Ok, before we begin, I just have to say: "Renesmee??? Wth? I mean, really.

So, if you haven't (yet) lowered yourself to join the most schitzophrenic fandom of all time--that is, if you have never heard of Bella, Edward, and Jacob--then this might be a post you just skim... or skip altogether.

As I mentioned in the last post, I did spend quite a lot of time last Tuesday reading BD--I started it the night before in my hotel, read through the whole plane ride, read for two hours in the airport (while standing in some of the longest lines known to man), and finished it up just in time to attend Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn Concert in Chicago that night. I wouldn't have guessed, directly after finishing it, that this last volume would have received the kind of vitriole from the fans that it has apparently garnered on such...reputable... places as Amazon.com. I mean, to me, this seemed just like another Stephenie Meyer novel. Long, gushing pages of gooey smoochies? Sure, we've seen that before. Passage after passage describing in great detail the wardrobes, cars, and mansions of the Cullens? A highly implausible deux ex machina (or three) at the crucial moment? A tidy happily-ever-after with absolutely no one left inconvenienced in any way? Naturally... what else did you expect?

So, for me, this book was pretty much par for the course. There were even a few things I liked about it. Bella finally gets some power (thank God!), which makes Edward stop muscling her around like an abusive pimp. Alice is clever and awesome like she always is (and, as I've said before, I would read a series all about her in a second). Annnnnd, that's all I can think of.

I guess my issues are not so much with Breaking Dawn as with the series as a whole. And I know I've posted a couple of times before about Twilight, and maybe you're sick of it, but those were mostly all comments of an aesthetic nature. The moral aspects of the book, while troubling, were still potentially redeemable in the last volume. Bella could have undergone some real soul-searching; she and Edward could have gone to couples' counseling and worked through some of their destructive patterns; they could have started a charity organization with their bundles of cash instead of blowing it on fancy cars and big houses.

Alas.

See, when I consider the fact that I stock this book in my classroom and half of last year's eight-graders had their own copies and would stage giant Edward Versus Jacob debates in my room at lunchtime, I feel like it's important to consider what it's *gulp* teaching our young people. Because although I'm all about reading banned books and all, words are power, and sometimes it's the books that no one's banning that are the most dangerous. Not that I'm going to take these particular books off my shelves or anything. But I might consider having some talks with my students about them, if they're as big a hit this year as they were last.

So, what's really wrong with Twilight? I mean, there's no language, the squeaky-clean (sort of) sex scenes happen only after a large, public wedding, and there's even nod to your pro-lifers in BD. Hmm, let's take a look. Our girl, Bella, is a throwback to the helpless victim heroine of Gothic romances--or, as you may know her in her most recent incarnation, the Disney princess. Raised in a cottage in the woods, forced to consort with the boorish commoners (aka, her nerdy high school classmates... Bonjour!), the princess is destined for better things. Enter the handsome prince--gorgeous, wealthy, and... well, what else is there? He's poised to carry her off from her tedious middle-class existence to a happily-forever-after. What's wrong with this picture?

1) Bella has no agency. That is to say, when it comes to running her own life, Bella is constantly looking to hand the controls over to someone else. Her motivation for doing this seems to be a kind of martyring self-denial. Throughout the book, Bella is repeatedly denying her worthiness of being loved. From her very first decision to move to Forks, which she chooses in order to leave her mother free to travel with her new rock-star husband, throughout her relationship with Edward, during which she constantly doubts his love for her and repeatedly protests her own unworthiness, Bella is the epitome of the clinging vine portrayal of womanhood. Rather than showing this to be the tragedy that it is and having her character grow out of it, Meyer seems to glorify it as a virtue. Bella allows Edward to boss her around, even enduring physical restraint by him when her desires differ from his--although it's all done in the name of "protecting" her. The fact that she actually does find herself in mortal danger whenever she's alone only shows that her most identifiable character trait is being a victim, which apparently... boys...dig? When Edward leaves, Bella is empty, nearly catatonic, until she finds another boy to patch up her fragile identity. And the repeated trope of two men fighting over helpless girl (from the end of book one all the way into book four) is further evidence that Bella is cast as an object throughout the series.
2) Bella's and Edward's relationship is--seriously--demented. Besides the obvious point that I've mentioned before--that Edward is the kind of idealized perfection of a man that doesn't exist outside of romance novels--he (and this may sound like a contradiction, but hear me out) is also the most controlling, pig-headed jerk of a guy. Whenever we see him through Bella's eyes, we hear the high-school crush version of him: "Oh, he's so gorgeous, he's so thoughtful, he has such a beautiful soul..." It doesn't take the most observant reader to see that Bella's attraction to him is 90% physical, however much she may claim otherwise. The other 10% is infatuation with the mystery that he represents. Edward's attraction to Bella is all physical, as he is obsessed with the (non-Twilight readers, brace yourselves) smell of her blood. They never talk about anything substantial; their conversations consist of A) cooing and being lovey-dovey or B) bickering--usually about how Bella wants to do something and Edward doesn't want her to. Rather than resolving these tiffs like rational adults in a mature relationship, Edward uses his physical strength (or the threat of it) and his ability to read minds to spy on Bella and prevent her from doing anything he doesn't approve of and Bella (in a stereotypically feminine response) plots and schemes her way around him. Then, when the conflict is past, regardless of which of them has "won," they repress all their anger and go back to being gooey again. That's going to end well. In other conflicts, they bargain, trading back and forth their chips of marriage, college, Bella's immortality, and sex. You know, just the unimportant stuff.
You know, I thought even before BD was released that there were some disturbing parallels between some of the more misogynist doctrines of the LDS church and the Twilight series plot, such as the fact that Bella depends on Edward to grant her entrance to immortality. It is even more interesting that he finally grants it only when she has sacrificed her own life to give birth to his child. Something to think about...

