4thofeleven: (Default)
[personal profile] 4thofeleven
Hey, everyone? I understand, everyone hates Twilight. I understand, nobody wants to see Twilight crap everywhere. However, in expressing your distain from the series, could you please try and avoid the following arguments:

- Complaints that Twilight vampires aren’t ‘real’ vampires, because real vampires aren’t sexy. Seriously? If you can find one of those ‘real’ vampires that isn’t portrayed as unearthly alluring, I’d be very interested to see it. Come on, people – ‘erotic vampire’ has a long and noble tradition. The element of seduction is practically the defining element of a vampire story. I’ll grant you, Edward and company are a little too domestic for my tastes – but then, they are portrayed as very much in the minority of the vampire population of their setting.

- Complaints that Twilight’s sexist. Hey, I’m not arguing, but a lot of people seem to be singling out Twilight in a way that isn’t really justified. Does it have some extremely dubious tropes? Sure. Is it any worse than the majority of pop culture? No, I don’t think so. Will it somehow corrupt an entire generation of young women with its messages on gender relations? You know, if the last few thousand years of western culture haven’t done that, I don’t think Twilight’s going to be the straw to break the camel’s back.

- Pointing out Stephanie Meyer’s Mormon. I see a lot of people abruptly mentioning this when complaining about the books, generally with no attempts to elaborate as to a, why this is relevant or b, why this is bad.

Remember, Twilight has a great many flaws; there’s no need to keep harping on these three points over and over.

on 2010-07-02 10:25 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] sodzilla.livejournal.com
To be fair, in a culture that is, as you say, overwhelmingly sexist, should something really have to be MORE sexist than average in order to be worthy of criticism on that account?

on 2010-07-02 11:42 am (UTC)
ext_20885: (Default)
Posted by [identity profile] 4thofeleven.livejournal.com
Well, no, but you should acknowledge you're using it as symtomatic of a wider trend, rather than treating it as a uniquely terrible example... Especially when you're treating it with an attitude of "Isn't it terrible that this is what's going to influence young women?"

on 2010-07-02 01:40 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] sodzilla.livejournal.com
Maybe we've just run into different commenters, then, because I've never run into anyone claiming that Twilight is "uniquely terrible". Just that it's one of the worst, and one of the best-known, examples of a certain brand of sexist creepiness in current pop culture - which, to my mind, makes it extremely suitable as an example.

on 2010-07-02 01:59 pm (UTC)
ext_20885: (Default)
Posted by [identity profile] 4thofeleven.livejournal.com
Fair enough, and sure, it is a useful example to use. On the other hand, I do see a lot of criticisms that single out Twilight from people who wouldn't bother critiquing the same issues anywhere else and wouldn't dream of referring to themselves as feminist in any other context...

on 2010-07-02 07:47 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] sodzilla.livejournal.com
Now that, on the other hand, is hypocritical. *sighs* Sounds like they just want a PC-sounding reason to criticize it, then, rather than falling back on "I hate vampires" or "Edward looks gay".

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