. I, for one, always looked for men you would probably dismiss as sissies. But i didn't know many other women who thought that way-- until the internet, of course. That same internet that has given my porn an audience-- which does not include many men-- and has given me porn I want to read and see-- which is not the traditional porn created by men. Two years ago, film was hard to find, Not so much now.

Women, in this day and age of the internet, have begun to form a consensus on what their physical ideals might be. Of course there are many variations, just as some men like big bazongas and other men like legs up to her neck.

But Edward Cullen was written by a woman. She wrote him as "beautiful" which is a dirty word in the minds of most men, but all those little girls know what she meant when she said that. The boys who approach that physical ideal are going to get those girls-- no matter what other boys think about pretty boys.

And if you want the answer to why the girls are reading this tripe, it's simply because it's tripe that is written in their own language. If I write a preteen romance book, you can believe my characters will be more realistic, and my girls will be more proactive-- and my boys will also be described as "beautiful."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Wow that sounds much more hostile than i intended it to.

here's the thing;
Remember James Dean? He cried. He was a sensation for doing it.

Some women do like big traditionally masculine appearances. But-- an awful lot of women don't. I, for one, always looked for men you would probably dismiss as sissies. But i didn't know many other women who thought that way-- until the internet, of course. That same internet that has given my porn an audience-- which does not include many men-- and has given me porn I want to read and see-- which is not the traditional porn created by men. Two years ago, film was hard to find, Not so much now.

Women, in this day and age of the internet, have begun to form a consensus on what their physical ideals might be. Of course there are many variations, just as some men like big bazongas and other men like legs up to her neck.

But Edward Cullen was written by a woman. She wrote him as "beautiful" which is a dirty word in the minds of most men, but all those little girls know what she meant when she said that. The boys who approach that physical ideal are going to get those girls-- no matter what other boys think about pretty boys.

And if you want the answer to why the girls are reading this tripe, it's simply because it's tripe that is written in their own language. If I write a preteen romance book, you can believe my characters will be more realistic, and my girls will be more proactive-- and my boys will also be described as "beautiful."

Then I heartily recommend that you do. You sure as hell write better than she does and look at how much money she made off of it. At La Jolla the buzz was that though everyone was now feverishly writing vampire stories, that phase might be already pase'. I believe shape-changers are the Next Big Thing. Have at it.

p.s. Italian men are famous for their emotional volatility . Could that be the reason for their reputation as lovers?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Then I heartily recommend that you do. You sure as hell write better than she does and look at how much money she made off of it. At La Jolla the buzz was that thought everyone was now feverishly writing vampire stories, that phase might be already pase'. I believe shape-changers are the Next Big Thing. Have at it.

p.s. Italian men are famous for their emotional volatility . Could that be the reason for their reputation as lovers?

Yes, i think I should--

And yes, that was one reason. Another was simply that they were not Englishmen But I am here to tell you that both English and American men have caught well up to the Latin competition-- and left it in the shade in many cases

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Oh good! that's very reassuring. And after all, as my blood sugar and weight drop, (glucose 85 this morning) my libido is returning in force. Now if I can just get HM to stay home from work more often . . .

Actually, that's another good reason to retire. I'd always be home on her days off, no matter what day of the week it is. Hmmm . . . .

 

[3113]

One of the points Sady makes in her article is that the girl's love object, this vampire, is the most un-masculine of characters.

Actually, there is validity in what you say. At this pre-teen age, girls always want the "safe" boy. It's why boy bands like the Jonas Brothers are so wildly popular. They are boys--but they don't act like boys. They are, if you will emasculated. Which simply means they're not a threat. They give the girls that "tingly" feel, but the girls don't have to fear that such a boy is going to pressure them into sex.

And as such girls are horse crazy, teaching them to ride horses won't help. Girl fantasies include having a psychic connection with horses. Horses are not "brutes"--they're "emo." Which reinforces what they're after in Edward, rather than teaching them about "real men." We'll get back to this.

And I don't agree that this is about Edward being "beautiful" and described as such--by that I mean, he could be described as "handsome" and you'd get the same. He must be a hot and good looking guy, of course, and a slender dark one at that--not macho. He'd fail if he was big or hairy. BUT, what is more important is that he never goes father than kissing Bella. That is all he does to her.

He allows her to be in a "dangerous" situation being with him in that he is "forbidden fruit" which is sexy and stirring. But there is never any fear that he's going to actually do her damage. It's like going on a roller coaster ride. It feels dangerous and thrilling, but you know all the safety breaks are there and you're not really going to get hurt.

THAT is what these girls are after and what Edward satisfies. But he does do them a disservice in being them in a male body. Girls will run into his type. But they'll find one of two things--either he's gay, or he's as totally preoccupied with himself as they are with themselves, and not able to give them what they want--which is someone who thinks only of them.

Meanwhile, most boys aren't going to be anything like him. The girls will reject the ones who are most like him because they won't be "beautiful"--or even handsome. They'll be nerdy geeks. Fat, scrawny, pimply, socially awkward, freakish. Meanwhile the ones who are beautiful will be a very different animal. One the girls can't understand at all because they're expecting and wanting Edward. No win situation.

p.s. Italian men are famous for their emotional volatility . Could that be the reason for their reputation as lovers?

I don't know what reputation Italians have as lovers, but I can tell you that girls of this age would be scared shitless of Italian men. Because Italian men are predatory. Their aim is to woo the woman into bed. And the readers of this don't want that. They want to be the one, like Bella, to call the shots. They get to say, "I want to be a vampire--" Not get made into one because he's after having her. They get to have the werewolf falling all over himself for her, and string him along as they like. Not have him say, "I'm tired of being strung along, I'm going to have sex with one of your girlfriends instead..." (as a real boy probably would), or "You're a cock tease and either you give it to me, or I walk." Which a real boy also realistically would do.

There is no Latin lover on earth that would let Bella get away with what she gets away with. But then, it's not emotional volatility that the girls are after. It's angst and moodiness that indicate a tormented, poetic soul. Emo. THAT is what they're after--so long as all that torment and moodiness is because of them. They have to be the center of this guy's universe, the reason he's so emotionally torn up.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Uh-huh. At this age, everything really is about them. Perfectly normal developmental stage. I drive them to fits with another approach. "Honey, the way your are behaving is perfectly normal. You will outgrow it and everything will be fine but right now, you're making me crazy. Stop it!" And after an appropriate-for-the-age snit, they do . . . for a while . . . and we get along fine. At one time I had to be very alert for the crushies. Now, I'm just grampaw. Much safer for me!

 

[Stella_Omega]

LOL! I can see we are approaching this from completely different angles, 3113.

I'll have to think about this and see if I can't synthesise our ideas together. But i don't agree that a "handsome" EC would generate the buzz that the "beautiful" one has done.