Twilight, the Uncertain Knight, and the Distressed Damsel

[Mistwell]

Ah, but you see, you are casting the broad plotline into language that reads like these are negative themes. But what about the specific events in the story?

You mean, like this:

For example, in the Twilight books...

Boy forces himself on girl (okay, it's YA, so he forces kisses on her). She fights back, and breaks her hand in the process. Boy drives girl home. Girl explains to her Dad how her hand got broken. Dad congratulates boy, and makes point to girl that maybe this will teach her not to fight back in the future.

Or maybe this...

Different boy is going away for a while. Boy locks girl in basement while he is gone, because she is so stupid and clumsy she might get killed while he's away, and he loves her so much he could not bear to lose her. Girl takes this as a good thing, and spends time in basement musing on how much boy must really and truly love her to take care of her so...

You just did the exact thing you accused me of. You could recast those same events as a positive light, or focus on more positive events, just like we could both do for Star Wars.

Which is my point. There is nothing WORSE in Twilight than in things like Star Wars. It's a matter of perspective.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I did some research and talked to a few people since yesterday, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that the treatment of this subject by these books is bad news.

The comparison to Star Wars are, frankly, silly. The potentially negative interactions in Star Wars that you describe center on mythic figures and bizarre corner cases. I'm not going to claim they are totally benign, but the also don't correspond one-to-one with real world problems. Additionally, the negative states described here don't last. The characters step out of those negative roles almost immediately. Luke and Leia drop their almost non-existent sexual tension before they even discover their parentage. Han doesn't even make it a full movie before reforming from a pirate to a freedom fighter. And so on.

Incidentally, Han was the most benign "pirate" ever. He killed no one but bounty hunters and stormtroopers. What he really is isn't a pirate at all but a whiskey runner, the old American precursor to NASCAR. The Kessel Run is probably related more to the Cannon Ball Run (the real one) than anything remotely piratical.

Romanticizing a space version of the Duke Boys who only ever kills bounty hunters and stormtroopers is a little different than romanticizing the brooding, secretive loner in your high school who has a tendency towards controlling and abusive behaviors.

The negative interactions in Twilight are endemic in our culture and are being celebrated in the text. The men are controlling and physically aggressive towards the women. The romantic lead fits every descriptor of a man who will abuse his partner. And he is celebrated and romanticized for these traits and actions which we have data showing are the exact traits of actions of men who will physically, emotionally, and sexually abuse women.

Ask yourself this: Would I want my daughter dating a guy who behaved this way?

We literally have epidemic levels of domestic abuse and sexual assault of young women. Romanticizing the traits of abusive men isn't exactly going to turn those statistics around. That kind of characterization of "love" is why I had female friends in high school who were desperately trying to marry guys who used them as punching bags.

Some of these are themes that can be explored with good intentions. Mass marketing the rigorously confirmed traits of abusers as romantic to a population that is already at risk? That's more than a little sketchy, wot?

 

[Jack7]

Thanks to everyone who has offered an opinion thus far.

I would have responded sooner but I got wrapped up in an old homicide cold case which it looks like I'll now be able to resolve.

Given the variety of the state of views about Twilight I'd say I'm gonna hav'ta watch the movie for myself (something I'm not looking forward to, but I reckon I oughtta to know for sure) and see the exact context, and what's going on.

For any of those who know or are fans, I guess my big question is, do the characters change over time? By that I mean do they improve in their behavior?

Anyways, thanks for your comments.

For now I gotta go and put some last minute case file details to bed, but, I'm just wondering (being a dad of young girls and all), do you think modern, popular (pop culture) ideas about romance are very different from those of say 30 or so years ago (I already suspect I know the answer to that), and if so exactly how?

And whaddaya think about that?

See ya.

 

[Shalimar]

Yes, the characters do change over time. The boyfriend gets called on his behavior by his family telling him he is way too overprotective and irrational, and he stops. The werewolfs and vampires start off hating each other for what I suppouse people could boil down to racism (aside from the fact that werewolfs exist only to protect humans from vampires) and eventually over the 3rd and 4th books coming to standby and work wth the good vampires and a few of them become prettty good friends though there is natually some rivalry.

