Lessons learned from "Twilight"

[voluptuary_manque]

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.

I agree with you. 'Handsome' and 'beautiful' might be synonyms but the connotation is different. A well turned out het male might be flattered if you called him handsome but I doubt you'd get the same reaction from 'beautiful'. Some wouldn't be upset but IMO, they're a minority. From this male standpoint, they're not the same.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I agree with you. 'Handsome' and 'beautiful' might be synonyms but the connotation is different. A well turned out het male might be flattered if you called him handsome but I doubt you'd get the same reaction from 'beautiful'. Some wouldn't be upset but IMO, they're a minority. From this male standpoint, they're not the same.

I'm talking about for women. The buzz is among women (and girls), the term is used by women (and girls), the meaning of the term and the aesthetic preferences it describes have been defined by people who are not men.

 

[cloudy]

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.

You have a valid point, which is what the "sparkling diamond in the sun" thing is all about (on a side note, vampires do NOT fucking sparkle, damn it), but that brings the discussion around to Jacob Black.

He's certainly "beautiful," but in a completely different, entirely masculine way. He's not emo at all (or at least, not in my opinion), and he isn't all about Bella - there are other things going on in his life, even though he does feel very strongly about her. However, it looks to me like "team Jacob" has just as many adherents as Edward. The director obviously knew this, which is why Taylor Lautner spends most of the newest film in shorts and shirtless (and looking very delicious, for a puppy).

I think that for some of the die-hard fans, you're exactly right, but I don't think that explains all of the uproar.

 

[3113]

I'm certainly not going to argue that young girls aren't going to wet their panties over Edward being "beautiful" rather than "handsome." Sure. They'll like that word. What I disagree with is this whole idea of Edward as representing some sort of androgynistic ideal. The androgynistic ideal that you're after, Stella, is not, I think, what most of these girls falling for Edward are after. As I said, what they're after is something safe--a boy who makes them feel sexual without threatening them with actual sex.

Ultimately, Edward and his family are not Vampires. They're blood-sucking elves. Which makes Edward kin to equally "elf-like" fictional types like Mr. Spock, Legolas, etc., etc, etc: slender (not big and threatening), "beautiful," hairless, sparkling in the sun, mysterious, poetic, tormented, and an "alien" meaning a fantasy. The girls reading/watching this story know there ain't no such thing. He doesn't really exist--I mean he really, really does't exist. There are no vampire/elves.

Which undermines the whole idea of him teaching girls to handle a real guy who is of this sissy type. The story isn't about a "real" sissy type guy. Edward is "beautiful" because he's an elf-vampire. Not because he's a real boy.

But there are real, "sissy" guys out there. Androgynous types who wear make-up and cry and such. And I promise you, that the vast majority of those girls sighing over Edward's beauty and sensitivity on screen would back away and not be able to deal with the real thing if they came face to face with it. Because Edward is not teaching them to be tolerant of gays, sissies or androgynistic types. Because Edward is presented as NOT REAL.

You happen to love the real thing, want the real thing and can handle the real thing. Most of these girls do not want the real thing, and Edward isn't going to teach them to. He's like a magic negro or funny gay man. He presents what women want an androgynous person to be like. The real thing, which is far less idealistic and predictable, which would be sexual, would freak them out.

 

[3113]

Just to add: like Mr. Spock and Legolas, in Edward the "sissy" aspect is neatly undercut by an alien power. Call Mr. Spock a sissy and he flattens you with his superior strength and Vulcan nerve pinch. Call Legolas a sissy and he leaps around you and shoots you with his arrows. Call Edward a sissy and he bites you.

A real "sissy" guy would likely have no such defense. The fantasy version always gives the "beautiful" boy a secret weapon to make sure that the girls know he's not really a sissy.

 

[TalyisBagley]

I think you need to read the article again, Bear. Sady Doyle is talking about the way we judge girls for their juvenile preferences, and do not judge boys accordingly;

..But male escapist fantasies -- which, as anyone who has seen Die Hard or read those Tom Clancy novels can confirm, are not unilaterally sophisticated, complex, or forward-thinking -- tend to be greeted with shrugs, not sneers. The Twilight backlash is vehement, and it is just as much about the fans as it is about the books. Specifically, it's about the fact that those fans are young women..