3) The series as a whole reinforces traditional class hierarchies. When Bella first arrives in Forks at the beginning of the first book, she is immediately disdainful of the parochialism of the small town, such as her Andy-Griffith-like, sheriff dad or the kids at school who deeply bore her. Enter the Cullens--beautiful, dressed in designer clothes, with expensive cars and haughty expressions--the royalty of the school. Bella is immediately drawn to these upper-class teens, even noticing their refined accents and sophisticated ennui. The rest of the series could be read as her determined efforts to gain entrance to this exclusive club, even going so far as to sacrifice her own life (and possibly her soul) for admittance. The books are filled with lavish descriptions of the extravagant clothes, furnishings, cars and electronic toys the Cullens have access to--in fact, Bella and Edward even honeymoon on the Cullens' private island in the South Pacific. Although Bella retains her ethical high ground by disdaining all the Cullen's wealth and refusing to accept most gifts from them, her catalogue of the abundance around her is clearly meant to have the reader salivating. When Bella finally becomes a vampire, she takes her new status in stride, cultivating sophisticated boredom with the best of them, and leaves her old friends, parents, and town behind without a backwards glance. Compare this to, oh, say, Harry Potter, where a central theme is that everyone has inherent worth and you underestimate others to your peril. The nerdiest kid can end up killing the last Horcrux; your slaves will return to betray you if you treat them badly or to save you if you show them kindness; and class and racial distinctions are an illusion created by those in power. If J.K. Rowling had written Twilight, Mike would have ended up being the best catch of all.

4) Parenthood is not that easy. First, let me just say a couple of things real quick: A) that to be married and pregnant by the age of eighteen is really not a good idea, girls. B) Waking up with visible bruises from head to toe after your wedding night... not the glamorous experience Meyer would have you believe, I'm betting. C) If you are entertaining a viable fear that your new husband might force you to get an abortion, leading you to run to your new sister-in-law for physical protection from him, your marriage is not off on a great foot. Ok, now skipping past Bella's horrifying pregnancy**, let's just consider how young, teenage parenthood is portrayed in the novel: apparently you can sleep through the first week of your newborn's life without any particular consequences on your later ability to bond; your newborn will grow at an abnormally accelerated rate so that you don't have to deal with her dependence for long; within weeks, she will gain the ability to communicate fully and rationally with you and care for her own needs--in fact, diapers don't even need to be mentioned; she will maintain an unwaveringly sweet and compliant disposition from day one, freeing you from the need to discipline her in any way. Have a kid, boys and girls, it's fun, easy, and convenient. (Seriously, you who read BD, did you feel any maternal connection between Bella and Renesmee at all? Or a father-daughter connection between her and Edward? It was more like she was an adopted sister of the Cullens.)

5) And lastly, I just have to mention the, uh, alternate sexualities of the Twilight-verse. In another somewhat paradoxical move, Edward combines his obsessive jealousy of Bella with an odd willingness to share her (again with the objectification) with Jacob, always "for her own good." First, the deeply discomfiting voyeurism of the tent scene, when Jacob holds Bella in below-freezing temperatures to warm her while Edward looks on and the two men discuss their respective feelings for her. Second, the much more disturbing offer of Edward to let Jacob impregnate his wife so that she can have a human child. Wow. Stephenie Meyer, you vixen! And of course the "imprinting" of the vampires upon their mates, regardless of age, is a pretty thin cover for pedophilia if you ask me, despite the characters' protests that they only feel "brotherly" until their darlings are of age. And Meyer can get away with it by blaming it on the supernatural aspects of the books. Or--oh, I can't believe this only just now occurred to me--could there be any connection between the books' "imprinting" and the early Mormon practice of marrying off girl children to adult men with the understanding that they will not be sexually available until puberty? Huh. I mean, I don't want to go overboard with the Mormon connection thing, but I feel like parts of these book are weird in a way that is otherwise inexplicable. And then, of course, all the regular Bella/Edward sex scenes have a kind of wish-fulfilment aspect that is amusing, if nothing else. (Vampires, apparently, don't sleep, so what are they to do to fill the long evening hours? --and we do mean long. hours.)

Now, given all that, it may sound to those who haven't read them like these books are some kind of ramped-up erotic freak-show, which just isn't the case. They are young adult books. In fact, they're much cleaner in the traditional sense than most of the Gossip Girl-type novels (even the last Sisterhood book, actually). Which is why nobody's out burning them in bonfires in the church parking lot. But there's trouble, my friends, right here in Twilight City.



**It would also be interesting to look at why Meyer decided to switch point-of-view for Bella's pregnancy. Besides being freaking clumsy, the move makes Bella less identifiable than ever, just when she's more martyring than ever. There's definitely something in this.

Labels: books, rants

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Friday, August 08, 2008