Twilight of the She-Geeks

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You misunderstand. I'm not saying that the movies are "completely innocent". It is that they don't even allow open-mouthed kissing. Think of some of the old black-and-white films like "His Girl Friday" a romantic comedy that doesn't get to sex on the screen.

That's not to do with innocence, that's to do with the Mormon religion symbolism. Also see Battlestar Galatica.

Twilight has a guy who is fascinated with the lead female but despite any desires he may have, he keeps them in check. He shows the restraint that is expected of "gentlemen". He doesn't refer to Bella in joking or derogatory terms. He shows Bella that he respects her and values her as a person not a mere toy or something to brag about to his friends.

And whose word do we have on that?

This is one of the worst failings of the Twilight books. It shatters the writers code of "Show, Don't Tell". How is Edward a virgin? He tells us. How is Edward attractive? Bella tells us. How is Bella smart? Bella tells us.

The entire book's images are derived from the words of a sexually starved attention/drama whore.

Edward's motivation may be truly corrupt and it wouldn't make ANY difference to the words in the book. How do we even know they're in love? Because Bella tells us. This is where the problem is because there is NO evidence in the book to back it up, circumstantial or otherwise.

It may be poorly written but it has the basic elements of a romance novel. And honestly, I don't think I have seen much done in the horror-romance genre outside of TruBlood so far (and THAT SHOW is anything but innocent by far!)

Really? Well...let me see...

The Kitty series (Werewolf DJ) - Carrie Vaughn - 7 books
The Zodiac series (Light Hunter) - Vicki Petersen - 4 books
Patrica Brigg's Mercy Thompson series
Rachel Meades' Dark Swan series
Being Human - TV series
Kindred the Embraced - TV Series
Faith Hunter's Rogue Mage series
Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series

Quite a few really.
(And having innocent horror is really a tough genre to write. How about Roald Dahl's work? There's a definite innocence there, but also the occasional hint of romance, and a whole heap of horror)

On the children's side, there's even more: Dianna Wynne-Jones, Sheila McCullagh, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Storm Constantine.

That Edward and Jacob are NOT role-models I would recommend to anyone (I don't like Twilight) it doesn't change what the underlying formula is. Having a guy who doesn't want to love you but can't help himself-that is a classic romance formula, especially for the "bad boy" type ones.

Edward and Jacob I don't really have a problem with,(Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is an ugly savage who beats a dog to death!) apart from them being caricatures of men; what really bugs me is that Bella is almost bereft of any positive attributes, and relies solely on her "Help me" cry to solve most of the conflict in the plot.

The Bronte sisters would have slapped some sense into Bella a long time ago, or had her burn down in Thornfield manor.

Say what you like about Duke Nukem being the poster-child for teenage masculinity, but at least he takes an active part in solving his own problems.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

You misunderstand. I'm not saying that the movies are "completely innocent". It is that they don't even allow open-mouthed kissing. Think of some of the old black-and-white films like "His Girl Friday" a romantic comedy that doesn't get to sex on the screen.

That's not to do with innocence, that's to do with the Mormon religion symbolism. Also see Battlestar Galatica.

Twilight has a guy who is fascinated with the lead female but despite any desires he may have, he keeps them in check. He shows the restraint that is expected of "gentlemen". He doesn't refer to Bella in joking or derogatory terms. He shows Bella that he respects her and values her as a person not a mere toy or something to brag about to his friends.

And whose word do we have on that?

This is one of the worst failings of the Twilight books. It shatters the writers code of "Show, Don't Tell". How is Edward a virgin? He tells us. How is Edward attractive? Bella tells us. How is Bella smart? Bella tells us.

The entire book's images are derived from the words of a sexually starved attention/drama whore.

Edward's motivation may be truly corrupt and it wouldn't make ANY difference to the words in the book. How do we even know they're in love? Because Bella tells us. This is where the problem is because there is NO evidence in the book to back it up, circumstantial or otherwise.

