Host Haste

[Jachwe]

I want to direct everyone who not immidiately thought "well Bob that sound a lot like Roland Barthes" to "Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes published 19967 which discusses exactly what is described in the article. Nobody cares about the actual author of a text. We create our own author of hte text. We dont care that Bram Stoker wrote "Dracula", we dont care that Stephenie Meyers wrote "Twilight" we only care for what we project into the text which must be the intent of the author. Yes it is the intent of the author but not the actual author but our own author. We dont care for the actual author. So yes we project anything written in the text being some form of subconscious outcry of our author. because we want it to be that.
This is by no means like a review of the text I want you all to read. This is just one way to take it so you still can enjoy reading it.

 

[chadachada123]

I never really got the impression of 'intelligent' from peggy while watching that show. Was I the only one?

Eh...she's not STUPID, she does know enough to keep her teacher credentials up. She does not, however, know how to speak Spanish, no matter what she may think, and she is *VERY* naive.

Side note, does 'naive' feel like it should be 'naieve' to anyone else?

While not quite the same case, unique and kiwi both have the letter I as a long E, and at least in Latin, the letter I is very frequently a long E sound. Or, rather, in Latin, long I's are pronounced as "eee."

(I like language, it's fun)

 

[Evilpigeon]

It seems incredibly pretentious to call the woman's work clumsy, or to say that she is untalented despite the fact that her books are adored by many people around the world. The thought is that she is untalented, and her readers are just idiots.

Sure, I am not really a fan (saw most of the movies, never read the books), but it seems like everyone's starting point is that Meyer is an untalented hack. Maybe we should take a step back and reconsider that premise.

Popularity and quality are not linked. The film/ book/ game with the widest appeal is simply the one that's most innoffensive. The more people you can explain the premise to without turning them off, the more people will go to watch it. It has very little to do with the quality of the work in question.

I've not read or seen any of the Twilight stuff so I'll use this as an example from film:

Transformers contains

1. Explosions
2. Giant Robots
3. A brand that lots of people are familiar with
4. The army
5. An attractive lady
6. Lots of awesome cars
7. 'Murica
8. Vague sci-fi waffle
9. Something vaguely approaching a love based sub-plot

The film contains a wide variety of features that will combined appeal to a large segment of the population, especially teenage boys, who are probably the main target audience. Most people aren't interested in thinking about their entertainment, they don't care if what they're watching is bland and meaningless, so long as it contains the correct combination of things which are presented to them in a way that is sufficiently pretty.

Other examples are crime novels with super gruesome murders, the way almost all FPS games now have iron sights and regnning health because of CoD and Halo etc...

Quality comes in second to ticking the correct boxes when it comes to popularity.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

I certainly see Bob's point, but I lack the same sympathy

I'm reminded, in an equal opposite sort of way, of the novel Eragon. At the time, everyone was very impressed with the young age of the author, but I couldn't find anyone who would give who'd read it that'd give an abject opinion on it. It was so novel (pun unintended) that a teenager was a best-selling author, despite the fact that his book wasn't very good (my opinion; not trying to start a debate over it).

Sure, she's a housewife, not an art scholar; she's also a sales-record-breaking author. Does her lack of formal training excuse her from a single criticism based on the merits of her work? I don't think so.

Why lower the bar, particularly for someone that's made millions on tripe?

 

[cynicalsaint1]

(you might not like her upended vampire/lycan mythology or its use to create a vampire/human/werewolf/baby romance-go-round, but you can't say it isn't novel)

... Erm ...
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Whitewolf's World of Darkness tabletop games (particularly Vampire: The Masquerade, maybe a little Werewolf too)
@#$!ing Underworld?

I mean more than anything the plot Twilight reads like a bad Buffy fanfic ...

 

[IkeGreil29]

Personally, I feel like there's more to blame here than her as an author. Every author makes mistakes, but they're usually caught in editing, which is usually provided by the publisher. If indeed she got published through nepotism, that might explain the lack of quality in the text in terms of grammar and whatnot.
Then, you have to factor in that no one is forced to consume art. There has to be some willingness to approach it in order for it to be this successful. I think this means there is something rather wrong with our culture. You need to have Kitsch art, because sometimes one simply needs to indulge in... well... social circlejerk. The Michael Bay films are the best example I have, movies made for the sake of being movies, with no underlying purpose (maybe some of them do, I mean, the reason why I got so interested in the Pacific Front of WWII was because of the Pearl Harbor movie (the guys at Extra Credits would best explain it as tangential learning)) other than stimulating our pleasure buttons, so to speak. Meyer could very well be part of this Kitsch culture, but it doesn't feel like that to me. It feels so much more... wrong? I can't really explain it, but as we as a collective begin to accept women and men as equal these pieces of art seem to send the wrong message, at least in my point of view. But then I read a post here that said that maybe it's a rebellion against the modern feminist movement that demands women be independent and non-complacent (great from my Marxist point of view, not so great when these are the people that yell at you for opening a door for them), which I think might be true. All these books with submissive women like 50 Shades and the Twilight series might very well be the response to the modern feminist, which I think is good. It's good to be critiqued, and if any movement needs it, in my opinion it is the feminist movement, because it's become a "hate on males" movement rather than an egalitarian movement. In a sense, they've failed to see the forest for the trees, and are so bent on achieving what they view as right that they forget not everyone is the same.

I only wish this type of critique wasn't led by texts which have the quality of Deviant Art fan-fiction.

Popularity and quality are not linked. The film/ book/ game with the widest appeal is simply the one that's most innoffensive.

I disagree. If people enjoy something, and enjoy it immensely, as they do Twilight, on a large scale, then it is quality.
Maybe it is not sound by certain literary standards, but it's not low quality to the people who love it.

