{"id":1132,"date":"2009-11-17T11:19:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T11:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2009\/11\/why-new-moon-and-twilight-just-arent-as-bad-as-people-say-they-are.html"},"modified":"2009-11-17T11:19:21","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T11:19:21","slug":"why-new-moon-and-twilight-just-arent-as-bad-as-people-say-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2009\/11\/why-new-moon-and-twilight-just-arent-as-bad-as-people-say-they-are.html","title":{"rendered":"Why New Moon (And Twilight) Just Aren’t As Bad As People Say They Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Twilight\/New Moon\/Oh Hey Vampires And Werewolves Day on the Internets (well, maybe yesterday was, but I’m a sleep-deprived mother of two and so I get some creative leeway with my calendar): the release of the movie New Moon yesterday has unleashed, over recent weeks, waves of virtual commentary about the Twilight phenomenon and culminated, today, in a tsunami of red carpet photo coverage. So, you know, if you want to indulge in a little Edward-gazing, today’s your day. I don’t have any red carpet photos of the New Moon premiere, but I do have some reflections <\/i>on the Twilight series<\/i> (originally composed for MamaPop last year<\/a>, when the first movie was released), and why it’s simply not as bad as – and, in fact, probably much, much better than – the naysayers say it is.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read on…<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was to be expected that there’d be a certain amount of criticism<\/a>
\ndirected toward the Twilight series after the movie was released. There
\nwas, after all, a considerable amount of criticism of each of the books
\nas these were released, criticism that was largely directed toward the
\npurportedly anti- or un-feminist sensibilities of the series. Bella is
\na passive character, the argument goes: Bella sacrifices too much for
\nlove; Bella sublimates herself to Edward; Bella doesn’t kick ass and
\ntake names like Buffy did; Bella washes too many dishes for her dad;
\nBella wears too much fleece, etc, etc. <\/p>\n

Whatever. The quote-unquote feminist arguments against the Twilight
\nseries are specious at best, in my opinion (I mean, for example: Bella
\npassive? Bella risks her own life on numerous occasions to save people.
\nBella saves EVERYBODY at the end. And she’s not even a Slayer. *rolls eyes<\/em>*),
\nbut nonetheless frustrating. I actually wrote a whole post ranting about how being cynical about love is the new black and
\nhow stupid it is – yeah, I called it stupid – to call out romantic love
\nas de facto disempowering, even when the love at stake (heh) is love
\nbetween a clumsy human girl and a powerful vampire, especially seeing
\nas that clumsy human girl basically makes that vampire her bitch <\/em>and makes him do whatever she wants.<\/p>\n

But then I realized that long lectures on the place of romantic love
\nin the history of feminist discourse and consideration of same against
\ncurrent critiques of Twilight were maybe not so interesting to a
\ncommunity of readers who are probably just looking for something lite
\nto read while they scarf down their afternoon Snickers bar, and so I
\nshelved it.<\/p>\n

Then I read this (warning – some spoilers follow<\/em>):<\/p>\n

\n

Is the <\/em>Twilight series pushing its own kind of morality along
\nwith its love story? I think so — and it is an element that parents and
\nteachers need to be aware is in the books. The narrative suggests that
\nit is better to submit and sublimate yourself to a superior being than
\nto be your own person. Having a will of one’s own is not conducive to
\nMeyer’s brand of love and living. Only heterosexual relationships are
\nexplored, and (married!) sex is always a power play with painful
\nconsequences. Plus it is preferable to be a teenage mother above all
\nelse, even if it kills you. (io9.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let’s break this down:<\/p>\n

1) The narrative suggests that
\nit is better to submit and sublimate yourself to a superior being than
\nto be your own person.<\/em><\/p>\n

This canard is getting old. How is Bella not her own person,
\nexactly? She falls in love and fights – fights hard – to carve a space
\nin this world for that love. She fights Edward<\/em> – who worries
\nabout her life and her future and her breakability – in her pursuit of
\nthis love. And she gets what she wants, against all of Edward’s initial
\npreferences. She joins Edward’s world, sure – but doesn’t that happen
\nfor many of us when we align our lives with someone else’s? We follow
\npartners as their lives take different directions, and they follow us.
\nSince when is sacrifice in the name of love an incontrovertibly bad
\nthing? If Bella left her family and gave up her college plans (which
\nshe wasn’t keen on to begin with) to go do community work in
\nsub-Saharan Africa, would we be all oh, she’s just sublimating herself to community work<\/em>? Why does love necessarily mean sublimation? SERIOUSLY.<\/p>\n

And this ‘superior being’ bullshit? It’s bullshit, for two reasons:
\none, as I suggested above, Edward is not a superior being. He’s an
\nangst-ridden, self-flagellating monster-boy. I think that part of the
\nforce of Meyer’s narrative lays in the fact that Edward’s beauty and
\nstrength conceal vast reserves of self-doubt and – in some moments –
\nself-loathing. He’s a monster, and he hates that he’s a monster. It’s
\nBella who brings to full flower his determination to fully overcome his
\nanimal side; it is Bella who overrides his tendency to self-doubt.
\nWho’s the superior being?  <\/p>\n

Two: as I argued here<\/strong><\/a>,
\nthe idea that a remarkably ‘good’ character is a troubling romantic
\npartner is, well, troubling. Why shouldn’t we (or our children) aspire
\nto love really good people, people who would love us as well as Edward
\nloves Bella?<\/p>\n

2) <\/em>Having a will of one’s own is not conducive to
\nMeyer’s brand of love and living.<\/em><\/p>\n

Huh? See above. <\/em><\/p>\n

3) <\/em>Only heterosexual relationships are
\nexplored, and (married!) sex is always a power play with painful
\nconsequences.<\/em>