It may be poorly written but it has the basic elements of a romance novel. And honestly, I don't think I have seen much done in the horror-romance genre outside of TruBlood so far (and THAT SHOW is anything but innocent by far!)

Really? Well...let me see...

The Kitty series (Werewolf DJ) - Carrie Vaughn - 7 books
The Zodiac series (Light Hunter) - Vicki Petersen - 4 books
Patrica Brigg's Mercy Thompson series
Rachel Meades' Dark Swan series
Being Human - TV series
Kindred the Embraced - TV Series
Faith Hunter's Rogue Mage series
Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series

Quite a few really.

That Edward and Jacob are NOT role-models I would recommend to anyone (I don't like Twilight) it doesn't change what the underlying formula is. Having a guy who doesn't want to love you but can't help himself-that is a classic romance formula, especially for the "bad boy" type ones.

Edward and Jacob I don't really have a problem with,(Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is an ugly savage who beats a dog to death!) apart from them being caricatures of men; what really bugs me is that Bella is almost bereft of any positive attributes, and relies solely on her "Help me" cry to solve most of the conflict in the plot.

The Bronte sisters would have slapped some sense into Bella a long time ago, or had her burn down in Thornfield manor.

Say what you like about Duke Nukem being the poster-child for teenage masculinity, but at least he takes an active part in solving his own problems.

You mean like paying prostitutes for sex? Why are we on Duke Nukem?

How in the world am I in a position defending Twilight? I say that I believe there is ONE POSITIVE thing that MIGHT have come out of it being made into a movie and trust me, it took work for me to do that.

I try to point out that the book is actually romance not horror and I'm seeing people go on about the specifics of the story. The story is awful. The book is a Mary-Sue, the lead character is unlikable (to me) and can't lift a finger to help herself EVER.

Edward Cullin is a stalker who watches her sleep and Jacob? Gee..."Imprinting" on babies and toddlers and UNFERTILIZED EGGS?? Why do I hear Monty Python songs in the back of my head?

I'm not defending the series. I'm pointing out where it really sits.

Oh-and Kindred: the Embrace? REALLY? HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK OF THE WYRM?? Yeah. I'm extremely familiar with the series, company, books and setting. Feel free to dig a bit deeper.

I'm not asking about books. I have plenty of books I myself could recommend. But movies? Television shows? Not so much.

But I'm tagging out. I don't really want to be anywhere near the "Team Twilight" group. I've just tried to see a little from their point of view. I'm not interested in being a target for any Twilight hate since I hate the series myself. Unjustified.

I'm tagging out.

 

[Gremikin]

While the article was excellently written I believe you missed out on a key point in your focus on the male characters. Bella herself has also filled a vacuum in the market. My parched people and I in the middle of the desert are also waiting for a messiah, of sorts, and Bella fits. In Spiderman there's Doc Oc, Venom, and Sandmam for you guys, but who are the girls supposed to root for? Mary Jane? The limited nature of the roles of females in popular franchises results has resulted the length to which women can engage in the story.

This is not to say that Bella is a character to consider cool or relatable. Oh nooooo, far from it. She is a shallow, whiny, lazy twit, but at least her despicable character is consistent and semi-believable. The fact that she is central to the conflict in the stories is just another explanation for the inexplicable problem of why so many fangirls have latched onto the Twilight wagon--Bella is one of their only lifelines into fantasy world.

I'd just like to say that I detest Twilight and all the characters in it.

And if anyone is listening, like game developers or movie script writers, could you find it in your hearts to buy a desert-girl a drink?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You mean like paying prostitutes for sex? Why are we on Duke Nukem?

Duke is to male puberty like Bella is to female puberty.

How in the world am I in a position defending Twilight?
...
I'm not defending the series. I'm pointing out where it really sits.

Whoa...I'm not saying you are. I'm just maintaining my point that even as Mormon-horror-romance there's better.