...Self-described geeks and horror fans are especially upset at how the series introduces the conventions of the romance novel -- that most stereotypically feminine, most scorned of literary forms -- into their far more highbrow and culturally relevant monster stories... What sets Twilight apart from Marvel comics? The answer is fairly obvious, and it's not -- as geeks and feminists might hope -- the quality of the books or movies. It's the number of boys in the fan base.

...

... The vitriol aimed at the series is often about policing gender and punishing girliness -- and boys who dare to enjoy something so blatantly non-masculine would almost certainly find themselves harshly judged...


..The third film adaptation of the Twilight series, Eclipse, will be helmed by horror director David Slade, who has made such movies as Hard Candy and Thirty Days of Night... it is already being touted as "darker," more action-packed, and more "guy friendly." Because the popularity of the Twilight formula guarantees Eclipse will be a box-office smash, the decision to consciously appeal to boys seems more like a grab at credibility than at profit. Romance-loving Twi-Hards be damned! Who cares about disappointing a huge, passionate, lucrative fan base if they're all a bunch of girls?



Fuck it, I could C&P the entire article. it's pretty damn concise.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=girls_just_wanna_have_fangs

Bump

I think that it is plain that the backlash towards Twilight is that it appears to women and girls. I think that it just shows that the one-lopsidedness of Hollywood. Women sit through awful films like 300 the Terminators, the upten SAWs, the other mediocre selling box office action/horror. And now a film that has appeal to women and breaks box office records has controversy. The controversy is that people READ WAY INTO IT (ie. it teaches girls this and that) and seen as a bring feminisim backwards . True feminism is when you are happy as a female and not having to subjugate yourself (for the sake of being equal) to horrible "male marketed" films, books and other forms of entertainment.

I am sad to here that dir. Slade and Summit feel that they cannot see "legitimacy" in filmmaking that appears to the female audience. Truly Sad.

BTW 30 Days of Night was horrible. Another male marketed film that really would have been straight to video it only lasted in the cinema for short time.

 

[vrosej10]

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.

For the ten year olf group, there is a really good series of books for boys called Zac Power. My son has read them all.

I think the big worry here is that people are perceiving that these girls can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. I would be talking to me daughter about the fact that these books don't portray romance as it really is if I was worried.

As for us older Twi-hards, I think we might just be looking to relive our youth as it never was. I got married when I was younger than Bella, so it's little uncomfortably close to home, as the ex and I had the same kind of obsessive relationship....

 

[Stella_Omega]

Bump

I think that it is plain that the backlash towards Twilight is that it appears to women and girls. I think that it just shows that the one-lopsidedness of Hollywood. Women sit through awful films like 300 the Terminators, the upten SAWs, the other mediocre selling box office action/horror. And now a film that has appeal to women and breaks box office records has controversy. The controversy is that people READ WAY INTO IT (ie. it teaches girls this and that) and seen as a bring feminisim backwards . True feminism is when you are happy as a female and not having to subjugate yourself (for the sake of being equal) to horrible "male marketed" films, books and other forms of entertainment.

I am sad to here that dir. Slade and Summit feel that they cannot see "legitimacy" in filmmaking that appears to the female audience. Truly Sad.

BTW 30 Days of Night was horrible. Another male marketed film that really would have been straight to video it only lasted in the cinema for short time.

And to me this is the "other" lesson we see in Twilight; that women and girls are not allowed to empower their own entertainment choices.

3113, I am not speaking about my own preference for androgyny. I am talking about the some 200 young women i have been tracking in the fanfic community, and the perhaps 400 or more adult women i have also encountered-- and I am involved with only a very small corner of the phenomenon.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I am missing something here. Is the point that Twilight the only discernible film popular with pre-adult females? Surely that cannot be true. Equally untrue is the idea that somehow there has not been a film made whose primary market was women of a range of ages. The derisively termed 'chick flick' has been making bundles for studios for decades and none of them, to my memory, has received the storm of scorn that this one has. I believe the major point of contention is that what we have in Twilight is a film for 'little-ish' girls that isn't about a princess, a la Disney. This one is about a girl that the audience 'can' identify with as opposed to a girl that the audience might 'want' to identify with. Have I gotten it so far?

 

[Stella_Omega]

I am missing something here. Is the point that Twilight the only discernible film popular with pre-adult females? Surely that cannot be true. Equally untrue is the idea that somehow there has not been a film made whose primary market was women of a range of ages. The derisively termed 'chick flick' has been making bundles for studios for decades and none of them, to my memory, has received the storm of scorn that this one has. I believe the major point of contention is that what we have in Twilight is a film for 'little-ish' girls that isn't about a princess, a la Disney. This one is about a girl that the audience 'can' identify with as opposed to a girl that the audience might 'want' to identify with. Have I gotten it so far?

