Thoughts on Twilight
# Thursday 1st July, 2010 - 4:21pm with 3 comments
Let me preface this post by saying I do not denigrate Stephenie Meyer or any of her fans. This is merely my opinion on the values and style within the books and films of Twilight. I understand that I have a lot of friends who enjoy the series, and I bought two copies two years ago to read for myself and my boyfriend’s mother, meaning fair chance was given, and I do appreciate them for what they are– Mary Sue fanfiction bound and sold as a book, but beyond that, I don’t go out of my way to girl over the series1.
I understand that there are a lot of people that think the series is just the dreamiest piece of fiction ever written because of the fact that the plain Jane girl ends up with the utterly hunky Adonis of a Vampire, while having five different normal boys fawning all over her, as well as at least two ‘wolves’ finding her attractive2, but honestly, it’s not as adoringly loving as we all seem to think. The initial scream of fairy tail romance between two star-crossed people seems enticing, but if you look at it a bit more deeply, you come to realise how utterly dysfunctional their relationship is.
Let’s start with Bella, who by definition is an amorphous blob with brownish hair and no personality to speak of, which made Kristen Stewart a wonderful choice for her as the girl has about as much depth in acting as a grapefruit3, but in the end it seems that every boy in the world finds her to be the most beautiful thing to ever happen to Forks. How is that possible? How does someone with no personality and apparently ‘mediocre’ looks somehow become the object of everyone’s affection? I understand beauty is only skin deep but the girl has the emotional maturity and depth of a basket of dinner rolls, there is nothing warranting worship there. It’s just ridiculous.
Then we have Edward, who by and large is described as being a god among men, so beautifully sculpted and gorgeous that every time he is mentioned in the book he is described with such detail that you kind of forget where the story was going with the constant ranting about how he is the end all of men. Not only is Bella instantly attracted to him even though she claims to be above such influence, and that she doesn’t fit in anywhere, but she sees him and wants him– superficial as hell, honestly. I believe, if I recall correctly, she thinks she’s in love with him within the first few days– what a man, right? Utterly enticing with his good looks. Whatever.
Once they get together everyone’s completely stupid over their relationship from an outside stand-point because ‘no one wants them to be together’ and they’re ‘so different’. They’re not different at all, they’re both superficial people who claim to think they do not deserve their partner but continue on this self-destructive path of being together with claims such as “I’d die without you.”, which isn’t healthy love at all. You might lose yourself a bit, in true love, you might lose a part of yourself, but you’d continue on, you’d live and not go through periods of near-suicide4, there is nothing in this world that is so good that you decide to kill yourself. Love is encompassing, even if it’s gone, and it hurts, it’s something, and you work through it because… that’s life.
Beyond that, Bella seems incapable of realising how selfish she is being in her relationship with Jacob. He’s her emotional crutch, he’s the one she uses to defend her actions when she’s angry at Edward, he’s the one she goes to when Edward isn’t being what she wants, or when he leaves her for some reason or another, and she gets so close to nearly giving him what he wants just to keep him hanging on– call it what you will, folks, it’s not a deep, loving friendship, it’s ridiculous to the point of insanity. And Jacob should learn to man the hell up and tell her to get over herself and move on5, but instead he continues down this path well into the fourth book when everything ‘changes’ dramatically.
While I’m trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible, my entire problem with the series involves the fact that there is very little there worth spoiling. It’s all about this codependent, unhealthy ass relationship between Edward and Bella, as well as Bella and Jacob– the secondary characters are some of the most interesting and they get very little play because we have to spend seven chapters with Bella soaking her panties6 over Edward’s near perfection, how could any of us understand just how beautiful he is? We’re so out of our leagues, as is she, with her mousy looks and– actually, I agree with that part. She’s not all that attractive, and she has the personality of a doorknob, so maybe she doesn’t deserve him, but together they make barely a half-passable person, so they deserve each other. At least she won’t be threatening to slash her wrists with some deserving guy because he didn’t look at her like she was the only thing in his life– wouldn’t that be terrible?
I should probably end this here, because I’m going into a bit of a rant mode, but I think it helps demonstrate just how unhealthy this is– it’s not really giving the right message to itty girls who might be reading this– be utterly attached to a man and tell him you’ll die without him, it’ll be cool, he’ll love that. Oh, also say how ugly you are every few seconds so he feels compelled to ensure you that you’re not. … Wait, that doesn’t sound like something that would work, does it? I wonder why. I wouldn’t want to deal with that crap, so why would some guy?
I wonder if anyone’s going to agree with me at all or if I’m going to get hate spam.
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- I do plan to see all the films just to see what they do with them and because I adore the look of the wolves, but beyond that it’s a bit obnoxious [↩]
- at least in the beginning [↩]
- seriously, her entire range of acting skill seems to be touching her hair and looking confused or like she smelled bad cheese [↩]
- Bella and her bike. I hated that so hard. What an idiot. Also Edward’s throwing himself to the wolves, figuratively speaking, with the Volturi, what the hell? [↩]
- let’s not get into the fact that he eye-humps her six year old daughter [↩]
- I know, TMI [↩]