Bakerstreet

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has a great day and enjoys their stolen pagan holiday. Oops, sorry, Merry Christmas everyone!

This is going to be another post about the Twilight book series (movie too). No doubt you’ve read my review of the book/movie in a previous post but this will be a more serious look at the story. There are spoilers.

The book is a hit with girls, mostly t’weens and teens, but it also seems to appeal to older women and moms seem to like it, reading it with their daughters. Watching the movie premieres on the TV it seemed that very few boys or men feel the same. I think as a teenager, I might have read the books, mostly because I read a very lot when I was younger, sometimes reading a book a day, taking in maybe three or four a week. I would possibly have read them, But I think I would have liked them less then I did reading them now. There is not much for boys in there really, it should be called ‘The Vampires Who Don’t Do Anything”!

These books lead me to ask some questions, Why do girls/women like the story? Yes, I know women like love stories, which is what this is, but this is a pretty fucked up love story. I’ll ask the question a different way, would you want your seventeen year old daughter to be in love with Edward? Now remember, Edward admits he is a killer. I know, I know, you’re jumping up and down yelling ‘but he only killed bad people’. there are a few things I would point out, he never actually says that he only killed bad people in the first book, he does mention that it was hard to kill just bad people, Does that mean he strayed? he also said that it’s harder at first to control yourself, did he lose control? Other family members had killed before, from what they say it seemed like they all had except for Carlyle.

This also doesn’t even matter anyway, when Bella falls in love with him she thinks he is a vampire, vampires kill people and even though Jacob tells her the story of the ‘good’ vampires, he also says that the tribe doesn’t trust them. She also decides that she loves him no matter what, she has no idea what he is or what he has ever done, he could be a serial killer that thinks he is a vampire. He could just be a psychopath, but she has decided that she loves him. Would you want your seventeen year old to be like Bella? What if Bella had fallen in love with James? What if Edward and family were still out hunting people?  The love story would still be there but would you feel different?

Then there is the matter of age, Bella is seventeen, Edward is over one hundred, yes he looks seventeen but looks don’t matter. Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis may look like kids but they would still be arrested for sleeping with a seventeen year old. Looks matter little, Edward may look young, but he should be far more mature then Bella. Would you want your seventeen year old daughter dating Hugh Heffner, even if he got plastic surgery to look seventeen?

In reality, she isn’t so much in love with him as she is obsessed with him, and can you truly call Edward anything but a stalker? He watches her all the time, going even as far as breaking in to her room every night and following her out of town! If you think that it’s OK because he was in love with her, what about if she didn’t like him?

So what about Edward makes women over look the fact that he’s a killer? Is it the ‘bad boy’ effect? Women tend to like the bad boys even when they won’t admit it. She may be telling her friends the guy is a jerk, but her panties are moistening anyway. Edward would seem to be the perfect bad boy, a killer that doesn’t actually kill, that watches over her, that protects her from harm and that doesn’t want sex.

So is this what we should be teaching teens? Do you really want teen boys thinking that stalking a girl is fine as long as you love (or think you love) her? Not only OK, but even romantic for you to watch her and follow her, even if she doesn’t feel the same, she’ll come around sooner or later. Girls, it doesn’t matter what the guy has done or how he acts, as long as you love him things will work out right? Is this the thinking that has women staying with a man that slaps her around a little? Hey, she loves him right? What’s a few bruises for love.

So what about real bad boys? Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Danny Rollins, Ted Bundy, Scott Peterson and other killers get (or used to get) love letters and marriage proposals. They haven’t killed and will probably never kill again, would you want your seventeen year old obsessed with any of them? What about OJ Simpson, he has had several girlfriends since being found not guilty, and I’m sure other girls would be willing to go out with him too. An adult woman who falls in love with one of these idiots is one thing, but would you want your young daughter to fall for one of them? You can say that Edward is not the same as these killers but that may or may not be true, it’s unclear in the first book whether he killed only bad people, but the fact that she is in love (obsessed with) him before she hears this makes it clear that this doesn’t matter.

Then there is Bella’s willingness to kill herself for Edward. This is another thing we shouldn’t be teaching teens, especially girls. That any guy is worth dying for is stupid. It matters not that he stops her, what matters is her willingness to die to be with him. Are you comfortable with this or as disturbed by it as I was, I don’t think the story would have been hurt if this was not in the book.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love stories and movies that are dark, disturbing, violent and strange. I really wouldn’t have a problem with the books except that they are marketed toward teens. I’m not really one that blames books or games or videos for all the bad in the world, but I do think that teens do notice. T’weens and teens are bombarded with skinny models with big boobs that do affect them and their self esteem. Is telling them that killing yourself or obsessing over a guy a good thing?

What do you think, am I wrong? Maybe my judgement is clouded by the fact that I wouldn’t want my daughter in love with Edward when she is seventeen.

And don’t get me started on the fact that there is no way a dead guy could get a girl pregnant!

WB seems to take exception with this post, we’ll see what she thinks in the comments.