Two Questions...

[leahbobet]

...both spawned by the never-ending parade of posts about how terrible Twilight is.*

1) So two major YA series hit big in the last ten years: Twilight and Harry Potter. In the early part of each series, you saw what can be charitably called low production values in terms of craft, plots that revolved around blatant wish-fulfillment, and wholesale rips of the tropes of already established subgenres. Potter is the poster child for mainstream acceptance. Twilight is excoriated regularly in newspapers, the internets, and local bookstores in reenactments of the Five Minutes' Hate.

What's the difference? What causes that?

I have my own theory, but I want to hear yours.


2) Where do people get the idea that exposing a child to a worldview or idea at all means the child will automatically agree with, adopt, and adhere to that worldview or idea?

Really, peoples. You met kids?


*Haven't read it, not gonna, no opinion on the matter.

Comments

[csinman.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious. Well, Mormons are my favorite Christians--I find them a fascinating anthropological phenomenon. Whether or not there's any mind-stealing, I think it certainly explains why the MC's entire objective is to snag herself a man!

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that's entirely subjective. What I read of Potter (maybe a third of the first book?) I found poorly written and imagined -- which is to say that's more to do with what kind of reader you are, what you want from a book, than any essential quality of the book itself.

Clearly enough people found both a rich fantasy world that fit their reading needs -- they both sold huge amounts of copies. And anecdotally, we had several very broad and intelligent teenage readers who were store regulars who utterly flipped out over Twilight -- clearly it met a need for them.

What I'm hoping to get at is why the general discourse seems to feel as you said: that Twilight is some kind of evil.

[redplum.livejournal.com]

Well, on the Mormon thing, fundamentalist Mormons have been in the news a lot in the last few years in the U.S. because of the pedophilia/sexual abuse/forced marriage/polygamy scandals related to Warren Jeffs, et al. So a lot of people are probably more sensitized to issues of sex and power coming from a Mormon author than they would be if she were, say, Lutheran. (And a lot -- maybe the majority -- of non-Mormon Christians in the U.S. don't consider Mormons to be Christians at all, given the different scriptures, etc.)

As to the main question, most of the concern I've seen has to do with two things: 1.) the sex and power relationships in Twilight strike many people as obviously troubling, and 2.) a lot of Twilight fans are more Edward-fans than fans of the series as a world. I'd say it's more comparable to the reactions of adolescent girls to Elvis, or to boy-bands, than to the more heterogeneous passions of Harry Potter fans. There's a lot of "Edward Cullen has spoiled me for real men! I'll never love anyone but Edward!" going around; a friend of mine who's a high-school teacher and teen bookseller hasn't ever seen anything like it. I think the sexual passions of young girls tend to freak people out for several reasons, including a generalized disapproval of young female sexuality and a more specific disapproval when said sexuality when directed at a character many readers consider to be borderline abusive or otherwise troubling.

Admittedly, most of the anti-Twilight essays I've read have been fairly moderate.

I'm really interested in your take.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

D'you think it's too far off to call The Wonder Years a bit of a Magical Girlfriend Series?

(Admittedly, I don't remember all of it well.)

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I am not the reader for Dara Joy's books, though I know a few people who are hugely fond of them. They're all-romantic-conflict, all-the-time, but I get the impression that the female protagonists protag like crazy.

Weirdly, Clare Abshire in The Time Traveler's Wife doesn't protag at all, but that story totally worked for me and had me in tears by the end. I was okay with letting it be a story about Henry and his profound weirdness, I think because his weirdness causes a lot of problems for him, and the story's really about finding as much happiness as one can in the face of Fate What Completely Fucking Hates You. In this case, happiness takes the shape of love, marriage and parenthood, which I was surprisingly okay with, perhaps because in that story, all three are under threat in a way that they totally aren't in a typical romance novel. In a typical romance novel, the threat to lasting happiness comes from factors internal to the characters, but as a reader you know that five pages from the end the characters will have overcome (or, more likely, completely discarded) those internal factors and everyone will live Happily Ever After. In The Time Traveler's Wife there's no such guarantee -- the conflict is driven by something entirely internal to Henry, but it's also entirely not under his control and something he has no way of getting rid of. The shotgun's on the mantelpiece from the very beginning of the story, and oh yes, it does go off.

