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silveradeptWarning - Twilight series spoilers to follow. If you don’t want to peek because you’re still racing through Breaking Dawn, I’ll wait until you’re finished. Then come back.
Leonard Sax talks about the popularity of the "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer. To him, Twilight is a wildly popular book that espouses and embraces traditional gender roles, with Bella as the damsel in distress needed to be protected and rescued by Edward Cullen, the freakishly handsome vampire, or Jacob, the also kind of handsome werewolf. She’s in love, of course, and will also end up pregnant with a vampire baby. Oh, Bella, you’re so old-fashioned, and yet, so popular. It must be the old-fashioned-ness that makes you this way.
...As If. It becomes apparent from the beginning that Bella is not the kind of girl you want to be championing as the Anti-Feminist. She’s a teenager, and so some things can be forgiven, but I’ll be damned if she isn’t a narcissist and them some. She gets to then become Mary-Sue in Breaking Dawn, apparently. The plot is driven by what Bella wants. She wants the impossibly handsome Edward Cullen, despite his repeated warnings that she should stay well away from him. But Edward loves her, so every time he says “Go away”, we find that Bella interprets it as “Pursue me more.” And then, in the second book, when Ed really does go away, she apparently wants not to be alone and lonely over her boyfriend, so she toys with the other boy that has feelings for her, and then dumps him when Edward comes back, generating a feud between the two over her. And Bella wants to be a vampire so she can be with Edward. And she gets that, too, but only because she also wanted to have sex with Edward, she got pregnant, and the baby will kill her if she doesn’t. so then she’s a bautiful vampire Sue who can control her feeding and is a very powerful vampire and...
...gag me with a spoon. (There. Two previous-decades references in two paragraphs.) Bella’s a spoiled, narcissistic, teenage girl. The paragon of traditional values she ain’t. And the story that’s supposedly about her love is really about her wants. She gets everything she desires. Why wouldn’t that appeal to a teen audience?
However, this does not deter Sax. His research, we find out, has proven definitively that young girls and boys want, nay, crave, material that reinforces the idea of a gendered world and the stereotypical gendered roles.
As I recall, feminism isn’t about creating women who don’t need men, nor about stripping men of all their masculinity to turn them into “sissies”. Feminism is about opening up options and showing that men and women are not confined to their stereotypical roles, and that it’s okay for women to do “male” things and okay for men to do “female” things in addition to the things that are stereotypically associated with their gender. In that context, the stereotypically hypermasculine and hyperfeminine things Sax mentions as his definitive proof that teenagers are lashing out at society’s attempts to create AFGNCAAPs...sound pretty normal to me. Women have been reading novels with “traditional” male and female roles for some time now... and they may put down Twlight and pick up a Wiimote and go thrash some boys in Super Smash Brothers. The guys have been looking at pornography for a very, very long time. (And so have the women. In fact, some of those women are probably better judges of what’s good porn and what isn’t than the guys are.) And have been playing rough and tumble violent games for a while. And then some of them end up as children’s librarians or nurses or teachers, all traditionally “female” jobs, and will pick up a book like Twilight to read. If they use it as a dartboard target because of the writing, well, that’s their decision (although, not the library copy, please.) Those men may find a touch for cooking, or needlework, and like it.
Feminism doesn’t ignore gender differences. Instead of locking someone into a set sequence of roles, games, careers, and actions that are “acceptable” for that gender, feminism unlocks the other half and permits everyone to unite both halves into a more complete person. Taunts like “sissy” and “tomboy” lose their sting on someone who knows both halves.
Looping back to the jumping-off point - Twilight is not the Anti-Feminism novel Sax wants it to be. Its popularity has very little to do with whether or not it reinforces and displays traditional gender roles - it’s an escapist fantasy romance with a narcissist heroine who ends up getting everything that she wants and turning into a Frakking Mary-Sue by the end. Even if it were reinforcing stereotypical gender roles, feminism is inclusive, and says, “Y’know, everyone should be comfortable being the person they are, and that includes being okay with the things that are on ‘your gender’ as well as the things you like that aren’t.” They’re not diametrically opposed at all.
There are two things that are good about Twilight - the supporting cast are far more interesting people than the main characters, and second, it doesn’t have the advertisements-to-pages ratio that The Clique has. It’s not saying much, but by virtue of that by itself, it’s not the Worst Book Ever.
Leonard Sax talks about the popularity of the "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer. To him, Twilight is a wildly popular book that espouses and embraces traditional gender roles, with Bella as the damsel in distress needed to be protected and rescued by Edward Cullen, the freakishly handsome vampire, or Jacob, the also kind of handsome werewolf. She’s in love, of course, and will also end up pregnant with a vampire baby. Oh, Bella, you’re so old-fashioned, and yet, so popular. It must be the old-fashioned-ness that makes you this way.
