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:

In the Beginning, there was this Blog

Hey, everyone, and welcome to my first blog post. My name's Emma, and I'm from Westfield, Massachusetts. You've probably never heard of it, and that's lucky for you! It's all tobacco farms and bowling alleys out there.

This past summer, I had a fantastic media experience in the form of the new Star Trek film. It was one of the most exciting, inspiring, and affecting films I've ever seen.



This movie total redefined and revitalized what was an old, campy franchise and made it relevant to today's society. Plus, Chris Pine was in it.



21st century media is exciting because of the wide variety and accessibility offered. There's no limits to media exposure. It's ever present in our society. This can also be a drawback, and the inundation of media influences can be nauseating and annoying. This is especially true about pop-up ads on the internet!

For my professional future, I plan to be a writer. It's hard to detail precisely what type of writer I will be, because the publishing industry is undergoing a complete renovation. I hope to publish novels, but whether they will be bound books or ebooks is yet to be seen.

In Chapters 1-4, I have encountered many important concepts, but some of them definitely stand out. In Chapter 1, I was very interested by the theory that popular media is distracting from the fine arts. I liked this concept because it's an issue that concerns me as well. Though I cannot claim to be an authority on art, I do know what I like and what I would like to see appreciated for years to come. For example, classical works of art, the likes of which can be seen at the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Chapter 2, I was most interested in "cookies" and the ability to track people's browsing histories. I was alarmed at how invasive the internet could be. In Chapter 3, I loved learning about the evolution of sound recording, and how we went from this:



to this:



In Chapter 4 I explored the concept of nonprofit radio, and how that medium allowed for so much freedom of expression, but also invited many political and financial issues. Nonprofit radio is very intriguing to me after reading Chapter 4.

I am progressing well with the four tool sets. I am fully versed on the triune brain, but other tool sets are not as clear. The 8 trends are the ones that give me the most trouble, because the vocabulary of the shifts and the specifics of each one sometimes escape me.

The other two tools sets, the 7 principles and the 29 TOPs, are much less confusing and more easily phrased. They are easier for me to remember.

I hope that through this course I will be able to answer my questions concerning foreign media. For example, the differences between American and Japanese media, and the way that separate societies respond to their media.