Twilight of the She-Geeks

[the_lollipop_dragon]

The "was aimed at guys to start with; that Joss Whedon is a good enough writer that his geek fetish-doll heroines were genuinely relatable to women doesn't change that fact" is inaccurate. I watched a video (I shy away from using the term documentary cuz it was more of a retrospective on the series) on the series a while back and the studio-executive responsible for making Buffy into a series wanted something that would speak to powerful feminine ideals to go with the "girl-power" trend of the '90's.

I'm a huge Buffy fan, so I'm very biased, but I'm offended at the characters on Buffy being debased into fetish-dolls. Without good writing aren't all characters dolls? And is it their power that makes them "fetish-dolls"? So in order to no longer be dolls they would have to lose their powers?

I appreciate the article, and I'm probably reading far too much into a side point, or potentially startng up an arguement that I don't have the time or energy to commit to at this point, but I still wanted to log in my grievance.

 

[madmarvelgirl]

I haven't been through all the comments yet, so I apologize if this has been raised already, but I feel like this article shows a basic misunderstanding of what Twilight is and where it comes from. It didn't just magically appear as a huge geek franchise. It was a popular Young Adult series and there are PLENTY of YA series aimed at girls. Including plenty of fantasy and monster stories, and plenty of sexually charged ones at that. It's the first one to make the leap to big movie franchise, maybe, but the idea that it's for lack of a better option just isn't borne out by reality, I think.

 

[brin5tar]

Whilst I'm glad that this article has become a light bulb moment for some of The Escapist's readers, let's not forget that the issues that this article discusses are not new or revelatory; they've already been covered by others (Examples: here [http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=girls_just_wanna_have_fangs]).

 

[princess_stomper]

Ah, come on - aren't you forgetting Interview With The Vampire? I also take issue with the relegation of Buffy to mere male sexual fantasy - it was just a solid fiction that happened to be written by a man. Poppy Z Brite was pretty popular in my teens - but then, I think she was just too plain pervy for mainstream audiences.

My "problem" with New Moon was really that the were-boy is rather too young to be so blatantly objectified, and that it's really not good to have as "heroes" characters that have little to redeem them beyond their looks. OK, so Jake's a nice kid, but he's not "all that" other than his over-toned abs. Edward is creepy and awful, and Bella is a spoilt cow who treats her friends appallingly. At least Elizabeth and Mr Darcy were pretty likeable people.

That and the fact that New Moon is unintentionally hilarious and far too po-faced for its own good. Again, even Pride & Prejudice had jokes in it.

 

[Wounded Melody]

As a still aspiring writer, the fact that the Twilight book/movie series is making tons of money makes me so very very angry.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Good read. But....

LOLOOLOLL Id love to see this happening . . . . . wait home come Robert Pattinson is standing outside during the day

Anyway after reading this long article i think i shall never make fun of Twilight. It would feel like laughing and girls and their oprresed sexual fantasies....
Pity the only thing they needed turned out to be total puke for the rest of the world :S

 

[MB202]

I don't think my sister would qualify as a she-geek, though she is obsessed over Twilight.

 

[LazyAza]

Interesting read, definitely makes you look at this franchise from another perspective, doesn't change the fact its still craptacular though.

 

[CargoHold]

Wow, that was a really entertaining and thought-provoking article. I'd never thought of it that way... Shame Twilight's still awful.

 

[Lord George]

A nice look at it and also brings a good point for all the bandwagon twilight haters. Your not the targeted market for the book or the film, so of course your not going to like it.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I particularly liked this bit

"When you read the book," says (Robert) Pattinson, looking appropriately pallid and interesting even without makeup, "it's like, 'Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.' I mean, every line is like that. He's the most ridiculous person who's so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn't do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that's how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he's a 108-year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."

The actor also complained that fans, including a six year old, asked him to bite them.

Even Edward hates Edward.

I think this just says so much. Seriously.

