to agree that Twilight has set feminism back by 10 years?

[ThatVikRinA22]

i loved Buffy, ended up having to buy all the series on DVD despite being in my 30's! Buffy was a strong female kick ass kinda girl. i loved the series, the characters. i got totally hooked along with the whole family. i felt sort of lost when we got to the finale.

so it was with interest i watched Twilight and New Moon with my teenage dd....

now i can sort of understand why women like the twilight thing....all dark and brooding, but purlease....does Bella really need 'protecting' by a vampire and werewolf who fight over her? while she sits and simpers?

id rather DD watch buffy.

'-being that intense at 17 is normal. because when you're 17, you definately know what you want for the rest of your life.'

don't all 17 year olds know everything there is to know about life? I certainly did when I was 17 (I was wrong obviously). The stuff in the second book about how she feels when he dumps her is a complete teenage melodrama.

I've only read 2 books on recommendations of friends who went on and on about how great it is and how romantic the relationship is. I just can't see it. She's such a pathetic wimpy girl she deserves to get her head bitten off.

I am also very irked by the fact that in the second book she only starts to feel better about her life when she receives attention from another adoring male. Get some self respect girl.

YANBU Yes it is a story but young girls can be influenced by what they read. I don't like the idea that if you want to have sex then you should get married at 18 to me thats a terrible idea.
And yes I do know that people can make life long commitments very young my parents have been together since they were 15 years old.

The point is that Edward is from 1901 and so has 'old fashioned' values and in fairness to SM Bella spends a lot of time thinking what a daft idea it is to get married.

Exactly but she gives into her own ideals in order to please him and take their relationship to the next stage.

It seems to me that everything has to be analysed to the nth degree.
What has feminism got to do with a fiction novel.
Stephanie Meyer is a fantastic talent and Bella is true to herself.
Lighten up.

Fantastic talent. Really?

I find Edward and Bella's relationship to be rather disturbing but that doesn't bother me as much as the books themselves which are very badly written and tedious imho.
I've never managed to make it past the first one and I struggled to finish it.I didn't enjoy it at all.

Here's the thing. SM wrote the books for teenaged girls. Of course bloody middle aged women aren't supposed to like it. SM could never have guessed you lot would read it.

It's not supposed to be a work of literary fiction fit for the Booker.

Teenaged girls love it, so it has hit its mark.It completely emcompasses what it is to be romatically silly and obsessed. SM has achieved what she intended to do.

middle aged?

Remembering my own teen reading I think it would be possible to portray girls being romantic and obsessed with men who do not show quite so many abusive traits. Just a thought.

And why does everyone sniff and say 'oh it's badly written.' What does that even mean?

Are there some rules of writing I don't know about and if you break them you become 'badly written.'

An author tells a story, no more no less. If the author communicates that story as she intended it to be and her target audience gets it, then she has achieved what she wants and that, to my mind, is good writing. If it was badly written her audience ( which is not us ffs) wouldn't buy it.

I don't believe an artist has any moral duty to convey any particular message.
All they can do is tell their story truthfully. This is SM's truth.

Fraid so GOML.

SM wrote the book for girls aged between 10 and 15. She never intended to commune with us lot, didn't write it for us.

Tis the curse of the crossover novel.

YANBU. I could skim over the shit heroine, the strangely sexless hero, the lack of real plot lines and the obvious 'twists'. What I can't forgive are the endless repetitions. Is Edward cold? Is he glacial, eh? A bit parky? Is his skin like ice maybe?

I'm not middle aged.

There is a skill to the construction of good prose, just as there is a skill to painting or playing the guitar or cooking. And not all teen girls admire her writing: my 13yo (with ambitions of her own to be a writer) thinks her prose is awful.

Imo while an author doesn't have the responsibility to preach a certain message, she does still have a responsibility for the values portrayed in her books. Most of us would be a bit at books that portrayed e.g. neo-nazism or bullying as a cool and positive thing.

What worries many people about these books is that it portrays as positive a love affair with a man who shows many traits typical of your average domestic abuser (controlling, given to sudden violent rages, trying to cut girl off from family and friends). It is well known that girls who have themselves been brought up by abusive fathers are more likely to marry abusers because they think this behaviour is somehow normal. Now, noone believes that a book would have anything like the same influence, but I think there is still a risk that it might normalise incipient abusive behaviour to an extent where a girl might not realise that a RL boyfriend who does show signs of controlling is actually abnormal and totally uncool.

There are numerous bloody awful badly written books out there which are very popular.

Mr Blobby got to no 1. It doesn't mean it was a good song.

Oh, that's right! Jacob is hot! And Edward is cold! They're, like, extremes.

Oh, and 'New Moon'? I wanted Bella to jump off a cliff. The whole book was like reading teenage angst poetry.

Now you just need a thesaurus! You too could be a world famous writer of books!