And it objectifies a male, too. Sure, It turns him into something we know is not a real man, but it does so for the pleasure of the women who wrote the book and bought it.

Sure there have been heartthrob celebrities galore through the ages, produced by male entertainment execs -- some of them hit, most of them didn't. I think this is pretty pertinent.

And it is damn true that the young girls who go to see this film are, in fact powerless in so many ways. In our world girls don't get the know how to work on their own cars, or pick their own sexual partners, or make the first move, as Bella does. It's a shame the plot included Edward saying no for the sake of tension, but that's the paucity of romance plots.

All if this is unfortunate because the attraction has been squandered on a piece of shit premise. All of those lessons in the first post-- they do indeed apply. But there are other messages here, too.

 

[DeeZire]

My GF, who is almost eligible for membership in AARP, has read all the Twilight books and has seen "New Moon" twice, the second time this morning, with me in tow. She is not one to analyze. She just likes romantic stuff - bodice rippers, (especially with long-haired Native American dudes on the cover) so the appeal of the Twilight series goes beyond tweens and teens.

I can see the validity of Cloudy's post, but I think many people won't even notice the messages conveyed by Bella's behavior. The question remains - will their subconscious notice?

(A note about marriage - GF says in the next book, Bella says she's too young to get married, which is contrary to some posts in this thread.)

What bugged me the most about the movie (besides being disappointed when Bella dove into the sea without taking her clothes off) was the fact that they were riding motorcycles without helmets. I wonder how many teenagers are going to get their brains bashed in emulating the movie?

 

[vrosej10]

My GF, who is almost eligible for membership in AARP, has read all the Twilight books and has seen "New Moon" twice, the second time this morning, with me in tow. She is not one to analyze. She just likes romantic stuff - bodice rippers, (especially with long-haired Native American dudes on the cover) so the appeal of the Twilight series goes beyond tweens and teens.

I can see the validity of Cloudy's post, but I think many people won't even notice the messages conveyed by Bella's behavior. The question remains - will their subconscious notice?

(A note about marriage - GF says in the next book, Bella says she's too young to get married, which is contrary to some posts in this thread.)

What bugged me the most about the movie (besides being disappointed when Bella dove into the sea without taking her clothes off) was the fact that they were riding motorcycles without helmets. I wonder how many teenagers are going to get their brains bashed in emulating the movie?

She marries Edward in spite of her reservations -- another problem. I agree about the helmets. Having been in an acident where a helmut saved my life, I agree.

People seem to be blowing this whole phenomenon out of proportion. These things seem to come and go every few years and all the issues pass. Yes Bella is a lousy role model, but if you actually spend some time talking to your rug rats you will find that most of them get that. The one that don't need some guidance regardless of what they are reading. I saw New Moon in the first session it was played in my area. There were far more people on Team Jacob than Team Edward (Jacob is the sensible choice; he's not moody or obsessive. He would be an excellent boyfriend). Most people get that Bella and Edward are an unhealthy relationship. I do have some issues with the level of sexual restraint in these books though.

 

[Verdad]

I have to say I'm mostly with Bear and 3113 on this one. The author of the article may spin it and stretch it as she likes, but I think she's full of it.

She wants us to hail Twilight because it satisfies a need for adolescent girls, but that says nothing. Girls need food, too, but that doesn't make everything someone puts on their plate equally good.

In fact, if food were prepared with the sole guideline of appealing to an average teen girl's palate, it might well consist of nothing but sugar. Would we say, "How great that someone's meeting their taste!" or would we reserve the right to judge the food by some other standard?

To say that girls are interested in boys is as bleeding obvious as the opposite. The question is how well these needs are served by providing each with their own little narcissist world. An echo chamber of porn for boys, and an echo chamber of romance for girls, where each can imagine the other is just like them, or by a lucky coincidence, exists only to satisfy their needs.

Growing into sexual and emotional maturity is precisely about growing out of these ideas and learning to live with the other. That's kinda what makes it fun, too. But there's money to be made on offering a mirror that shows only what the consumer wants to see. Why waste time on fiction that resonates because it strikes something about the world? It's safer to anticipate the infantile desires and reflect them back, bypassing the world entirely.

The best I could say about Twilight is that it's porn for girls, but even that sounds too good.