My primary complaint about the series to my female co-workers (who are almost all fans of it) is that it seems to just play on one-dimensional early-teen girls' fantasies. "Oh my God, they're so beautiful and so tragic, just like I know I am! Eeeee!" And the funny thing? They don't disagree with me. It's fluff, and they know it.

I do suppose I'll concede the point that this might be the "baby steps" of a fully-fledged, female-centric fantasy genre. A little tickle to the estrogen, in the way Duke Nukem's "shoot things and score chicks" theme juiced up the testosterone levels of early-teen boys. I'm all for the growth of this genre, too! Who knows, guys- this could lead to an evolution into better storytelling from a different angle, and maybe spark more books, movies, games, etc. that both genders can enjoy for their own reasons.

And one final note to my fellow men: If you want to attack this series, do what video games have taught us and attack its weak points- terrible writing, unrelatable characters who present unachievable ideals, thin plots. But if you want to scream "GAY!" at the shirtless beefcakes, think about this- it's meant for women, not men. If it still affected you... maybe that says something about you, hm?

 

[Irridium]

Great read, but I still have 1 question...

Why the fuck does the main vampire look like he just got a swirly?

Seriously, does having your hair look that freaking stupid really make you look hot!?

 

[Slayer_2]

While you have a point saying that games are tailored for men, the guys in most games are usually very fit, at least.

 

[Wintermoot]

never saw it but I heard its bad maybe a Belmont is gonna end it in the last one

 

[Wintermoot]

I think the Twilight series is just getting money from fangirls

 

[teh_gunslinger]

I do have some issues with Twilight. None of them are related to objectifying anything though. I'm more concerned for the literary qualities, or rather lack thereof. I mean, I read plenty of shallow sci-fi and fantasy books myself but I would say that most of it are actually better written and tells better stories, for a given value of better. I adore Dan Abnett for the Warhammer 40000 books and I greatly enjoy reading them. I would never claim them to be great literature though. They are good, easy reads and the man knows pacing. But great literature they are not. They are fluff about war and soldiers. Nothing more.

So, my gripe with Twillight is the horrible writing, endless angst, bad pacing and insufferable fans. I mean, like the books all you want, but DON'T claim them to be good litterature. They are dross.

As for objectifying males, well let them. Lord knows that there is plenty of objectifying women going around even if I detest it. And I don't read that kind of crap for a good reason. It's boring and toe cringing.

And Bella is a horrible person to read about. She has no content and can't do shit. If I want to read genre fiction with better female leads I'll reread Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space. Ilia Volyova is a supreme ***** and pretty unlikable but she gets shit done and don't spend the time moaning and calling for help. She doesn't require someone else to validate her existence. I like her a lot. And if I recall correctly she is a bald chain smoker. Yay!

 

[Falseprophet]

It's pretty clear to me that most Twilight hatedom stems from its popularity. I read The Da Vinci Code before it became a smash, and at the time, I remember it being a decent page-turning thriller. The supposedly real historical, religious and artistic information was utter BS and I saw that right away, but it was no different from hundreds of similar books that had been around forever.

Then for some reason it sold 14 million copies and got a whole load of people thinking Dan Brown was some kind of genius speaking truth to power, when all he was doing was taking a bunch of conspiracy theories that have been around for decades or longer and dressing them up in a somewhat entertaining way. Naturally, this pissed off historians, art & architecture scholars, theologians and students of the occult & conspiracy theories for grossly misrepresenting their fields to a mass audience, and pissed off writers and readers of better-written occult/conspiracy thrillers because this hack was more successful than Kate Mosse and Umberto Eco.

Harry Potter was similar--the basic concept wasn't anything new, but for some reason HP was the one that took off. At least in that case, J. K. Rowling is a decent, if not a great, writer. There are still Diana Wynne-Jones and Neil Gaiman fans who decry Rowling for ripping off their favourite writers. (Gaiman remarked: "bespectacled English boy learning magic is the most recycled plot in British children's fiction. I don't begrudge Rowling any of her success.")