<\/em>Right. Because all novels should<\/em>
\nexplore homosexual relationships, just because. They should also take
\ncare to ensure that characters represent a range of ethnic and class
\nbackgrounds and abilities. Writers should be encouraged to include
\nseeing and hearing-impaired characters, and also characters in
\nwheelchairs. Down with heterosexist, ableist, racist, classist
\nstorytelling!<\/p>\n

(Wait. The Twilight series does<\/em> have characters from a
\nrange of backgrounds! And a character in a wheelchair! And depending
\nupon how you read those two Romanian vampires who appear in Breaking
\nDawn, there’s a case to be made that homosexual relationships are not<\/em> ignored. Stephenie Meyer did<\/em> take Political Correctness In Novel Writing 101! Take that, Tolstoy, you racist, ableist, heterosexist bastard!)<\/p>\n

Also, someone’s been reading a bit too much Catherine Mackinnon.
\nThat whole ‘all sex is rape\/all sex is violence’ line is so last
\nmillenium. Sex is dangerous for Edward and Bella because Edward is –
\nwait for it – a vampire<\/em>. That there’s a risk of him eating Bella during the act doesn’t speak so much to a power play as it does to, you know, his diet<\/em>. And Bella’s the aggressor, remember? If anyone is pulling power moves v.v. sex in their relationship, it’s Bella.<\/p>\n

4) It is preferable to be a teenage mother above all
\nelse, even if it kills you.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the one that I find most baffling and infuriating.  It
\nreduces Bella’s desire to protect her unborn child to a desire to be a
\nteenage mother. That’s just stupid. Bella didn’t set out to get
\npregnant; she didn’t pursue teenage motherhood. She got pregnant and
\ndecided to keep the baby. Oh, hey, maybe you’ve seen Juno? She preferred teenage motherhood above all else, too!<\/em><\/p>\n

The writer argues that because Bella refuses an abortion, the book
\nis “a virtual pro-life P.S.A.” and that Meyer is forcing ‘anti-abortion
\nhysterics” upon her readers: <\/p>\n

\n

The too-predictable plotline would be bad enough without statements
\nlike this from Bella: <\/em>“This child, Edward’s child, was a whole
\ndifferent story. I wanted him like I wanted air to breathe. Not a
\nchoice — a necessity.” Never mind that Bella, 18, had never wanted
\nchildren and had been arguing with her husband about going to college,
\nwhich he summarily dismissed.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Ed. note: that last parenthetical statement is just wrong. Edward
\ndoes everything in his power to convince Bella to go to college. She’s
\nthe one who resists.)<\/p>\n

But then bad Edward wants to give Bella an abortion because he knows
\ntheir half-vampire\/human baby will kill her! <\/em>“He
\nleaned away and looked
\nme in the eye. ‘We’re going to get that thing out before it can hurt
\nany part of you. Don’t be scared. I won’t let it hurt you.’ ‘That
\nthing?’ I gasped…Edward had just called my little nudger a thing.
\nHe said Carlisle would get it out. “No,” I whispered.” You see, Bella
\noften refers to her unborn child as “her little nudger,” since it grows
\ninside her at an unnatural rate. Yes, she does.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

GAWD. This is the shit that makes pro-choicers (which I,
\nemphatically, am) look bad. Deciding against abortion doesn’t make you
\nrabidly anti-choice or even anti-abortion. It means that you want to
\nkeep your baby. Last time I checked, that wasn’t a reprehensible thing.<\/p>\n

Look, you don’t have to like the Twilight books. If they’re not your
\nthing, if you don’t find them convincing, that’s your opinion and
\nthat’s fine. I mean, they’re not going to end up on any Great Books
\nlist alongside Shakespeare, so you don’t need to worry about Edward and
\nBella being canonized as the second coming of Romeo and Juliet. The
\nmarch of Great Literature will continue, helped along by the
\npublication of the latest variation of The Jane Austen Book Club or
\nwhatever it is that Oprah is putting her stamp on these days and
\nliteracy will not get hurt. But please: resist the urge go all Savonarola<\/a>
\non the Twilight books, with preachy denunciations of its troubling
\nmorality and insidious teachings. What makes your insistence that
\n‘parents and teachers should be made aware’ and readers ‘forewarned’
\nthat the content of these books is potentially ‘dangerous’ any better
\nthan any other censor’s self-righteous attempt to get the books they
\ndeem ‘troubling’ put behind the library check-out counter?<\/p>\n

And if not, at least come up with more sophisticated criticism. My eyes get tired from all the rolling.<\/p>\n

(You can read the companion piece to this post – Five Reasons Why You Should Totally Let Your Kids See Those Vampire Movies<\/a> – over at Her Bad Mother<\/a>. And you can see the discussion prompted by the original version of this discussion over at MamaPop<\/a>. And then you can go see New Moon. Or go surf entertainment blogs in search of photos of Robert Pattinson at last night’s premiere. Enjoy!)<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/p>\n

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Apparently,
\nit is just the most insidious and troubling thing EVER that Bella
\nbecomes attached to her unborn child. Because, you know, that never
\nhappens! ALL accidental pregnancies are supposed to end in abortion,
\nbecause if you were ambivalent about becoming a mother before you got
\nknocked up, you should just stay ambivalent, and ambivalence = being
\nanti-baby, so seriously, you should just flush that thing out and
\nforget it ever happened. That’s why Juno was such a bad movie; it was so unrealistic<\/em><\/a>.
\nAlso, pregnant women never name their unborn babies, and would never
\nrisk their lives to protect them! Because abortions are awesome, and we
\nlike to keep our abortioning options open until the last minute! NEVER
\nGET ATTACHED TO A FETUS, is what I always say. <\/p>\n