I picked up Twilight on a whim.

That’s right. I’m an adult heterosexual male and I actually touched a copy. I wanted a full perspective on what could have made this book a phenom and now I have it: Any girl who reads these books and gushes over Edward is completely shallow. Every page on which Edward is featured has something to say about how he is inhumanly beautiful. This is his only desirable quality (oh–and he’s sorta loaded).

So a Twilight fan’s rebuttal might be “but he loves her and protects her from harm no matter what the cost.” No, he doesn’t love her. The guy is just a weirdo-pedo-stalker!

Every mention of why he likes Bella is only to tell her he desires her blood. A vampire’s desire for blood has always been related to a humans desire for sex. So…all these girls, and apparently women, desire a sexy man with a ridiculous desire for her that he abstains from? So in real life these girls want a supermodel who wears one of those BDSM male chastity gizmos?

I’d wager on yes to all these questions. Lol.

P.S. The book is one of the most poorly written novels I’ve gotten my hands on. I’ve read many books that have been turned into movies (either before or after the fact) and this is the only film adaptation that has almost literally gotten every scene from the book on screen. How does an almost 600 pg book fit so nicely into a 2 hr time slot you ask? Over description. lots of it. Everywhere. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the horrors that await a competent reader.

Some sweet debate from a review of what the majority of the world thinks is a crap movie. Great stuff, guys.

Made my lunch hour very interesting.

Nice.

“Isn’t this what you’re saying though? Or are you saying that they will be made of the same stuff, if they grow up loving Edward Cullen?”

What I’m saying is that most women who end up in abusive relationships in real life do not go purposely seeking abusive people; the same can’t really be said for women who seek out men who have been imprisoned for heinous crimes and are still behind bars. Most of the young girls reading Twilight are not likely to have that screw loose that makes them engage with convicted felons, but more than a few of them are unfortunately likely to end up in abusive relationships at some point in their life. (I don’t know what the current stats are, but last I checked for Canada it was something like 1/4 of all women will be abused by their parter at some point in their lives.) Twilight puts a candy wrapper (to use Rus’ term) on what would ultimately be textbook signs of domestic abuse. Instead of using this relationship to explore those kind of warning signs, it presents them as key elements of a beautiful relationship. It makes me queasy.

I’m not saying that the movie needs to moralize at people, but the negative messaging is really strong and I hope to god that someone is talking to these young girls about what they’re seeing and what they’re taking from the film.

That movie/book series sounds appalling, Henrik. o_O

“I have a hard time believing that millions of tweenage Twilight fans are made of the same stuff as women who fall for serial killers, but okay.”

Isn’t this what you’re saying though? Or are you saying that they will be made of the same stuff, if they grow up loving Edward Cullen? That’s probably it. I for one have no problems with perverse movies.

There is a danish series of movies based on Morten Korch books, which are sexist and awesome. In one of them, a guy can’t get with the girl he loves and she teases the hell out of him because she can. Then he gets the advice that what will make her fall in love with him is a good beating. He beats her up, and they live happily ever after.