Twilight does much the same thing. There have been romance novels forever, teen romance for a few decades, and angsty, sexy vampires since at least Anne Rice. But for some reason, Meyer is the one who got big, even though she's a crap writer. So fans of vampire fiction in general are pissed that Meyer's ill-informed and stupid take on vampires is the one getting attention in the mass media, and that a hack like Meyer is more successful than Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton (who are better writers, but not much better).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It's pretty clear to me that most Twilight hatedom stems from its popularity.

Check back across the last 5 pages. We've already worked out that it isn't.

Most of it stems from the fact that Twilight has the emotional sophistication of Emmanuelle, the feminist overtones of The Stepford Wives and the dialogue of Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Then you have the accesories to go with it like the panties with Edwards face on the inside, the Sparkly Dildo and the Twilight Shower Curtain. (No, they're all real)

Then you have the fact that, even amongst people who know it's a joke, "the hero is a lying, stalking, murdering, dead, manipulative shit but he has nice abs, so that's ok".

Then there's the fact that any of the entrants to this year's Escapist Film Festival could do something amazing with the amount of money chucked at Meyers, and not moan that they weren't given the respect they deserve.

Then there's the 8 blank pages in the book, the mentally-scarring re-branding of things to fit with the Twilight fanbase, and the talk of new merchandise. (Seriously, if someone walked into HBO or FOX and said "I have a Twilight TV series ready to go", you know it would kick out every other series it had to make that).

Then there's the fact that New Moon almost gets rid of Alice(one of the better characters) to replace it with Edward(one of the worst).

Then there's the fact that book four was SO bad that even the fans tried to return it, at which point Meyer had a fit and said she wouldn't do book 5 until people apologised, even though book 5 is basically book 1 from across the room.

Finally, yes, the popularity does come into it. But it's not the most by a long shot.

Selling Mormon-Vampire-Porn as Literature beats it by a long way.

 

[Anarien]

The "was aimed at guys to start with; that Joss Whedon is a good enough writer that his geek fetish-doll heroines were genuinely relatable to women doesn't change that fact" is inaccurate. I watched a video (I shy away from using the term documentary cuz it was more of a retrospective on the series) on the series a while back and the studio-executive responsible for making Buffy into a series wanted something that would speak to powerful feminine ideals to go with the "girl-power" trend of the '90's.

I'm a huge Buffy fan, so I'm very biased, but I'm offended at the characters on Buffy being debased into fetish-dolls. Without good writing aren't all characters dolls? And is it their power that makes them "fetish-dolls"? So in order to no longer be dolls they would have to lose their powers?

I appreciate the article, and I'm probably reading far too much into a side point, or potentially startng up an arguement that I don't have the time or energy to commit to at this point, but I still wanted to log in my grievance.

This is a good point, and one I came in here to comment on myself. The WB was hitting its young female-centric niche, and Buffy was intended to appeal to the girls and young women. See also the other shows on the network in those same couple of years, things like Dawson's Creek. The same young, female audience is also the target of its successor network, The CW. Except they target today's teen girl with shows like Gossip Girl.

That's the point of them being in there. So I can understand why a lot (read: all) women love the werewolves

As a woman, I can say that they aren't hot. They're conventionally "hot" by society's standards, but not to me.

I am a fan of a good vampire story. But Twilight holds no appeal to me. My teen cousin and some of my friends (20s) have read the books and rushed to see the movies, but from excerpts, the story seems very shallow and has some utterly ridiculous internal rules and conventions. I prefer stories with a fully fleshed-out protagonist, and the Bella character seems to be just a shell; a vehicle for readers to project themselves into in order to immerse themselves into the fantasy.

Which is why it works for so many people. Others just go along for laughs. I can enjoy terrible writing if it's fun and engaging (someone upthread mentioned The Da Vinci Code), but there are other books that appeal to me a lot more and promise more depth.

I'm not sure if we want to classify Twilight readers as geek though. I know it's just semantics, but these books and films seem more like romance than something genuinely geeky.

 

[James Raynor]

More people need to read this, it is informative.