Twilight: Exercises in Irrational Thought (Media Meditation #1)

Can I please just rant about Twilight for a moment? Because I have some things I need to get off my chest.



I don’t know why these four books (Twlight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn) by Stephanie Meyer have jumped to the top of bestsellers lists time and time again. I don’t know why the movies based on these books are the most anticipated films of the year. I don’t understand this fascination with wimpy, emo vampires and the mortal girls they abuse.

I refused to buy the books or even borrow them from my local library. Instead, I read them online. All four books. In a week. All I can say is that if this is the sort of mindless drivel being consumed by (mainly) young women across the country, then we might as well be traveling back to 1950 and pretending that feminism never happened.

One persuasive technique that pervades this entire franchise is big lie. Twilight wants you to feed on the illusion that you can have a beautiful, romantic vampire to call your very own. Sure, he watches you while you sleep, controls who you can be friends with, makes most decisions for you and distances you from your family, but those are all lower-level concerns. The higher-level concern being, of course, OMG HE’S A SEXXI VAMP.

I also love the character of Bella, and how poorly developed she is. Despite the fact that back in Arizona she was persona non grata, once she moves to honky little Forks she’s immediately the hottest thing since fire. Excessively modest and self-deprecating, either Bella just doesn’t own a mirror or the guys in Forks are desperate for fresh meat. She has multiple guys vying for her attention, including the ever mysterious Edward Cullen (cue drool). The only distinguishing trait about her is perhaps her ever-present clumsiness. Constantly hurting herself like the delicate little flower she is, she simply inspires Edward to ‘protect’ her.

So, ladies, fall down a few flights of stairs and get the man of your dreams.

This entire Twilight phenomenon represents a complete epistemological shift. The sad thing is that this shift is evident just in the book, where words should be the most important thing. Now, I like a book with language that can describe a setting or person. I value that sort of writing, truly, I do. I do not value it at all if all that is being described is how freaking beautiful Edward is, what shade of khakis he is wearing that day, and just how piercing his eyes were in math class. This goes double if this level of mooning happens on every other page. Once it gets to this point, my gag reflex starts acting up. Lines like this run rampant:

I vividly remembered the flat black color of his eyes the last time he’d glared at me — the color was striking against the background of his pale skin and his auburn hair. Today, his eyes were a completely different color: a strange ocher, darker than butterscotch, but with the same golden tone.

And even better, this unforgettable scene:

Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn’t get used to it, though I’d been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.

Really? This is what gets published these days? It’s all fluff and grand, romantic statements that just sound trite. These are also clear example of hyperbole. In case you weren’t clear on Edward’s otherworldly beauty, they’ll go over it in increasingly flowery language later on.

And for those who can’t even bear to read these simple, formulaic books, now you have movies!



I know that this development “results in enormous movie rights revenues for the book industry and its authors” (pg. 328), and that just gets under my skin in this case. Stephanie Meyer slapped down all her pubescent fantasies on a sheet of computer paper and she’s getting rich off of it.

Twilight doesn’t require you to think very much. If fact, neocortical stimulation is the last thing on Meyer and Summit Entertainment’s minds. They are all about the limbic brain. While the development of Edward and Bella’s intense relationship isn’t well mapped (why do they like each other again? Oh, yeah, Bella thinks Edward is hot and Edward literally wants to eat Bella), you are very aware of how much in love they are from their protestations of affection and extended make-out sessions. You aren’t supposed to think of the vaguely abusive nature of the relationship, the way that they literally describe each other as their “personal brand of heroin” and the way that Bella becomes so utterly dependent on Edward’s shifting moods. It’s all about the emotion, and how that resonates in the limbic brain.

Edward is a fan of saying things like this:

Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason… And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.

I know that most girls out there were swooning over this passage (and every other melodramatic, self-pitying remark Edward makes), but if a guy ever tried to woo me with such an extended metaphor I would kick him in the shin and run away.

In a perfect world, this is how Edward would be dealt with: