bethany’s world: The 5 Most Troubling Aspects of Twilight
Read it in full here.
2. Jacob wants to have sex with a child.
I don’t care how you try to deny it, how you try to overlook it, and how I’m about to hear that it’s all about “love” or that I don’t understand. The simple fact of the matter is that the practice of “imprinting” as it exists in these books radically allows for the Mormon practice of young women being given to older men as wives. There is no choice in the matter. If this aspect of the books did not trouble you, because you were so involved in the story, please consider how you would feel if, when your daughter was born, your best friend simply stated that she was to be his for all of eternity? Kind of freaky and a little scary, right? If a man had written this passage into a book, we would be all up in arms calling him a pedophile, but in Meyer’s novels? It’s given a pass? Why is that?
3. Bella is not a heroine. She’s weak.
Book two is about how Bella basically wants to die because Edward has left her. This whole book gives teenage girls the right to languish on their beds for months, even years, instead of moving on with their lives and getting over teenage heartbreak. Contrary to popular (and mostly southern) myth, it is extremely unlikely that you will find your soul mate in high school. Young girls, unfortunately, look up to Bella Swan as an ideal because Edward loves her so much, yet we hear nothing about her grades or what she’s studying in school. She has no desire to go to college - Edward has to fill out her applications for her. She doesn’t want a life or identity away from being Mrs. Edward Cullen.
I saw this image earlier today on tumblr, courtesy of moreapologies.
At first, I was going to claim that Sarah Palin is the worst thing that has happened to feminism. But, no… millions of teenage girls want to be exactly like Bella. She’s a role model. This fact alone is enough to want me to lobotomize half of them. Who cares about Lucy Burns now? Where is Susan B. Anthony? Rosie the Riveter? Hell, what about Hermione Granger? The very character of Bella Swan insists that girls should dumb down and follow the man they love, no matter what.
4. Bella should endure a hard pregnancy that may kill her, because her baby is that important.
This is the big daddy of all of the problems I have with this book. This philosophy alone in a book of this magnitude is teaching our young girls that, no matter what, “life” is absolute. Don’t make the hard decision or care about your own life, your unborn child is far more important, no matter what it costs you. After all, all life is sacrosanct and all women exist to be baby factories. This point alone politicizes this book, and if you try to explain how it turns your stomach, all you get from Twi-hards is, “don’t read anything into the book” or “what is the big deal, it’s just a story?” I guarantee you that if Bella had an abortion because she got pregnant with Edward’s child out of wedlock, this book would be banned faster than you can say “vampire”. Even if she had decided to terminate the pregnancy because it might kill her, this book would have been called into question by Christian groups. However, because it’s just a “story”, we’re not supposed to look past what Meyer is saying about our culture? We’re not supposed to look at Meyer’s agenda, even if it may be subconscious? How is that right? Why does Stephenie Meyer get a pass on her written works, when almost no other author does? Why does this not trouble women who are reading this book?
(via thefistofartemis)
Leaving this here.
I have enjoyed this
Quality
Thu
Jul
8