Oh-and Kindred: the Embrace? REALLY? HAVE YOU READ THE BOOK OF THE WYRM?? Yeah. I'm extremely familiar with the series, company, books and setting. Feel free to dig a bit deeper.

Clan Malkavia antitribu, my dear. Look into my eyes...

I'm tagging out.

Aww

 

[ddon]

very interesting. so thats the reason why something so bad is so popular.

 

[UnravThreads]

I don't know how Twilight got famous, just like I don't know how Harry Potter got famous. One moment you've never heard of it, next minute it's the world's best thing that's ever happened.

I've never read it, and I never plan to. Partially it's I don't want to be seen associated with what's considered tripe in 'my circle' (i.e. geek culture, and it's something I used to do when I guess I was in education, so "social clique" mattered), and partially it's because I've heard so much about it. Also, I've got enough to read. Sure, if I wind up in the cinema with it in front of me I'll give it a go (and only for that 'Alice' character. Her actress = Yum), but I've not been impressed. I have little time for vampire stories (King even wrote them into Dark Tower. Ugh!), and often little time for werewolves. Why? Because they're often so badly portrayed it's laughable.

I remember Harry Potter really, really got into its stride on about the second/third book in the UK, and I guess it kinda deserved it. I liked 1-4, but I never really read 5. Seen the films upto #4 too, I think.

Moving to the topic of "sex sells" and "objectification". Pfft, I say. It's the oldest trick in the book, and it's least likely to be phased out. The advertising draws on your deepest instincts (i.e. the desire to mate and produce offspring) to get you to watch it. Women could say it's all aimed at men, what with breasts and attractive women splayed everywhere, but I don't think it is. Look at a lot of non-gender targeted films, such as Lord of the Rings. We got maybe 1-2 women? Women got Orlando Bloom, Viggo Morteson (I forget the spelling), Elijah Wood, Sean Bean... From a 'sex' point of view, it was certainly aimed more at women.

 

[Littlee300]

It all makes sense now. Well lads, we got some apologising to do.

Ever since I saw Samus stripping after the end of Super Metroid (haven't played the original one until years later), I felt quite angry for the way women are portrayed first and foremost in a sexual manner for no other reason than just because it sells. Sometimes really just because.

Even though I'm a guy, I feel that if I was treated in that way I would be seriously pissed, so I identified a little.

The fact that sex sells doesn't bother me as much as the fact that it's being used a marketing tool far more than ever before. It's kinda seeping in people's attitudes towards each other, really.

It just makes game a little more fun D:. Don't let it ruin the movie a bit, don't let it look like your being desperate for fans to enjoy movie, don't make eye-candy all that your movie gives (unless it is a certain kind) Have good writing, which twilight doesn't have, also don't look so sexist and "don't make a girl beaten flatten on her back ready go give a 'thank you sir I will have another' to next dominate male" which twilight has... Bleh i forgot what i was saying...

 

[Panda Mania]

Good points. But I disagree with the notion that Twilight is somehow worse than the mass of also-bad-art female-objectification in the genre-fiction universe. *hyphen attack lol*

 

[MovieBob]

There is an important difference between Kim Harrison, Anita Blake, et al and Stephanie Meyers work. Stephanie's characters step back from the increasingly detailed sex to a more innocent love.

I'm genuinely hesitant to say this "out loud," even on the Internet, because it's almost-CERTAINLY going to cost me sex at some point in the future, but... ::deep breath:: ...I don't find a tremendous amount of meaningful difference between Stephanie Meyer and Laurel K. Hamilton. (I can literally feel my phone number vanishing from phones as we speak, and if you could see the owners of these phones you'd understand my pain.)

They're both marginal authors who's best-known works seem primarily derrived from narrative versions of masturbatory fantasies - the main difference being what specifically "gets them off": Meyer's main 'hangup' seems to be fantasies of sexual/psychological sumbission to more-powerful men (though there's a REALLY creepy/kinky undercurrent happening with the way the Cullens' adopted 'children' are all paired-off romantically but also live/act as eachother's 'siblings.') Hamilton, on the other hand, seems to be "into" sado-masochism, male-on-male sex and "non-humans." Same song, different lyrics in other words.