I think that honestly there are both good and bad things in the books, and that if you go in looking for things to hate you'll find them. If you just want to be entertained, the books are fine. I'd certainly never accuse them of being great literature, but I do think they are enjoyable. I've read through them a number of times when I'm looking for something light to read. I will say that Midnight Sun which is Twilight (the first book, or at least part of the first book) told through the point of view of the vampire boyfriend shows that he knows just how irrational he is, and shows how crazy the other vampires around him think he is. No one really considers him to be well adjusted or a model boyfriend at least within the books.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

For now I gotta go and put some last minute case file details to bed, but, I'm just wondering (being a dad of young girls and all), do you think modern, popular (pop culture) ideas about romance are very different from those of say 30 or so years ago (I already suspect I know the answer to that), and if so exactly how?

And whaddaya think about that?

See ya.

My experience is that indie stuff is more likely to be fairly egalitarian nowadays, but the mass market stuff is, at best, filled with extremely mixed messages. I think old Rock Hudson romantic comedies from the 50s and 60s are more progressive in their treatment of relationships than most modern movies, for example.

I think it's better than it was when I was a kid in the early 80s but somehow worse than it was 2 decades before that. Or maybe that perception is colored by what survived from the 50s and 60s. Hard to say. I definitely don't have rose-colored glasses about my youth, though. Gender roles in mass media in the 80s were pretty over the top. It got better in the 90s and then worse again in the aughts. Way worse, IMO.

Maybe it's just a cycle.

 

[Mark]

I'm not obsessed or embarrassed but I usually wear a sweater over my Team Esme shirt.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

But it's good to be aware of what you're kids are reading, if possible, so you can discuss these types of things with them.

Most importantly.

I read them because the tweens in my youth group were reading them. Too much angst for me, and yes, I would say a little over the top with bad relationship modeling.

Again, know what your children (and children you feel responsible for) are reading, watching, doing; so you can bring to light the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 

[hexgrid]

I think Twilight is about as likely to create abusive relationships as D&D is to create murderous devil worshipers.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I agree with hexgrid in that the villainization of the Twilight series is very much like the demonization of D&D in the 80s, or the Doom video game in the 90s.

I've read the first three books and enjoy them, though the teen angst gets a little heavy at times. There's nothing there that suggests abusive relationship to me. The personality traits of Edward are those of a vampire resisting his nature. You can attempt to assign metaphors if you like, but the main reading audience of this series, in general, doesn't.

As others have said, it is the responsibility of parents to pay attention to what their kids are reading, watching on TV, listening to, etc. I have four kids, the oldest of which just hit teenager-hood. We won't be letting him, or any of the kids, read Twilight until they are 16.

Just as we don't let them watch PG-13 movies until we've screened them first. Or play rated T games until we've played them first.

Twilight is a fun little vampire romance, nothing more.

 

[Mistwell]

I did some research and talked to a few people since yesterday, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that the treatment of this subject by these books is bad news.

Did you read the books? If no, then you "doing some research and talking to people" seems woefully inadequate given you can actually judge it for yourself.

The comparison to Star Wars are, frankly, silly.

No sillier than what I think people are warping out of the Twilight books without reading them.

The negative interactions in Twilight are endemic in our culture and are being celebrated in the text. The men are controlling and physically aggressive towards the women.

They are controlling and physically aggressive, in general, not just to women. Same as in Star Wars. Same as in most adventure material. Male hero characters tend to be physically aggressive and controlling in adventure tales. It's just that, usually, that material is aimed at a young male audience.

The romantic lead fits every descriptor of a man who will abuse his partner.

No, he does not. Again, you clearly have never read the material you're making MASSIVE assumptions about.

And he is celebrated and romanticized for these traits and actions which we have data showing are the exact traits of actions of men who will physically, emotionally, and sexually abuse women.

Ask yourself this: Would I want my daughter dating a guy who behaved this way?

We literally have epidemic levels of domestic abuse and sexual assault of young women. Romanticizing the traits of abusive men isn't exactly going to turn those statistics around. That kind of characterization of "love" is why I had female friends in high school who were desperately trying to marry guys who used them as punching bags.

Some of these are themes that can be explored with good intentions. Mass marketing the rigorously confirmed traits of abusers as romantic to a population that is already at risk? That's more than a little sketchy, wot?

The problem is you've made these assumptions based on essentially the same sort of stuff people made assumptions about D&D, back in the 70s. You've taken small things out of context and blown it up to be a big conclusion about the entire theme. Ask yourself if a game about killing things and taking stuff off their corpses so you can get rich is a fair characterization of D&D and if you could spin that to being a negative stereotype for young men. That's about the equivalent to what I think you're doing.

Read the books first. Don't go in LOOKING for the conclusion you've already drawn, just read them like you would read any old fantasy novel. I bet you do not come away with the conclusion you've already drawn, IF you can try and eliminate your bias going in.