It’s just unnatural. Not one person. Not even tea. It’s ruining the reality for me.
And that is the most interesting thing I can think of to say about Twilight, chapters 11-13
Nothing happens for two whole chapters. And 13 is great for the fluff factor of anyone who is hanging on all this drippy “romance”. The use of scare quotes is intentional, as I still do not believe that this is romance, rather the beginnings of a tragic stalker/abusive disaster. I repeat, being followed and watched every moment of your life by your boyfriend and lying to your parents about it is not romantic. If your boyfriend is doing this you are being stalked by a very troubled young man.
Edward and Bella are “out” now. They can walk to classes together now and eat lunch together now and not scootch far away from each other in biology now. There are these painfully annoying expositions about video days in biology, and I remember those days of watching movies, but I never spent them painfully aware of the boyfriend next to me that I couldn’t touch. Wev. Certainly not my biggest complaint.
There is a very clear message of chastity here, a severe “no touchy” policy that feels forced and awkward. A teenager should never feel bad about choosing a chaste relationship, but as it is clear that Bella is written completely devoid of any unique personality traits outside of being completely fucking annoying and whiney and dangerously clumsy in order to be a blank slate in which to tuck yourself, then I think there should be some kind of indication that she is making a choice, or free to make one, not either being a) the gatekeeper, or b) gently guided by the hand of he who Knows What’s Best For Her. There should be some semblance that there is a range of possibilities including those choices. It shouldn’t be an either or situation. That is how life is.
Basically, Chapters 11, 12, and 13 are just a monotonous play by play of a little league game of four year olds, ya know, where you are lucky if they kids remember to run the right way around the bases, or run at all. Nothing. Happens. Not even in the infamous hilltop scene where we first discover Edward’s EVIL secret! That’s right, the reason he can’t be out in direct sunlight is b/c he SPARKLES in the sunlight. Like a glam rock vampire, baby. I am sorry, but the glam rocker thing was why I never finished reading The Vampire LeStat. I just couldn’t get through it. And I read all of Louis whiny ass blathering in a day and a half…I am digressing…
We are treated to a three day tour of Bella’s mind, ya know, the one that Edward is so pissed off that he can’t read for himself. It’s monotonous. It’s redundant. I could have done w/o it. I think it may have taken me about three pages to repeat the same classes again and again. We also get to see how defensive Bella gets when anyone questions her new relationship w/ the mysterious guy who seems a little possessive. Actually, I think the words that are used are “looks at you like you are something to eat”. Her reaction to the friend who cares about her that she really doesn’t give a shit about? She gets really pissed off and tells him to butt out. In fact, we never really find out if Mike cares for her as a friend or if he really is just jealous as she assumes, b/c she really doesn’t give a shit about the friends she was so sure she wouldn’t make. None of the friends matter, only this dreamy perfect alabaster and beautiful guy matters. Not even her father matters enough to tell the truth to. Every one is worth getting pissed off w/ or lying to for Edward’s sake, even if it could mean her own demise.
I do want to take just a moment to talk about something that is bothering me. Besides the obvious over use and abuse of the word “beautiful”, I am a little bothered by how many times it is used in conjunction w/ words like “white”, “alabaster”, “marble”, “pale”, and a slew of other words meant to remind us that a very very important point of Edward’s eternal beauty is is incredibly white skin. The way it gleams and glitters like white diamonds in the sun. I do not know enough about Meyer’s religious beliefs to comment intelligently, and I am hoping to research a little more b/f I read New Moon, but I am concerned that there is a mentality that white=beautiful, which leads me to worry that anything else isn’t worthy. I wouldn’t be so worried if I didn’t already know of the upcoming conflict (this incredible conflict, I can’t wait for some conflict that I read on t-shirts everywhere) b/t Edward and Jacob, whose name happens to be Black, who happens to be Native American, and knowing that authors rarely ever do anything on accident, I am concerned at the message that Meyer is putting out there about Natives and other POC. If white truly does = perfection beyond human comprehension, then what are we left to believe that she would have young adults believe about anyone who is not as pale as the moon?
I am sure that there is excitement of equal or lesser value awaiting me…
Your thoughts?