I'm not as optimistic as Stella about it providing a counterbalance to porn. What it provides seems to me more like a complement, and the picture they form together is not new. Men as callous horndogs, blind to women's feelings. Women as romantic fools who don't get what men want. Male pastimes and female pastimes, and a strict division line in between. Doesn't it sound kind of quaintly familiar and can it possibly get more sexist and stereotypical than that?

To complete the picture, let's add that boys have additional few years for playing with Legos before they dedicate themselves entirely to wanking, and even then, they might retain other interests, if nothing else, in blowing things up. Girls, however, if prepped correctly, can dive into the world of romance from the earliest age and make swooning their hobby, occupation, religion, and a way of life.

That's a bit dramatically stated, I know, but I'm trying to convey what bothers me about painting Twilight in too bright colors.

As a girl, I was by no account a tomboy or a 'masculine' girl, but neither did I have a shred of interest in romance novels or similar hyper-girlish pastimes. No one told me it would be uncool; I tried it, found it bored me stiff, and moved on to what I liked better.

I'm starting to think I've slipped through some lucky marketing crack, though. Romance genre was there, but it wasn't tailored specifically to my age bracket. I could have read Danielle Steele, or whatever, as girls who were into that kind of thing did. But no one pushed something on me with a pink neon sign that said, "YES, this is FOR YOU, and it's WAY COOL!" I have trouble seeing it as empowerment that Twilight is sold that way to girls now.

I'm wary of cheering the specialization of the market because the more specialized the market gets, the more it broadens the gender divide. If the middle shrinks, if there's more entertainment for boys and entertainment for girls and less just entertainment, those who'd mingle happily in the middle have to pull toward the extremes.

 

[3113]

3113, I am not speaking about my own preference for androgyny. I am talking about the some 200 young women i have been tracking in the fanfic community, and the perhaps 400 or more adult women i have also encountered-- and I am involved with only a very small corner of the phenomenon.

That's fine, but I think my argument still stands. I don't see Twilight as "refreshing" because it has a "sissy" hero. I find it cliché. Edward, after all, would be nowhere if he wasn't "beautiful" or if he was a real vampire rather than an "elf" disguised as one, or if he didn't live with his perfect cult-like family that doesn't prey on humans. All this "sissy" stuff makes him simply a safe-man-boy that ten year olds want and some adult women still fantasize about, not a real sissy boy, warts and all, that a real woman might love. Boyish Sinatra caused girls to faint over him because he presented this safe fantasy. So did James Dean. So did the Beatles. Davy Jones of the Monkees, on and on up to the Jonas brothers. They appeal to the ten year olds because ten year olds can't imagine going any father than a kiss and holding hands. So they aren't "manly" enough to make them seem like they would go any farther. And whadda know? Edward goes no father with Bella than kissing her and holding her hand.

All this drama over a boy that Bella's only kissed (night terrors? flying to Italy to make sure he doesn't glitter in the sun?) How can one not see the humor in that?

 

[3113]

People seem to be blowing this whole phenomenon out of proportion. These things seem to come and go every few years and all the issues pass.

True--and perhaps we are blowing it out of proportion. After all, unlike the popularity of The Sorrows of Young Werther, teens aren't committing suicide in order to be like the book's hero.

But I think there is a certain level of frustration in what Verdad splendidly points out, that niche markets of pure fantasy are feeding our desires to remain infantile in emotional wants and needs, rather than to mature. Perhaps this is all sturm and dang, and much ado about nothing, but I think it's still worth discussing why women keep clinging to that Cinderella syndrome as their ultimate fantasy, rather than a fantasy where they achieve all they ever wanted via their own efforts and abilities. In this case, Bella gets it all by marrying Edward: home, family, friends, immortality and the ability to glitter in the sun as well as undying and eternal love.

She won't have to mop the floor, make the beds, or go to school. If I were ten, I'd be deeply into this fantasy as well. No parents making me do anything, eternal adoration, ready-made teen friends and family who I can party with eternally, stay young with forever....Should mothers of daughters--never mind Hollywood or fathers or male critics or sneering teen boys--not be a little worried about this fantasy? And why should males approve of it knowing that, once again, every girl is going to be disappointed in them for not being Mr. Beautiful?

We take men to task for their fantasies about Madonna/Whores, why shouldn't we take this movie to task for presenting the same fantasy in male form, as Edward is essentially the Madonna version for girls? He fights his evil urges and stays heroically pure for his lady...until they marry, of course.

