Tuesday, January 3, 2012

My Love/Hate Relationship with Twilight

I know I have touched on this a bit before, but it's time to come clean - I kinda like the Twilight book series, and I also kinda hate it.

I like the adventure, and the juxtaposing of mythological creatures in our present society. But I hate the anti-feminist, pathetic Bella who apparently can't live her life without her man. If this was truly "real life," poor Bella would have a serious case of the "Cinderella Complex" and would need to be medicated and/or counseled. Or just smacked upside the head.

There has been quite a bit of dialog about the books, and oftentimes people either love the series or hate it, without a lot of middle ground. I argue, however, that there is some middle ground to be achieved. There are some good parallels that can be drawn to racism, and the world of vampirism was re-imagined in a way that hadn't really been done quite so ... well... "glittery" before. Sure, there are things that could be improved, but honestly, show me a piece of literature that doesn't have at least one thing in it that someone out there wouldn't want to change if given the chance.

As food for thought, check out this post on If Famous Writers Had Written Twilight, and see where it takes your mind. To me, it proved that it would still be a flawed yet interesting read. What is YOUR take on the Twilight Series? Love It? Hate It? Find it resting in the gray area between love and hate?

3 comments:

  1. Interesting update - apparently I live in the "Twilight Belt", as discovered by Goodreads... check it out: http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/321-do-you-live-in-the-twilight-belt-infographic

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  2. Twilight would be just another bit of meandering wish fulfillment by another inept hack writer, but we live in an era where the publicity machine can turn anything to a cultural event.

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  3. True, but then I find brilliant pieces of self-published works that go unnoticed and I wonder how in the world some works get blown out of proportion while others live a quiet life barely getting by?

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