Twilight, Twitards, Twihaters… I probably wouldn’t care (or know so much about the books/movies) if it weren’t for the fact that I CAN’T AVOID IT. Whether it’s pro or anti, Twilight news is eeeeeeverywhere. In the Bust newsletter, on my Youtube homepage, there’s even a thread on the Attachment Parenting website I frequent. And here I am writing about it… crap.
Team Jacob? Team Edward? I’m more of a Team Buffy. Or team Spike. Mmmmmm Spike. Thank goodness for the fact that my baby girl is too new for Twilight to ever be relevant to her life – I would have to teach her that vampires are for staking, not for sparkling. (As it is I will have my hands full preparing her for the zombie attack.. more on that some other day). Of course, by the time she is old enough for the teen-screaming-at-pretty-boys phase, there will be some other disturbing crap out for me to roll my eyes at. Or maybe (hopefully) she’ll take after me – I had my share of stupid teen heroin-chic crushes, but was more the type to draw angst-y journal entries over them than squee about it.
There are plenty of reasons to not like the whole Twilight phenomena. The little of the first book I managed to rad was CRAP. Terrible writing. Bella is frankly pathetic and a Mary Sue at the same time. If I encountered her in real life I would probably do my best to give her shaken-teen-syndrome. I got bored with heroines that passively wait to be rescued around the same time I learned to read. Edward strikes me as an Emo Ken (neutered vampires are just sad… remember when they were monsters?) with little to no emotional depth, designed to be pretty, brooding, and very little else. Which is enough for most teen girls (and many of their moms), it seems.
Some could point out that Spike from Buffy, who I mentioned earlier (once again, yum), could be described the same way. The difference is in the Buffy series, the writers go out of their way to crack the brooding facade and then point out how silly the whole thing is (The Season 7 episode with Andrew taping everyone is a perfect example of this… but only other Jossheads will get that one).
Of all the (manymany) reasons to hate Twilight, there are two thrown around that I find disturbing. The “OMG Stephanie Meyer is a MORMON!!!” thing is just sad. The author’s religion most likely has influenced the ideals in her books, but so far we still have this nifty little “freedom of religion” thing in America. There’s not a clause that says “unless it’s an unpopular religion”. There are plenty of things I could say about the role of women in the Mormon church, but I will never say that Mormon women should not be allowed to write wildly popular teen fiction.
Then there’s the popular “bad role model” argument. While I have already agreed that no self-respecting girl should want to be anything like Bella, it’s going overboard to say that being a fan of Twilight is going to ruin a girl for healthy relationships for the rest of her life. The same has been said about Barbie, about Disney princess movies, child-nurturing dolls… the list goes on. I firmly believe that if I raise my daughter with strong ideals, with the idea that she should always love and respect herself, and fill her life with good role models, that a little crappy pop culture will not ruin her mind. The best thing I can do to teach her a healthy relationship model is to live that model myself. To have an open and loving relationship with her father, and if something happened to end that relationship to continue living my life as a strong, self-respecting woman.
And of course, to teach her the importance of a long-distance head shot on a charging zombie. Gotta avoid that virus-infected splatterback.
*looks at title* Hmm.. pretty off topic today. So in Homebrewing news, I had my housemates crack open the first bottle of Bouncin’ Baby IPA to see how it was coming along (bottled 11-15-09). There’s a trace of carbonation, but it still has a way to go. I’m planning on it being ready right around my due date! Hurrah!
And in knitting… still killing myself on xmas presents. I’ve been making a lot of progress, but have been reduced to applying tiger balm and taking Tylenol on a regular basis. Traitor wrists. Once I am done with gift knitting, I have my eye on making this poncho with this stashed yard. And I really really am going to make myself some socks. This time I mean it. The Great Stash Cleanup yesterday unearthed three different sets of DPNs with the beginning of a ribbed sock cuff. I frogged them all and swore I will actually make some damn socks instead of an almost-wristband.
Handknits and Homebrews 