...As If. It becomes apparent from the beginning that Bella is not the kind of girl you want to be championing as the Anti-Feminist. She’s a teenager, and so some things can be forgiven, but I’ll be damned if she isn’t a narcissist and them some. She gets to then become Mary-Sue in Breaking Dawn, apparently. The plot is driven by what Bella wants. She wants the impossibly handsome Edward Cullen, despite his repeated warnings that she should stay well away from him. But Edward loves her, so every time he says “Go away”, we find that Bella interprets it as “Pursue me more.” And then, in the second book, when Ed really does go away, she apparently wants not to be alone and lonely over her boyfriend, so she toys with the other boy that has feelings for her, and then dumps him when Edward comes back, generating a feud between the two over her. And Bella wants to be a vampire so she can be with Edward. And she gets that, too, but only because she also wanted to have sex with Edward, she got pregnant, and the baby will kill her if she doesn’t. so then she’s a bautiful vampire Sue who can control her feeding and is a very powerful vampire and...
...gag me with a spoon. (There. Two previous-decades references in two paragraphs.) Bella’s a spoiled, narcissistic, teenage girl. The paragon of traditional values she ain’t. And the story that’s supposedly about her love is really about her wants. She gets everything she desires. Why wouldn’t that appeal to a teen audience?
However, this does not deter Sax. His research, we find out, has proven definitively that young girls and boys want, nay, crave, material that reinforces the idea of a gendered world and the stereotypical gendered roles.
Three decades of adults pretending that gender doesn’t matter haven’t created a generation of feminists who don’t need men; they have instead created a horde of girls who adore the traditional male and female roles and relationships in the “Twilight” saga. Likewise, ignoring gender differences hasn’t created a generation of boys who muse about their feelings while they work on their scrapbooks. Instead, a growing number of boys in this country spend much of their free time absorbed in the masculine mayhem of video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Halo or surfing the Internet for pornography.Someone was not paying attention in their feminism class, and I’m fairly certain the Unabashed Feminism department would be more than willing to give a remedial coursework. Possibly with cricket bats.
As I recall, feminism isn’t about creating women who don’t need men, nor about stripping men of all their masculinity to turn them into “sissies”. Feminism is about opening up options and showing that men and women are not confined to their stereotypical roles, and that it’s okay for women to do “male” things and okay for men to do “female” things in addition to the things that are stereotypically associated with their gender. In that context, the stereotypically hypermasculine and hyperfeminine things Sax mentions as his definitive proof that teenagers are lashing out at society’s attempts to create AFGNCAAPs...sound pretty normal to me. Women have been reading novels with “traditional” male and female roles for some time now... and they may put down Twlight and pick up a Wiimote and go thrash some boys in Super Smash Brothers. The guys have been looking at pornography for a very, very long time. (And so have the women. In fact, some of those women are probably better judges of what’s good porn and what isn’t than the guys are.) And have been playing rough and tumble violent games for a while. And then some of them end up as children’s librarians or nurses or teachers, all traditionally “female” jobs, and will pick up a book like Twilight to read. If they use it as a dartboard target because of the writing, well, that’s their decision (although, not the library copy, please.) Those men may find a touch for cooking, or needlework, and like it.
Feminism doesn’t ignore gender differences. Instead of locking someone into a set sequence of roles, games, careers, and actions that are “acceptable” for that gender, feminism unlocks the other half and permits everyone to unite both halves into a more complete person. Taunts like “sissy” and “tomboy” lose their sting on someone who knows both halves.
Looping back to the jumping-off point - Twilight is not the Anti-Feminism novel Sax wants it to be. Its popularity has very little to do with whether or not it reinforces and displays traditional gender roles - it’s an escapist fantasy romance with a narcissist heroine who ends up getting everything that she wants and turning into a Frakking Mary-Sue by the end. Even if it were reinforcing stereotypical gender roles, feminism is inclusive, and says, “Y’know, everyone should be comfortable being the person they are, and that includes being okay with the things that are on ‘your gender’ as well as the things you like that aren’t.” They’re not diametrically opposed at all.
There are two things that are good about Twilight - the supporting cast are far more interesting people than the main characters, and second, it doesn’t have the advertisements-to-pages ratio that The Clique has. It’s not saying much, but by virtue of that by itself, it’s not the Worst Book Ever.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 12:44 pm (UTC)Kinda sounds like somone needs to look up 'femenist' in the dictionary.com files or something. I'm glad I've never heard of this series.
I'd say Little Women or The Babysitter's Club does far more for 'feminism' than this dollar store trash pile.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 05:02 pm (UTC)It's a rather long book, and there are three more behind it. I'm still trying to decide whether it's worth diving back in because I want to learn more about the supporting cast or not.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 10:01 pm (UTC)Really, the only thing missing is her being a half vampire or fairy or something.
I will admit that I'm enjoying these books, but in the same way that I occasionally enjoy White Castles: I know it's garbage without redeeming qualities, but it's tasty and sometimes I'm really in the mood for junk.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 02:31 am (UTC)