Combined Twilight blogging here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
my thoughts? thanks for doing this so I don’t have to read teh book or see the movie
Well, Pido, I should add that while this isn’t The Worst Book Evah (as I previously mentioned, I did not finish The Vampire LeStat, and someone once gave me a book called Captivated, which I can not bring myself to read), but it was seriously The Worst Movie Evah. Please see my review. Although, if you can see it when a bunch of fankids are seeing it, go w/ someone else who might be willing to laugh at it too…good times.
I am concerned that there is a mentality that white=beautiful, which leads me to worry that anything else isn’t worthy.
I preface this by saying I am no expert, but the takedown of the books by the former Mormon that I read indicated that this is actually a very very prevalent theme in Mormonism. So…you’re not imagining the connection.
Could you please link to the takedown of the books by the former mormon that you are referring to?! I’m incredibly interested in reading that.
Sure, I can’t be absolutely sure, but this is one that I know of, which I found rather amusing (despite some areas I found a little problematic, but what am I going to find that isn’t, really?).
Take it w/ a grain of salt, and enjoy.
Of course no one drinks coffee- it has caffeine and Mormons don’t drink caffeine.
The comment on the continual use of “white” and “pale” etc… is really interesting. Llencelyn is right, though, there is a deep racist undertone to Mormonism. I think it’s probably another way Mormonism has influenced the books.
Not only is there that very obvious connection of white to perfection, her POC characters end up being werewolves.
no, no racist dog whistles there.
not in the least.
/snark
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The conflation of whiteness with goodness grates on me not only because it alienates people of different ‘races’ (I use quotation marks because I don’t believe these are easily defineable) and implies that people who are non-white are bad, but that it also encourages racialism (I think that’s the word, correct me if I’m wrong) within a group of people, with paleness within one’s group being seen as an ideal. Whilst the former is more noticeable and more extreme (and rightly gets attention), I think the latter is also important, because it feeds into racism. If someone is encouraged to feel bad and other for not looking that little bit paler, where does it leave those of a completely different skin colour?
Here the point is because Bella (I’m assuming she’s white because she was in the film, and because I expect someone would have mentioned her being a WOC) fetishises Edward’s whiteness as being a part of his perfection. whilst I’m sure people can talk about him being a corpse and no doubt of some Celtic stock or other, why is it assumed that all white people come in two shades: pale and super-almost-snow-white? I’m just irritated that pure snowy whiteness is always played up, but never with the accompanying rosyness or blotchyness or freckles. Or that you can’t have white people who are just average white, or a little olive complected, or hell, Mediterranean-looking. It’s really bizarre that when skin tone is mentioned in reference to someone being white, it’s always to a pure snowyness that really doesn’t represent most people. It’s just a little too convenient that vampire = perfect white skin = shinysparkly = sex god.
But, more importantly there don’t seem to be any POC vampires (I’d love there to have been some, or vampries who are anything other than pure snowy white, cos that cliche gets old FAST), and since the vampires seem to be the default ‘heroes/good guys’ it’s quite worrying that the POC in the series are literally always the ‘other’ the Werewolves playing a secondary role. This could have been played to effect as a moral about racism, but that requires sensitivity to these themes.
And as for the coffee: I think it necessary to put it in in passing for the same reason I’d find it unusual if no characters smoke: writing a story is like painting a picture, you have to make an effort to add detail that makes it look believable. Whilst I’m not personally enamoured of either, a series where neither is even present in the background would break my suspension of disbelief because it wouldn’t feel real. Part of writing a world is writing characters that wouldn’t necessarily act the way you do, or would agree with.
Ha ha…I made the coffee comment b/c I couldn’t think of a clever title for this post, but yes, that was the point I was trying to make!
Laruent is supposed to be darker, which is convenient since he is of ambiguous morality at this point in the story. In the book he is olive toned, but in the movie he is black. That kind of didn’t sit well w/ me when all the ‘good’ vampires were the whitest white ever.
Then there is the issue w/ the Native Americans, which I will get into more when I blog NM, having just finished it. Meyer talks about how her beliefs heavily influencer her writing. Then I read where high up prophets preach things like “be sure to marry Native women off w/ white men so they can have lighter children who will be more delightful”, and see pictures from said prophets comparing the children w/ their darker and less “delightful” parents. I am not saying all of Mormonism is racist, I know many incredible and wonderful Mormons who would be appalled at such things, but I get the feeling of dark= not delightful, and white being perfect, which falls in line w/ the whitewashing attitude of that prophet.
I am going to talk more about this later, but it has been grating on me again and again. Authors don’t do anything on accident.
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