Duke is to male puberty like Bella is to female puberty.

Slight disagreement, if I may: The key difference is that Duke CELEBRATES the impulses of male pubescence - Nukem (and the player) are rewarded for acting on impulse, shooting first and focusing on sex. "Twilight" is all about restraining the impulses of young women. Bella wants sex, excitement and passion, and the books essentially tell the (successful) story of how Edward (and Jacob, to a certain extent) "tame her" of these impulses and show her the "true" joys of submission, marriage and other traditional female gender roles.

 

[Domus]

Back in the day, there was this woman named Anne Rice. You might remember her, she wrote a few books. There was also this movie Interview With A Vampire.

In case you don't remember, because you either were too busy playing with your Nintendo (or SEGA), the books were kinda popular, the movie more so. You could say the movie was the Twilight of the 90's, basically. Nowadays we still occasionally talk about Doom, Mario, Zelda, sometimes Sonic. Nobody is still talking about Interview With A Vampire or Anne Rice, after all Twilight came out. Another vamp romance novel with perverse undertones that is soon going to fade away into the twilight of female-oriented novels past. So why don't we return to talking about games as we always do, eh guys?

In case the topic of Twilight suddenly being all popular and shit still bothers you, this bit by Yahtzee will invariably grab your attention:

http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/reviews/beauty.htm

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Duke is to male puberty like Bella is to female puberty.

Slight disagreement, if I may: The key difference is that Duke CELEBRATES the impulses of male pubescence - Nukem (and the player) are rewarded for acting on impulse, shooting first and focusing on sex. "Twilight" is all about restraining the impulses of young women. Bella wants sex, excitement and passion, and the books essentially tell the (successful) story of how Edward (and Jacob, to a certain extent) "tame her" of these impulses and show her the "true" joys of submission, marriage and other traditional female gender roles.

*thinks* Isn't that the whole part and parcel of social puberty though? Male sexual awakening has always been about "Get your cock out and get it up!" while Female sexual awakening has been more "I AM WOMAN! but I must cloak this power until I am ready to use it."

They're both marginal authors who's best-known works seem primarily derrived from narrative versions of masturbatory fantasies - the main difference being what specifically "gets them off": Meyer's main 'hangup' seems to be fantasies of sexual/psychological sumbission to more-powerful men (though there's a REALLY creepy/kinky undercurrent happening with the way the Cullens' adopted 'children' are all paired-off romantically but also live/act as eachother's 'siblings.') Hamilton, on the other hand, seems to be "into" sado-masochism, male-on-male sex and "non-humans." Same song, different lyrics in other words.

Two subtle differences;
1) Meyer Did Not Do The Research [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch]. (Anita Blake wields guns, reanimates corpses, dissects bodies and fights realistically; Stephanie Meyer can't even describe Forks properly, despite it being a real place)
2) Hamilton is celebrated as fluff (and no-one who reads it is under any delusion from what it is), Meyer is celebrated as literature.

On a secondary point, I've just found out that me and GyreFalcon actually agree on a lot of things, that's how arguments go at times.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

I totally hated women for menstruating all over one of MENS few remaining power-genre's, but actually, you have convinced me that I need to stop being so selfish, and this article was strangely 'moving' (with regards to swaying my opinion) and everything you mentioned...i.e. having such a sucky sample for them to taste (the whole tainted water notion) really made me think

Its just...why vampires?! I swear to god...if a film comes out about post-apocolyptic zombie love, I will quite literally go postal

 

[The Lizard of Odd]

Very insightful...I had not yet considered Twilight in that light somehow. Though female I have pretty much the same reaction to it you do, only I have the pleasure of escaping having to actually watch it before I make fun of it, thanks to you.
So what we need is for a bunch of good writers to get out there and put forth some well-written and clever fantasy chick-flicks? XD The closest thing to that I've ever seen was Kate and Leopold, though it still managed to get on my nerves a bit. (C'mon people...women expect men to have the same level of 'fall over themselves for you' courtesy toward women from that era, but skip over the whole 'the place of a woman is in the kitchen' thing...)

