The 21st Century has brought upon us many hardships: two wars, a recession, natural disasters on every continent, the Bush presidency, and toys masquerading as legitimate excuses to pay $100 a month for phone service. However, one of the more insidious plagues of our century is the Twilight phenomenon. Normally, I wouldn’t compare teen culture to life-changing social and environmental woes no matter how much I wish Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers would go the way of Buddy Holly and Patsy Cline. Right now, I’m going to make an exception. You see, Breaking Dawn Part II, the “final chapter” of the Twilight saga, hits movie theaters on Friday. I have to say few things chap my ass more than die-hard Twilight fans. Maybe people who get on my case about getting a Smartphone.
$90? A month? They better shit gold bricks.
This whole Twilight mess started as the brain child (where’s a wire coat hanger when you need one?) of Stephanie Meyer. I couldn’t give half a damn about Stephanie Meyer one way or the other. All she did was write a manuscript and I applaud her for completing such an arduous task. That she convinced a publishing company, arguably the least reliable judge of quality literature, into printing her manuscript is an enviable accomplishment. Stephanie Meyer is merely banking off a rather impressive turd, we have the publisher to thank for polishing and then selling it. That’s capitalism. The fact remains that it took people buying these books and recommending them to their friends to make this whole Twilight mistake a headline. I have a friend, an otherwise intelligent, self-sufficient, literary-minded twenty-something friend, who said to me once that she was in love with Edward Cullen and that she wished she could find a man like that in real life. I was intrigued. Not being a tween who spends my after-school hours hanging out on a mall bench outside Hot Topic, my first question was “Who the hell is Edward Cullen?”
In all honesty, I have had my own literary crushes, the first of which being Mr. Darcy and the most recent being Jamie Fraser. My friend was horrified to learn that I had not heard of Twilight and quickly informed me that Edward was “the perfect man.” I didn’t laugh as hard as you might think. After all, perfection is possible in art, unlike reality, and the only flaw with depicting perfection is that it tends to be boring. I thought I’d give it a shot, keeping in mind it was written for teens. I enjoyed Harry Potter immensely so I felt confident that I could enjoy the book in its intended context. Perhaps that was what ruined it for me initially. I expected decent writing, fleshed-out characters, and an engaging plot. Comparing Twilight to Harry Potter was like comparing a bald, three-legged donkey to Man o’ War. The only positive aspect of reading that grueling slog of a book was the fact that I checked it out from the library. So, unlike some people I wasn’t duped out of $23.
My complaint, in a nutshell, is that the book tries to do two things and fails miserably at both. It’s a supernatural teen romance that is neither particularly exciting nor genuinely romantic. It’s about “vampires” who don’t drink human blood, don’t have menacingly large canines, are possessed of infinite life, super-human strength, agility, speed, and unnatural beauty. Wait, vampires? No, those are elves. They are Tolkien’s elves doused in glitter, and don’t try to tell me otherwise. To add insult to injury, Stephanie decided she didn’t want any kind of darkness associated with her vampires. So, naturally, the whole “sunlight destroys them” thing had to go. Only icky, nasty, evil things are vanquished by the sun, but she needed an excuse for the myths, for why vampires would avoid sunlight. Sparkling was the only natural solution, obviously. Why do vampires avoid sunlight? Because it makes them even more gorgeous. Of course. Of-F#$%ing-course.
Glitter babies. That explains it.
I’m also sad to report that Twilight is about as romantic as Botox, and half as genuine. We are told that Bella and Edward are intended for each other; that they are madly in love with each other. We are told this by the narrator, Bella, a passably pretty, mild-mannered teen who is instantly adored upon moving to a new school and possesses only a minor token flaw: she’s clumsy. Stephanie presents us with a female lead who is little more than a placeholder for the reader to impose their own thoughts, feelings, and personality on to. Edward, on the other hand, has the personality of “that neighbor with the oversized freezer.” His behavior is initially rude, then erratic, then unnaturally possessive. When combined, these two characters have boring, shallow, painfully awkward interactions that display absolutely no chemistry. None. That’s true love: when you’re seven.
But why do I care? Why does this failure of modern literature evoke in me the level of rage usually reserved for traffic jams and AutoCorrect? Because of the screaming masses who proclaim its status as a masterpiece. Because of teenage girls who now want nothing more than to be like Bella, the stereotypical, passive, damsel in distress. Who think that a boring, mercurial, possessive boyfriend is desirable. Because of grown-ass women who, obviously unhappy with their own love lives, are glorifying the single most immature depiction of love I’ve ever read. This probably explains why the single ones are single and the married ones are so dissatisfied with their marriages that they’re forced to lose themselves in fantasy. I’ve been there, too. Smutty romance novels were my crutch. Then I learned from my relationship mistakes and poor choice of partners, and moved the hell on.
Gently Used Foliage 