seperis | joy cometh in the morning

My son asked to read Twilight.

I don't know about anyone else, but my week just got exponentially better. However, I have learned a valuable lesson today; cackling hysterically when I see the book in his hands is apparently not at all reassuring.

The only way this day could be better is if someone dropped a dozen Maltese puppies on the front porch. Any minute now. I'm waiting.

My life? Good.

You know how the cover of USA weekly is Twilight? My mother is all 'I thought you would like that, since it's about vampires.' So, I explained about the sparkliness, the gender issues, the bad writing, and she winced. What made me giggle was her saying incredulously 'sparkly vampires? Okay, not your thing.'

Yeah, vampires DO NOT SPARKLE LIKE MY LITTLE PONIES (which was the comparison I made).

The movie comes out on, uh, Thursday or Friday (the 21st). You should take him to see it.

Also, I think I still have electronic copies of all the other books. If you want them or something. *whistles innocently*

I have them all unfortunately. I was weak! It was hard to resist!

I would like them, if that's ok?

Perhaps their TRUE LOVE will be an inspiration to him. I know it was for me.

*skips away while scattering rose petals*

My hopes are unending he will learn of true love like this.

I feel like this should be asked... inspiration to what, exactly? *suspicious look*

(You know, this is making me wonder if those books (and so many others) shouldn't come with a warning sticker. 'Readers! Stalking is illegal. And so are many other things within.' And maybe a 'this is your brain on sparkles' kind of picture.)

(Of course, as the internet keeps reminding me lately, in a little while the world is going to be run by the kids who grew up on Twilight, so possibly Romantic Stalkage won't be illegal for too long.)

I'm debating reading it myself. For the sole purpose of rightious indignation and irritability. It is just there, waiting for me with sparkles!

*nods seriously* You should. It will sparkle at you.

After Thanksgiving. I've got 3 Lackey novels to take to FL with me for Thanksgiving, and I think that Twilight can't compete.

AHAHAHAHA

I am easily made happy.

Well,

*is dubious*

you could have the truly horrifying experience, as do I, of having a child with absolutely no sense of irony, who takes these books very, very seriously.

She has read them to the point of memorization.

I try very, very hard to keep a straight face when confronted with the Edward-love.

I am trying to decide what reaction I want out of him. Either one works for me on a personal satisfaction level.

So are we rooting for him to get all the way to Breaking Dawn just for the inevitable mental scarring that would result?

Oh hell yes. If I had to read it, he should have to read it. His horror will be like chocolate.

I dazzle all on my own!

hee. If he writes little evil comments in the corner of the book, I really want to hear them, please.

I would be deeply amused. *glee*

Though I'm not a fan of the books I'm deeply amused that the Child wants to read it. =D

I can't wait read your commentary on his reaction!

Psst, also, if you could get him hooked on Jim Butcher's Dresden Files? I'll flail in glee like a flaily thing.

He watched the show, but I should get him the books. Hmm.

Ooooh! *flails in excitement already*

And the prequel graphic novel. It rocks.

B

The books are better. Much, much better. [I shall just ignore that Dresden seemed to have found religion for a while.]

Puppies make everything better!

But it would be hard to improve on this particular delight.

It really *would* be. *mulls*

a dozen Maltese puppies on the front porch.

You are totally going over the edge. I fear for your sanity.

There was supposedly a big deal for the whole Twilight thing at the Mall of America this weekend. Reading the fine print, the tweens were supposed to by a $30 shirt from Hot Topic to get a wristband to stand in line to possibly meet the cast. Really, that says it all.

My boys are (thankfully) not interested, yet. They saw the movie preview and asked why everyone was wearing so much makeup and why it looked like a music video.

ahahahahahahahhaha

please to be posting reactions. XD

I haven't read Twilight, but I'm vicariously amused.

(Also, holy CRAP is Benton Fraser hot in that icon.)

I think the thing all the poo-pooers over the "Twilight" series miss is that if it's got kids chewing their way through books, it's a good thing. And it opens the door to OTHER books, along the lines of "If you liked that, try THIS!"

I think that this would be true if Twilight didn't express some really terrible views on gender--especially for girls--alongside some truly horrendous writing. This is a little like saying that reading tabloids should be encouraged because it might someday open the door to reading the Economist.

Or maybe I'm just bitter because I sat down to read Twilight wanting to like it only to find out that it was unbearably bad.

Flowers in the Attic didn't lead to mass brother/sister incest, and the books are worse female role-modeling than Twilight could dream of. VC Andrews, Johanna Lindsay, Virginia Henley, and Catherine Coulter still sell out hugely, and that doesn't even count either Harlequin or the true bodice-ripper rape novels that do a decent sale percentage considering most of them are utter and complete dreck.

This is weirding me out.

I'm not saying something drastic at all like reading incest will make incest okay or that people who enjoy reading about rape actually condone rape--that's a long and drawn out debate within slash fandom itself (and Dusk Darkling's meta or moderated discussions are a great place to jump into more of that).