It occurs to me that the supernatural-romance stories I've seen (read: Buffy, anything by Laurel K. Hamilton) pretty much all involve the supernatural protagonist overcoming the negative aspects of his/her supernatural-ness if he/she is to obtain Twu Wuv. It'd be interesting to see a story where the supernatural protagonist just can't. Bonus points to anyone who can do that and also make it not a tragedy. Fewer bonus points to anyone who can make it a tragedy but not follow the hubris model.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

The Twilight series also features seriously warped ideas about gender, sex, and relationships: twenty-something guys "imprint" on little babies (i.e. the children will eventually be their mates), heavy emphasis on abstinence before marriage, a controlling hero and consumed heroine, heroine marries hero and has baby instead of going to college...it's all very retro in very disturbing ways.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Oy. I'd have to watch some of it again to make that call; I think I was maybe twelve when it came on. Winnie certainly came off as Attainable Yet Unattainable Girl, but from what little I recall, the magic of that was the everyday magic of a girl changing from "that girl I rode bikes with all summer" into a woman. Which may very well be sufficient.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I really do need to read that book. I keep hovering over it in bookstores.

[noizangel.livejournal.com]

I've read 'em. I've read Midnight Sun. The icon says it all. The thing that scares me is how close love and violence are linked.

I'll say more maybe, when not working, but I wasn't horrified at first.

I think a big part of it is the writing of both authors - JKR seems to me to have a better grasp of it then Meyer, who seems to reject all 'authorly' type things. After Twilight, the writing goes sharply downhill.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Okay -- why's that dangerous, though, in a way that requires Internet Parents' Association Meetings?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Caveat: I have not read Twilight.

Potter is enjoyable even for an adult. There are levels where it deals with morally complex issues in morally complex ways. Furthermore, the story grows and changes over the course of the seven books, moving from Gary-Stu-but-Fun to a fair degree of thoughtfulness about the price of being a hero. Potter also has an essentially idealistic mindset and message re tolerance, standing up to injustice, sticking by one's friends, etc.

Twilight, from what I hear, has a main character who is essentially a Stupid Teenage Girl (as opposed to a Clever Teenage Girl), and few adults can enjoy that. If one was never a STG, then one certainly hasn't developed more tolerance for it with age. And if one is a former STG, being reminded of it is probably painful rather than entertaining.

That said, my understanding is that Twilight is appealing to many despite the STG behavior--the author does enough hand-waving and other entertainment to make the books enjoyable. I think, however, the implosion came down on the last book because instead of STG becoming capable and smart, she went fully down the STG road; in addition, the melodramatic stuff moved into silly and squicky, and broke the suspension of disbelief.

I suspect that more than one ex-reader of the Anita Blake books now has a trigger point for when a vampire author moves from the interesting to the ludicrous.

Potter never crossed the ludicrous line.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's what they're metaphors for that gets people so upset, actually.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Also, most of us will never be called upon to take a Quest Against Evil. (No, not even the upcoming US presidential election really qualifies; voting is not onerous.)

But most people get involved in romantic relationships of one sort or another in their lives. Twilight cuts closer to home, or at least bangs against a reader's personal experience in a way that Potter doesn't.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I was going to say "if I can find my copy I'd be happy to send it to you", and then I glanced up and saw it staring at me on the bookshelf.

I don't have your address, but I could mail it to the bookstore or something.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

(And a lot -- maybe the majority -- of non-Mormon Christians in the U.S. don't consider Mormons to be Christians at all, given the different scriptures, etc.)

Sorry, I have to pause to tangentially giggle a little. You believe in a dude named Jesus and that he was divine? DING! Christian! We follow the one-drop rule around here!

Okay. Sorry. Done now. *g*

2.) a lot of Twilight fans are more Edward-fans than fans of the series as a world. I'd say it's more comparable to the reactions of adolescent girls to Elvis, or to boy-bands, than to the more heterogeneous passions of Harry Potter fans.

While I agree that there's a lot of boy-band thing going on here, I suspect that's not something eldritch and weird, but merely a side-effect of who the target market is. As you said, same effect as with musicians. Just this time, it's for a character.

Also, I would believe you more about Potter fans if I did not know the utter horror of its fanfic community, sprawled across the internet like a giant pornographic beast, holding flamewars because someone dared dis their OTP. :p

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

(And I suspect I will lay out my take once discussion dies down 'round here.)

[lisamantchev.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I hadn't thought about that aspect of it, but you're exactly right about it feeling more personal that way.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

In re #1, the difference is that Snape is not sparkly. He is greasy. If he were sparkly, I would larf and larf possibly people would opine about it.

(Also, I mean, the latter HP books have been judged somewhat harshly by Yours Truly, but I don't think they ever inspired a review in the Washington Post that ended, "Reader, I hurled." I don't know what happens in books 6 and 7 of the HP series -- not having read them -- but I can't recall their being described as actually sucking. Sloppily edited and overinflated, yes.)

In re #2, the whole idea of exposing children to things in a positive way is that they model the behavior they witness. Not in all ways, and not by any stretch a complete world-view, but... monkey see, monkey do isn't a saying for no reason. So yes, exposing a child to a worldview gives that child the chance to espouse that worldview later on. Where normalizing behavior that is beyond the pale is concerned (wherever you set the pale to be), the chance is more than most prefer to take.

