| Twilight Vitriol |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|02:19 pm]
Alicorn
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There is a great deal of energy directed towards bashing the Twilight series, a quartet by Stephenie Meyer. People are certainly entitled to dislike the books for any number of reasons, but the malicious, vitriolic criticism directed at Meyer and her fans seems really inappropriate. Most of it is easily disarmed, but I have yet to see anyone try to do so - most of the pro-Twilight "reviewers" are just as irrational and rabid as the haters. So, I've divided the basic criticisms into a few groups and explained why I don't think they're reasons to heap scorn on Stephenie Meyer or her work.
1) The Twilight series pushes Meyer's Mormon values because the protagonists don't have sex before marriage.
I would be more sympathetic to this attack if I thought the critics would be equally punishing to any agenda in any book, but so far, I don't see anyone who criticizes Meyer for pushing abstinence and then in the same breath attacks any other author for having any other view which their characters put into practice. And frankly, no one would make this criticism if Meyer did not belong to an unpopular and sexually conservative religion. It's amazing that people make it anyway.
Edward was born in 1901. Whatever your views about what the right sexual mores to have are, the ones that were prevalent when Edward was growing up didn't generally involve premarital sex. It's stated in the books that vampires virtually never undergo significant changes (mental or physical; the exception is that vampire venom can leave scars and vampires can fall in love - exactly once) after being turned. It would be deeply weird if Edward had acquired twenty-first century sexual liberalism. Additionally, Edward has concerns about whether it is safe for them to have sex - there's a "man of steel, woman of kleenex" thing going on. Granted, they don't resolve that second part to Edward's complete satisfaction - in a word, they have to compromise. And indeed, it's Edward who wants to wait until marriage and preferable vampirization - not Bella. Bella is very much in the opposite camp. The characters have actual conversations about this! They disagree! They take varying preferences and concerns into account and make a decision about sex after due consideration! I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Meyer has probably done more to encourage communication about sex between teenage partners than half the sex ed teachers in the United States.
Furthermore, let's suppose what might have happened if the situation had been reversed: Bella is the anachronistic vampire who wants to marry before she has sex and Edward is the modern-day human who wants to jump his lover's bones. Would anyone have complained about them winding up waiting until marriage in this case? I hazard not, because it's so much a cliché for the teenage boy to be the one pressuring his girlfriend into sex that we have defense mechanisms against the idea. A girl who wants to wait, even if it's for a stupid reason or no obvious reason at all, has to have her wishes respected - but make it a boy from the turn of the twentieth century who would rather not hop in the sack without wedding rings on and it's suddenly a Mormon screed.
2) The relationship between Bella and Edward is stalkery/abusive/unhealthy/misogynistic/has no deep emotional basis.
This may be the most valid criticism of the lot. There are definitely elements of stalkerishness in Edward's early behavior. The extreme dependence (in both directions) is a little overdone. Edward assumes the role of Bella's protector, although I think this has more to do with Edward having superpowers and Bella being extremely danger-prone. And, yes, Bella does go on a bit much about how physically attractive Edward is. And any of these could be valid reasons to want to turn all the millions of copies of Twilight into a giant bonfire...
If this were the only kind of relationship pictured in the series or if it bothered either Edward or Bella in a way that was not resolved. But there are other romances. None of them undergo deep focus, but that's because they're not the protagonists. And the one part of the dynamic between Edward and Bella that either of them thinks needs changing is the part where Bella is constantly need of saving - and they change it, by turning her into a vampire with the requisite indestructibility and ability to be a protector herself. Apart from that, they're both perfectly happy to be each other's whole universe, Bella never objected to Edward's habit of watching her sleep (although of course it was still wrong for him to have done so without her explicit permission), and Edward never complains that Bella wants his hot bod instead of being solely attracted to his personality. These characteristics of a relationship - like just about every other possible characteristic of a relationship - are not intrinsically evil; they're only evil if they make someone unhappy. It's like the difference between battery and BDSM. The guy who hits his cowering wife because she burned his scrambled eggs is an evil bastard. The guy who hits his wife because it turns her on is not.
3) Bella is a Mary Sue; she and all of the other characters are flat and uninteresting.
