I am completely and humiliatingly absorbed in the fourth of the Twighlight saga novels by Stephanie Meyer that were supposed to be for teenage girls. The phenomenon of the aforementioned saga, that they are wildly popular among women over 30. The story of Bella, the 17-year-old girl, goes like this. She falls in love with Edward. He turns out to be a vampire. But he's a good vampire. He and his "family," or coven, don't eat people. They hunt animals to satisfy their thirst and leave humans alone. Meanwhile, Jacob, Bella's "best friend" who is in love with her, is a werewolf.
Enticing, huh? SSMG hasn't said a word to me in days, since I started reading this nonsense.
Why the attraction? Well, first off, we all remember those days, 17 years old, when we were head over heels stricken with infatuation for the best looking boy in the class, and could only dream that he would ever talk to us. Imagine if he actually fell in love with us? That's pretty cool. Bella is the damsel in distress. The feminist contradiction is that we can take care of ourselves, we're independent, we should have equal rights and all that, but we still love the idea of the knight in shining armor coming to our rescue. Hell, maybe even men love that idea.
Bella is a klutz with not much common sense or backbone and she really seems to have a hard time taking care of herself. But she's pretty and quiet and the boys find that enticing. She claims not to notice that every boy in her new school thinks she's the hottest thing to ever walk their halls. Her overriding oblivion is terribly annoying and leads to her feigning feeling badly about her mistreatment of them. She wants them around, but she doesn't want them, you know? All she wants is Edward, the guy no one can have because he's so gorgeous. Shit, I can name a handful of women I know who are just like Bella, and it annoys the hell out of me. Look, if you're not interested, let the damn guys go! Have the good will to let them move on! Anyway, I digress because I see it way too often even among women of my advanced age. You can't be friends ladies! It doesn't work that way, someone gets hurt!
Back to the vampires. Edward and Jacob have declared it to be their life's mission to protect Bella and ensure her safety and happiness for all time. (She needs two? Can't share?) For the vampire, in particular, that's a pretty long time. As the story progresses Bella gets more and more passive and accepting that she has no choice but to love Edward and spend her life with him. She proceeds to have "no choice" in a lot of things. Like delivering the vampire baby that almost kills her because she has "no choice" but to love him. (He turns out to be a "she" by the way which, initially, is a terrible disappointment for Bella who really wanted a mini-Edward baby.)
Bella wants to be "changed" into a vampire because the vampires are all beautiful, and if she's beautiful too, she can feel worthy of Edward's love. Her worst fear is that she's going to grow old and wrinkly while Edward stays young and beautiful. Let me tell you something Bella. We do grow old and wrinkly to the point where botox doesn't do a damn thing and our boobs hang down to our belly button to the point where no bra is supportive enough and no one notices us anymore. That's the reality. Fucking deal with it!
Ahem.
Bella's a nightmare, and we hate her and what she says about women, but we keep reading because a little part of us wishes we were her. Stephanie Meyer is a bit of a genius. As much as we "writers" strive to be literary geniuses, we've got it all wrong. It doesn't take a writer, it takes a recipe. And the damsel in distress, knight in shining armor is a tasty one indeed.
Enticing, huh? SSMG hasn't said a word to me in days, since I started reading this nonsense.
Why the attraction? Well, first off, we all remember those days, 17 years old, when we were head over heels stricken with infatuation for the best looking boy in the class, and could only dream that he would ever talk to us. Imagine if he actually fell in love with us? That's pretty cool. Bella is the damsel in distress. The feminist contradiction is that we can take care of ourselves, we're independent, we should have equal rights and all that, but we still love the idea of the knight in shining armor coming to our rescue. Hell, maybe even men love that idea.
Bella is a klutz with not much common sense or backbone and she really seems to have a hard time taking care of herself. But she's pretty and quiet and the boys find that enticing. She claims not to notice that every boy in her new school thinks she's the hottest thing to ever walk their halls. Her overriding oblivion is terribly annoying and leads to her feigning feeling badly about her mistreatment of them. She wants them around, but she doesn't want them, you know? All she wants is Edward, the guy no one can have because he's so gorgeous. Shit, I can name a handful of women I know who are just like Bella, and it annoys the hell out of me. Look, if you're not interested, let the damn guys go! Have the good will to let them move on! Anyway, I digress because I see it way too often even among women of my advanced age. You can't be friends ladies! It doesn't work that way, someone gets hurt!
Back to the vampires. Edward and Jacob have declared it to be their life's mission to protect Bella and ensure her safety and happiness for all time. (She needs two? Can't share?) For the vampire, in particular, that's a pretty long time. As the story progresses Bella gets more and more passive and accepting that she has no choice but to love Edward and spend her life with him. She proceeds to have "no choice" in a lot of things. Like delivering the vampire baby that almost kills her because she has "no choice" but to love him. (He turns out to be a "she" by the way which, initially, is a terrible disappointment for Bella who really wanted a mini-Edward baby.)
Bella wants to be "changed" into a vampire because the vampires are all beautiful, and if she's beautiful too, she can feel worthy of Edward's love. Her worst fear is that she's going to grow old and wrinkly while Edward stays young and beautiful. Let me tell you something Bella. We do grow old and wrinkly to the point where botox doesn't do a damn thing and our boobs hang down to our belly button to the point where no bra is supportive enough and no one notices us anymore. That's the reality. Fucking deal with it!
Ahem.
Bella's a nightmare, and we hate her and what she says about women, but we keep reading because a little part of us wishes we were her. Stephanie Meyer is a bit of a genius. As much as we "writers" strive to be literary geniuses, we've got it all wrong. It doesn't take a writer, it takes a recipe. And the damsel in distress, knight in shining armor is a tasty one indeed.
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