I'm saying that, at the very least, the burden of proof is on those who claim that it is low quality to overcome the masses of people who love it.

In addition, I'm not sure that you can say that Twilight is meaningless or pointless. It certainly has its messages, and they certainly resonate with some people.

Edit: In addition, how can the most inoffensive bit of media have so much hate from almost every direction?

1. Yes, there has to be an element of quality there, and I think it's the critique I mentioned above, but I think what people hate is that it had to come from such an unrefined source. If Twilight were written much better and if the movies weren't a Hollywood cash-in, they'd be taken more seriously, and I think what Bob is asking is to try and see if we haven't failed to forget about something due to the hate bandwagon everyone is so eager to catch onto. Many girls who read the novels found the romance interesting, there is clearly something we've missed by dismissing it as garbage.

2. I think it's that no media is inoffensive in its entirety. If all art were suddenly Kitsch art, it'd be accepting a rather simplistic and pleasure driven culture as magnanimous; essentially, it would be Ancient Rome all over again, and no one would give a damn about anything, falling asleep on our laurels. I had this discussion on VG too, arguing that it was important to call out EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc. when I as a consumer am affected due to the fact that there's a real danger of everyone adopting these tactics that negatively impact consumers. Many people simply think that because there is currently a market (to put it one way; I think interest group, as in people interested in something, is more appropriate) there will always be a market. That isn't so, especially if it starts to become acceptable to consume lesser-quality entertainment. My point here is, I don't mind Meyer or her message, necessarily. It's the fact that I can't hope to understand the message nor infer on it that is frustrating, and it's mostly from the fact that it's very unpolished.

HOLY WALL OF TEXT, BATMAN!

 

[enoul]

uh ,just like art in life .

 

[Callate]

I don't know... When an author has a body of work that all seems to incorporate similar themes, how can one not start wondering about the author's issues? I mean, yeah, the whole "armchair psychiatrist" thing gets old, and people are perhaps more than a little glib and flippant when it comes to presuming to make deep, piercing insights about the people behind works of different media. But the whole thing kind of circles in on itself in ways that are pretty disturbing on their own: are the observers making assumptions about Meyer's issues with violence and sexuality and gender roles because of their own deep-seated antagonisms with certain traditional assumptions that come from their own upbringing, etc., etc. And are people uncomfortable with that because of various characteristics of the target of the examination- Meyer is a woman, Meyer is a Mormon, Meyer is a stay-at home mom- while they're all too comfortable assuming things about issues like racism, classism, or misogyny in the work of targets that aren't afforded a degree of protection by similar characteristics?

While I'm sure there is a certain amount of projection that is done by some readers or critics I think it's more than fair to address these recurring themes because they do sometimes cast a poor reflection on their author and not on the reader for observing them.

For example I would take great personal offense to the implication that my observation of Piers Anthony's disturbing fixation on pedophilia in any way reflected a similar desire in myself.

I shouldn't post on too little sleep- I don't think I expressed a complex thought very well.

I'm not trying to suggest that critics are necessarily projecting when they criticize an author or other creator. More that- well, let's take Meyer as an example. As someone with a relatively modern take on feminism and gender issues, a critic might well feel a strong aversion to certain elements in Meyer's Twilight series. And they might make assumptions about how those elements tie into various elements in the author's own life- Mormonism, being a stay-at-home parent, etc. But at the same time, the critic's attitude towards feminism might make them "double back" and say: what right do I have as a respecter of feminism to criticize this woman's choices? And am I on firm ground suggesting those choices come out of Mormonism; are my own beliefs unimpeachable, and are their others within the Mormon faith who might take a very different view from what I think I see as a Mormon viewpoint in Meyer's work?

Such introspection may be of value, but it also risks making criticism of criticism that's actually criticism or self-criticism of the critic- in response to criticism that may have ventured too far into being criticism of the author, rather than their work. And the whole thing becomes kind a strange spiral in on itself.

Conversely, work that taps into a critic's "hot-button" topics might receive a similar blast of possibly unwarranted author-criticism, while never receiving a similar level of introspection about whether those assumptions were warranted. A critic who feels remorse for "attacking" a Mormon woman for what seem to be submissive and violence-affirming takes on gender issues might feel no such remorse for attacking a white man for what seem like insensitive takes on racial relations- even if that author is, say, Mark Twain. Perhaps it's better just to assess the criticism to see if it seems accurate, rather than mull too long over whether there's a motivation behind it that can be justified.

 

[seiler88]

Here is my take on this.

Meyer's problem is that she is obsessed with one thing to the exclusion of all else, in this case romance. Then she writes genres where, as far as I know, you CAN'T have such an extremely limited focus and make it work.

Looked at from an objective point of view I would love for anyone to prove that Meyer put ANY thought into her fantastic elements beyond just having them exist.

I believe that if you are going to have fantastic/sci-fi elements in your story you need to have Effects and Backstory.

Now let's look at Meyer's body of work:

Fantastic element:
Twilight- Vampires and werewolves that,as per the author, are superior to humanity in every way. According to Meyer's own words humans really are cattle to these creatures.
The Host- Aliens have conquered Earth. These aliens are also more cultured and peaceful than humans.

Effects:
Twilight- None really. Humanity is not enslaved nor do we see Aro calling world leaders telling them to do what he says or else. Everything is related to the romance plot even if it makes no sense for the issue in question to be about the romance.
The Host- There is a resistance but they seem more concerned about relationships than retaking the planet. It also seems as thought the aliens are content to just ape a somewhat idealized version of humans.

Backstory:
Twilight- None. Vampires just exist and have left very little impact on world history.
The Host- None. Humans lost somehow even thought the aliens only seem to use slightly advanced human tech.

I hope that explains my argument.