A few people who put this critique forward add that Bella being clumsy "doesn't count" as a character flaw because it's an endearing trait/Edward always catches her when she falls/it's too easy to write a clumsy character. Therefore, she's a flawless snowflake with nothing interesting about her at all. The funny part is that these critics usually then go on to point out half a dozen really boneheaded things Bella does throughout the book. I guess those don't count as character flaws either, because doing really stupid stuff is endearing, and none of her vampire friends let her get killed for it, and it's easy to write about characters behaving foolishly for deep emotional reasons? Or something?
There are a few Mary Sue earmarks in Bella, I'll concede that. She gets a little much attention from high school boys, although Meyer states that this was based on real events from her own life. She's pretty, like virtually every female protagonist in virtually every book ever written that wasn't specifically about dropping an anvil about body image. She's academically accomplished, although the only purpose this serves in the book is to establish her as more or less Edward's equal in biology class. She can cook, although she isn't exactly shown whipping up six-course meals. She doesn't demonstrate any really deep-running character flaws that would justify wanting her dead by asteroid, like malice or racism or violence or any of the other things you can do to make a character deeply imperfect. But she does have character flaws beyond being clumsy: she is trusting to a fault (which has both good and bad consequences); she's emotionally dependent on her boyfriend; she's ruled by her hormones in the face of moderately serious practical obstacles to sex; she's prone to inappropriate attempts at self-sacrifice; she has a weak stomach when it comes to the smell of blood... Of course, the critics notice some of these characteristics, but they don't count either, obviously, because anything that doesn't support the thesis "Bella is a Mary Sue" is misleading evidence and can be discounted.
As for the other characters being flat, it's not that they are actually undeveloped. It's that they aren't central to the main story, which is a romance between Bella and Edward (with Jacob thrown in for triangularity) and a worldbuilding-showcase-adventure with climatic battles between assorted vampires and werewolves. If you read the leaked chapters of Midnight Sun, or some of the cut scenes out of Twilight, or even just go through the books with an aim to read their contents instead of find things to pick at, you will notice that they are fairly well-rounded as secondary and tertiary characters go.
4) Meyer's vampires are stupid. Because they are sparkly.
Oh, give me a break. Meyer's breaks from the vampire canon are not something special about Twilight. It's been common practice for thousands of years for fantasy creatures to evolve over time as different storytellers come up with their own takes on the theme. Her vampires are still immortal undead blood-drinking super-powered ex-humans who add to their number by chomping people. The fact that they can enter houses uninvited and aren't repelled by crosses and garlic and don't instantly burst into flame on contact with sunlight makes them unique, and makes the story plausible in the first place - you could not very well have cross-averse vampires attending high school in a country where so many people go around wearing crucifixes, for instance. Besides, if she'd used traditional vampire stereotypes down to sleeping in coffins during the day, she'd probably be criticized for being unoriginal. As far as the sparkles are concerned, they make a fair amount of sense considering. Meyer needed to explain the fact that her vampires don't go out in the sun without making it actually kill them. Making them highly recognizeable is a reasonable facsimile. I suppose she could have made them glow neon in the sun, or the sun could have made them uncontrollably do supernaturally enhanced cartwheels, but people would have made fun of that too.
5) Meyer's prose has too many adjectives! It's badly written!
A whole lot of authors use a lot of adjectives. It's not a capital crime. Tight, efficient writing is a virtue, but it's not the only virtue. The true test of good writing is whether it can convey its ideas to its audience. I haven't mentioned so far the all-too-common defense of "let's see YOU write a bestselling series before you criticize poor poor Stephenie" yet, but in this case, I think the immense popularity of her books indicates that her writing serves its purpose. Judging its quality beyond that is a matter of enough ambiguity that it seems an arrogant exercise.
6) It's creepy and gross that Jacob imprints on Renesmee. Also, "Renesmee" is a stupid name.
It is established repeatedly - not only with Jacob and Renesmee, but also with another werewolf who has an underage imprintee - that the imprinting is not necessarily romantic/sexual in nature. Jacob loves Renesmee generically and unconditionally. She is under no obligation to marry him when she grows up, if she doesn't feel so inclined. He will be perfectly capable of maintaining a platonic/brotherly affection only for her if that's what she needs. The fact that he will do his best to be exactly what she'd like in a boyfriend/husband will be an influencing factor, but this is hardly coercion: this is exactly what goes on all the time when people make changes in themselves to try to be attractive in general or to a specific interest.
As for Renesmee being a stupid name - well, I can't really dispute that. Call her "Nessie" if you don't like it.
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