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

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I have seen a bunch of "kids shouldn't be reading this". I really would have more credibility on that front if I went and found it and linked it up, but I admit a lot of the Twilight discussions just blur at this point.

(Also, I admit my values are at times old-fashioned, but I think it would be perfectly awesome if lightning came down from the sky to inform you that you'd hooked up with bigamists.)

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

I think it would be perfectly awesome if lightning came down from the sky to inform you that you'd hooked up with bigamists.

AGREED!

[amy34.livejournal.com]

I've seen people express the opinion that the books are bad for kids--I've expressed that opinion myself--but I haven't seen anyone suggest they should be banned. That's because the people who think these books are toxic are the very ones who support free speech and oppose book banning. The book-banning crowd tends to favor this book.

The problem with this book isn't that it's a romance. It isn't that it conflates sex and violence. It isn't that the writing is bad, and it isn't that the protagonist is a Mary Sue. That problem is it's misogynistic. The author punishes her female protagonist whenever she shows initiative and does something independent (by making bad things happen, which Edward rescues her from), and rewards her for being passive and obedient to her boyfriend. The book's message is, "Girls, you are too weak and stupid to make your own decisions, so find a man to make your decisions for you." I don't care for this message being aimed at 13-year-old girls. That isn't an age known for particularly high self esteem. And it's a vulnerable age.

Given that I'm opposed to censorship--as are most people who are in favor of free agency and kids' steering their own course in life, which is exactly what this book opposes for girls--the only way I can attempt to counter this book's ugly message is to talk about it. So that's what I do. I've been talking about misogyny in Twilight long before it became fashionable to do so. Early on, nobody agreed with me (or they hadn't heard of the book). Then Breaking Dawn came out, the backlash happened (apparently the misogyny became much more obvious in later books--I don't know because I stopped reading after the first one), and now I find support for my view all over the place. I don't think there's anything wrong with people mocking these books and objecting to the message in them. That's just how free speech works.