 

[Rock 'n' Soul]

Good article. The geeky female market isn't a huge one that's been tapped (see the zillions of threads about women not being fully recognized and compensated for in video games for example) but "Twilight" at least proves that there is some sort of previously unrecognized desire out there and it's going to take a lot of trial and error, squealing, and unbearable fan girls to get to something that doesn't totally suck.

 

[Ericb]

So what we need is for a bunch of good writers to get out there and put forth some well-written and clever fantasy chick-flicks?

Well, that wouldn't hurt. Almost anything well-written is a welcome addition to this era of blockbuster/best-selling fluff.

 

[meredithe]

I'm a girl geek and I hate Twilight, almost as much for making everyong think this is what girl geeks like as for being awful. It's boring, poorly written, derivative (she pretty much admits up front to ripping off Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, and Jane Austen), and it teaches terrible, terrible lessons for young girls.

I'm a straight woman and a bit of a closet romantic, but I resent the implication that I'm going to fall head over heals for rubbish just because most fantasy is aimed at guys. I read LoTR every couple of years; I'm shamelessly obsessed with Star Wars; Watchmen was awesome; I love the original Star Trek and the new movie; Fringe is frakking fantastic television; I heart The Doctor; I play dnd as well as video games; etc.

Stephanie Meyer can keep her Mary Sue and abusive stalker vampire; I like REAL fantasy.

 

[jabrwock]

Really? You actually tried to justify the objectification of women in old scifi? I always just shrugged and gone, "yeah so? go make a movie where some chip-n-dales strut their stuff, what's stopping you?"

Until Twilight/New Moon, the response has always been along the lines of "girls don't go for that kind of thing". At which point I laugh and indicate the direction of the nearest firefighters calendar, nearly always sold out...

 

[BelmontClan]

I never did read these books, having been warned by 3 people never to pick them up. But this illustrates an interesting idea why this series is popular.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

i'm simply terrified by your article here. why? because now i feel a sort of need to read the books just to know how terrible they are.

that's what keeps me up at night.

Here's a taster

In that second, I wished that I was not the one exception to his mysterious talent; I usually felt grateful that I was the only person whose thoughts he couldn?t hear just as clearly as if they were spoken aloud. But now I wished he could hear me, too, so that he could hear the warning I was screaming in my head.

or

I was like a lost moon?my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of desolation?that continued, nevertheless, to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity.

Make up your own mind.

Aieee my precious brains! Leaking out of my ears! Curse you for inflicting that scourge upon us - there are some things you cannot simply 'unsee'!

But seriously, I was reasonably certain the books were horribly written but that was well beyond all my expectations for just how awful the prose would be. I'll just go whimper in the corner now...

 

[SecondmateFlint]

Kinda freaks me out that I AM apart of the target audience. To be honest, I pictured myself in Bella's spot for a little bit. I wished that I had an Edward. Then I just about burned the book when I realized how annoying Bella is! Good Lord! Now every time I hear people talk about "Twilight" or "New Moon" I fight the urge to scream. I admit, my expectations for the "Twilight" movie were so low that I was pleasantly surprised but it was such an forgettable movie. I was watching it as a film student and it looked like a film done by a college-level, indie film-maker. I don't even want to see new moon. With all those cinematography errors I have to wonder if the Director of Photography was even taking the film seriously.

My favorite argument against all of those fangirls is that if Edward was real he would want nothing to do with any of them.

Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is one of my favorite books and to see how Meyer butchered vampires is the reason I will never be a fangirl.

"Say it..."

"CEDRIC DIGGORY!"