What I'm saying is that my opinion--as a university student who reads during most of her free time and all of her studying time--that all reading is not made equal. I'll be the first to admit that I *love* my trashy books: I still painfully read Laurell K. Hamilton because I loved some of the early characterization even though her books have devolved into badly written Mary Sue smut. But I don't kid myself that this is the same as reading quality literature.

Additionally, having had the double experience of being in fandom and being in high school, I think that sometimes we forget that not everyone is exposed to the same ideas of female empowerment that we are. I only escaped a hell hole of a public high school a handful of years ago, and I cringe at the idea of another legion of girls being fed the idea that being a submissive, stupid female is the way to be attractive. I think that a good amount of young people nowadays aren't equipped with the analytical facilities they need to separate these kind of media/social messages with reality. And again, I think that the assumption that any reading is good reading is a false one. I was surrounded by vapid girls who had been reading their way through whole Seventeen magazines since middle school but you bet they weren't any better for it.

I don't know. I learned how to not blind myself with liquid eyeliner from Seventeen, and how to ask someone out on a date. I'll argue the societal value of both the make-up tips and how to assert yourself when you're interested in someone.

The book will not change anyone. The values instilled by parents, the modeling they do, the people that they expose their daughter to, model the behavior. If there's a rush of girls who do in fact seem to embrace this, they embraced it far before these books were written and would hae whether or not they exist, because that was what they were taught to value in their homes already. Blaming the book has been a catch-cry for far too long from conservatives; that liberals are picking it up becomes troubling. We might as well go back to blaming video games for violent crime instead of discovering what in the child's life has led them to already view those values as acceptable.

I'm not sure if you're implying that I said that this book will change anyone or that I'm blaming the book for making girls the way they are, because I don't think that's true at all. This is not a matter or liberals and conservatives in the way I'm arguing, and I think it's an inflammatory move to try to make it one.

I agree that girls who embrace this would do that regardless of whether they read the books are true or not because almost everything around them, as you say, models that behavior and tells them this is the ideal way to be. I just also happen to think that just as much as they have the right to idolize these images, I have the right to deride them. Twilight just happens to couple some of the most atrocious writing I've come across with some pretty insulting treatments of gender in such a seemingly innocuous way and I'm pretty embarrassed for these girls when I see the level of worship they're giving these really terribly-made books.

As for Seventeen, I have to say that in middle school it made me feel weird about not wearing make up every day and that it was all about how we should be getting guys to pay attention to us--not that intelligence and capability was more important than having that popular guy think that you're hot.

It's not inflammatory unless I state that you yourself are embracing a conservative ideology--the inborn weakness of women and their minds and their inability to make decisions--as a liberal value encased in feminism. I'm saying that it's a book, and like a cigar, that's sometimes all it is, and the constant and consistent worrying about poor little girls minds smacks of the same level of paternalism that also used to be used to explain the reason women shouldn't be allowed to read.

You certainly have the right to deride twelve year old girls for not being adults whose experiences and education have changed their interests and their mindset. You can deride a toddler for not having hand-eye coordination as well. I certainly don't think you should abrogate your right to mock anyone at any stage of their development and what is important/interesting to them at that time. I reserve the right to be both sickened and amused by the wholesale mockery of young girls, especially from women who somehow forget that adolescence is nothing, nothing like adulthood in any way.

To codicil that, extreme behavior is always to be mocked. But a group fo girls sitting around muttering about the hotness of Edward is low on my mockery scale, I have to admit.

You're also ignoring the fact that it's not just twelve year old girls reading these books. It's mothers and other adult women, not to mention the huge [male] LDS leadership recommending this to their girls. This is not just young girls I'm deriding but an entire network of adults who are willing to push this idea of femininity on young girls.

I come from a big family with a tough love mindset. I guess it's a character flaw that I want kids younger than me to be able to call bullshit on some of the things society tells them they should like or be. Like I said, I love some awesomely trashy novels, but I'm able to step back and say definitively that this is not the ways things are.

I should explain that I'm not coming to this debate as a parent at all--as an older sister, you bet that mocking stupidity is a huge part of my job.

I will agree there; I find it extremely disturbing when adult women openly embrace these values outside of a fantasy. That never stops freaking me out on a variety of levels that I can't even deal without a few thousand words and a vague wish I could give the gift of therapy this holiday season. *shudders*

Whoa, that was longer than I thought. Just wanted to add that, incidentally, I started reading my way through everything VC Andrews wrote when I was in elementary school (In secret! They were so racy!). Thankfully, I moved on.

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That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
Wow. That was scary. Lex is like Jesus in the desert.
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Obi-Wan has a sort of desperate, pathetic patience in this movie. You can just see it in his eyes: "My padawan is a psychopath, and no one will believe me; I'm barely keeping him under control and expect to wake up any night now to find him standing over my bed with a knife!"
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Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
Jenn: Because you are an addict.
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silverkyst: I need to not be taking molecular genetics.
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