I speak primarily from the perspective of somebody who points and laughs rather than takes the ramparts in these arguments. Although, I have to say, Twilight is SO much more point-and-laughable than HP. Even the excerpts I have managed to subject myself to have included Felonious Abuse of a Thesaurus in the First Degree, to say nothing of "Oh shut up and tell me what happened already, you fulminating author" syndrome. And anyway, it has sparkly vampires and that will never stop being funny.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. Vampires have been eeeeevil incubi out to steal the virtue of our wimmenfolk all the way back to Stoker and Varney the Vampyre. Then you have all those even earlier non-vampire Gothic novels like The Monk.

[redplum.livejournal.com]

Okay. Sorry. Done now. *g*

I'm an atheist living in a city of sin, so no need to apologize in my direction.

I suspect that's not something eldritch and weird, but merely a side-effect of who the target market is.

Yeah, I completely agree. I do think it startles a lot of adults, though. We've come to expect it with musicians, but perhaps not so much with books.

Also, I would believe you more about Potter fans if I did not know the utter horror of its fanfic community, sprawled across the internet like a giant pornographic beast, holding flamewars because someone dared dis their OTP. :p

Actually, I think that sort of strengthens the point I was trying to make. Imagine that 99 out of every 100 adolescent Potter fans, on the internet and off, were obsessed with the same character. I think more adult readers and critics might be more disturbed by HP fandom if that were the case. (I also suspect that online fans represent only a small fraction of the larger HP fandom, though I have no data to back that up.)

I should qualify by saying that nothing I've written here about critical responses quite matches up to my own view of the series.

[csinman.livejournal.com]

From that angle, Potter has the mundane but easily approved message, "Good is better than evil," while Twilight... I think I'd have to read it to really say, but it's certainly not as easy to pinpoint. There's your answer right there!

"I don't know what this means on a deeper level, so I'm going to shit a square kitten on the Internet and forbid my kids from reading anything but my old Bobsey Twins collection."

[erinya.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. :-) I don't represent this Internet Parents Association, nor do they represent me. I wouldn't stop a hypothetical little sister from reading the books, but I'd probably want to talk to her about it afterwards...

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I can say why there is THAT much of an uproar about the books. I read them. I disliked them heartily. But I read them because I fancy myself a future YA writer, and one who writes about female protagonists in a fantasy setting, and those books are immensely popular. The fact that I may find them (as I do) so poorly written as to be annoying (and more so book after book) does not change the fact that teenage girls really liked them. So I thought that I might be able to learn something of value by reading them.

But I don't think they are the biggest EVIL on the planet or the biggest danger EVER to teen girls. I tend to not get all up in arms about teen reading except to the extent that they are NOT reading. I was a teen reader. I read the most "inappropriate" stuff from the age of 10 on, and I seem to have turned out okay. I don't tend to think that groups like PTAs should be getting together to talk of banning books or thinking that they are the worst things that could ever happen to their children.

That said, I am *bothered* by the books and think they are ripe for and should be subject to strong criticism that creates discussion about the stories. The difference for me between the Potter books is that to a large extent the Potter books are about what Harry *does*, while these books are about what is *done* to our heroine. That greater emphasis on being acted upon, *especially* in a female protagonist, bothers me. In, you know, the academic, subject to criticism sort of sense.

Also, I do think there is an emphasis on "Love is Possession" in the Twilight books that ought not to be celebrated in books aimed at tween girls. The conflation of love/ownership/potential for violence/passion, presented without a critical eye but instead almost as something to celebrate, seriously squicks me out.

But this is not something new or unique, right? So many of the romancesI read when I was younger--including those aimed at teens--had this same focus. Or, you know, *Gossip Girl* type TV shows (which I do admit I sometimes watch), or music videos or slasher flicks. The "your boyfriend's crazed jealousy means he loves you" trope is neither new nor unique to Twilight. So while I dislike the books, and I think there is a lot in them to which we could and should apply social/feminist criticism, I'm not about to start a bonfire in my backyard, either.

Sorry this got so long.

[csinman.livejournal.com]

I hope it's okay if I jump in here:

Because Twilight's plot isn't a metaphor, so it's presenting those warped ideas as viable ways to go about relationships?

Potter = Good is better than Bad! (Mundane, but all right.)
Twilight = Barefoot in the kitchen! (Let's shit square kittens.)

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of "Edward Cullen has spoiled me for real men! I'll never love anyone but Edward!" going around

This. Especially, this in re: cristalia's #2 above. I think the freakout is not so much a question of "are the impressionable kids going to see this worldview and adopt it?" as it is "Well, huh, the impressionable kids think Edward Cullen is the most fantastic-est thing ever; is that something we really want?" Not pre-emptive, but reactive.