To say that girls are interested in boys is as bleeding obvious as the opposite. The question is how well these needs are served by providing each with their own little narcissist world. An echo chamber of porn for boys, and an echo chamber of romance for girls, where each can imagine the other is just like them, or by a lucky coincidence, exists only to satisfy their needs.

Growing into sexual and emotional maturity is precisely about growing out of these ideas and learning to live with the other. That's kinda what makes it fun, too. But there's money to be made on offering a mirror that shows only what the consumer wants to see. Why waste time on fiction that resonates because it strikes something about the world? It's safer to anticipate the infantile desires and reflect them back, bypassing the world entirely.

Beautifully put! I'm going to copy this and likely quote you at some future date!

 

[Freefall_mc]

...blown out of proportion.
Kid (a devoted reader), bought set, but apparently didn't get much farther into it than I did.
YEA!

 

[FatDino]

*SPOILERS ALERT!!!*

These are the most brilliant parodies of the Twilight and New Moon movies I have seen thus far.

Twilight in 15 Minutes

New Moon in 15 Minutes

My girlfriend and I went to see both movies, just to mock the teenagers in the theater, and it was worth it. They were ridiculous.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Am now in consultation with DD on project for 2010...

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Am now in consultation with DD on project for 2010...

Go get 'em, Stella! I'm going to build rocking chairs.

 

[Tarakin]

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/funny-pictures-cat-does-not-want-you-to-read-book.jpg

 

[CharleyH]

Unfortunate lessons girls learn from Twilight:

1. If a boy is aloof, stand-offish, ignores you or is just plain rude, it is because he is secretly in love with you — and you are the point of his existence.

2. Secrets are good — especially life-threatening ones.

3. It’s OK for a potential romantic interest to be dimwitted, violent and vengeful — as long as he has great abs.

4. If a boy tells you to stay away from him because he is dangerous and may even kill you, he must be the love of your life. You should stay with him since he will keep you safe forever.

5. If a boy leaves you, especially suddenly (while telling you he will never see you again), it is because he loves you so much he will suffer just to keep you safe.

6. When a boy leaves you, going into shock, losing all your friends and enduring night terrors are completely acceptable occurrences — as long as you keep your grades up.

7. It is extremely romantic to put yourself in dangerous situations in order to see your ex-boyfriend again. It’s even more romantic to remember the sound of his voice when he yelled at you.

8. Boys who leave you always come back.

9. Because they come back, you should hold out, waiting for them for months, even when completely acceptable and less-abusive alternative males present themselves.

10. Even though you have no intention of dating an alternative male who expresses interest in you, it is fine to string the young man along for months. Also, you should use him to fix things for you. Maybe he’ll even buy you something.

11. You should use said male to fix things because girls are incapable of anything mechanical or technical.

12. Lying to your parents is fine. Lying to your parents while you run away to save your suicidal boyfriend is an extremely good idea that shows your strength and maturity. Also, it is what you must do.

13. If the boy you are in love with causes you (even indirectly) to be so badly beaten you end up in the hospital, you should tell the doctors and your family that you “fell down the steps” because you are such a silly, clumsy girl. That false explanation always works well for abused women.

14. Men can be changed for the better if you sacrifice everything you are and devote yourself to their need for change.

15. Stalking a woman by breaking into her house to watch her sleep or following her in a car from town to town without her knowledge is romantic and for her own good.

so true, but are these lessons really so different from those taught in the past? Lauren and I revisited 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' last night. It was one of my favourite Christmas shows as a kid. As an adult in the 21st century? ROFLMFAO ... lines like: "No, I'll go look for him, that's a man's job" were EVERYwhere!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Here's what should have happened...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee2/ZebCarter/qy97b1259202912.jpg

 

[candyshellcomet]

Here's what should have happened...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee2/ZebCarter/qy97b1259202912.jpg

ROFL! This is the funniest post I have seen here since I joined. Thanks, thanks, thanks!

 

[Saucyminx]

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.

Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. My tween son likes the Artemis Fowl series, the Alex Rider series, and series written by . . . Haddix, first one was "Among the Hidden." He also tends to read Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and F. Paul Wilson. My tween daugher has read all the Twilights--and I read them first just because. I've been dragged to the movies too.

A lesson I learned from the last movie is that 17 year old boys are built much differently than they were when I was in high school.

 

[xssve]

What's Twilight?