The following is an entry for an assignment I had for a class this past semester. I was reminded of it while playfully arguing with a friend who is a Twilight fan, who actually admitted that the werewolf imprinting on a baby (in the porn industry we call that a money shot)  seemed strange even to the fictional characters. That's right- the fictional characters themselves knew it was bullshit. But moving on, this was part of a class discussion and the attack on Twilight is meant to be tongue in cheek. The source of the conflict here is the misinterpretation of the book by the movies and in turn by impressionable young women who aren't reading... well anything, let alone the books. I'm just messing around and experimenting with links and Facebook. Be not offended.

            Okay I know that this is act two of a three act play, and that this girl is supposed to be young and stupid and in the end she overcomes her immaturity and becomes a powerful vampire which is supposed to symbolize some sort of move from adolescence to adulthood that, being a man, I wouldn’t understand, but this is NOT the message a lot of young girls are getting, and that’s what I’m complaining about. The movie must be failing to portray this girl’s evolving maturity, and that sounds very dangerous to me considering the influence that it has.

            This is not the first or the last time that the psyche and collective self worth of young girls will be sacrificed to make a buck. It would be less harmful if we had more alternatives for role models for girls. When you turn on the TV it is filled with petulant, self-absorbed, vapid, vacant rich bitches who contribute nothing to the world but another revenue string for pornography with their homemade sex tapes.

Twilight sounds like Mormon porn to me- living forever, women are incomplete without men, and they don’t have sex.

OR DO THEY???

I’ve come across some discussion about the future movies and it seems the bunny hole keeps getting deeper and deeper. My own words could not do justice to how Devin Faraci chose to explain it:

“Breaking Dawn opens with Bella Swan, the lacteal heroine of the series, finally getting married to Edward Cullen, the mopey vampire hero. They go off to honeymoon on Isle Esme, a Brazilian island the Cullen clan owns (this is already ridiculous beyond belief. Imagine a vampire going snorkeling; it basically happens in this book), and Edward is afraid to @#$% his new bride. The reason: he's super strong and she's just a human - Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex type of situation here. But Bella wears him down and Edward throws it in her - and knocks her the @#$% out, leaving her badly bruised.

Let's go over that again: Edward @#$%s Bella into unconsciousness. This alone should have you running to Fandango to pre-order your tickets, but it only gets better.

Despite being knocked out cold by his sexual style (and having the headboard destroyed), Bella goes back to Edward for seconds. This time he knocks her up. Yes, an undead vampire apparently has enough viable sperm to impregnate a human woman while @#$%ing her off the coast of Rio de Janero. Stephenie Meyer, you fabulous idiot!

The baby in Bella's belly starts growing incredibly fast. And it starts hurting Bella, as each kick it gives has the super strength of a vampire behind it. As it grows, Bella gets sicker, and then the good stuff starts. The baby kicks so hard it breaks Bella's ribs and then severs her spine. Are you imagining Kristen Stewart wearing a fake pregnancy belly and pretending to have been suddenly crippled by her own fetus? Because I am and it's making me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Oh wait, I missed something. Edward is completely freaked out about the baby, fearing it will kill Bella. He tries to convince her to get an abortion (but seriously, how could she? Vampires are tough to kill even in this shitty series), and goes so far as asking Native American wolfboy Jacob to impregnate his wife so that she can have the baby she desperately wants. I'm dizzy with how ridiculous this is, and we're just getting started.

Eventually the baby starts to get born and Bella is dying. The baby has telepathy, by the way, so everybody can read its thoughts while it's in the womb, and it turns out to have an essentially adult mind. Like Alia in Dune; I would accuse Stephenie Meyer of ripping this off, but anyone who thinks that Meyer might have read Frank Herbert has never been within spitting distance of Twilight. The woman is a moron. 

In a moment that demands to be shown on the silver screen, Edward gives Bella an emergency C-section with his @#$%ing teeth. It's like something out of XTro, for the love of God. It's so horrible it's brilliant, and this scene alone is why I remain firm in declaring that David Cronenberg must direct Breaking Dawn. This is surely his movie.

Once the baby is out, Bella gets vamped by Edward, as she's about to die at any moment. Then comes the most astonishing turn of events in 21st century literature, and possibly in the entire history of awful fiction aimed at tweens: Jacob the werewolf, who has been madly in love with Bella, sees the new baby girl and immediately imprints on her. What this means, in layman's terms, is that he falls in love with the baby.

I want to pull this out on its own: Jacob falls in love with a baby.

The book makes no bones about this; while Jacob doesn't want to @#$% the baby right off the bat, he can't stand to be away from it and visits every day. His love has been transferred from Bella to the baby (who has the tongue shattering name Renesmee), and because of the science behind imprinting he'll love her forever. So one day he's going to stick his wolf @#$% in this girl that he see(s) as a bloody newborn. Romance is not dead, it's just being abused by insane Mormon writers.”

My hand is on my forehead and I’m shaking my head. Is this what we’re in for? I know that I gush about The Wheel of Time but there is a reason for it. Nynaeve al’Meara  is a flawed woman because of her anger, but that is also part of her strength and the stories show how she tries to maintain a balance with her anger because, although it can be negative, it is also the source of her strength. She cannot call on the One Power unless she is angry. How does she overcome this block? By letting go of her anger, and realizing that there are things in this world that she cannot control. She is trapped in a sinking ship, and she can’t call on the power to save herself because although she is scared she is not angry.  She floats in the abyss… the dark water… and comes to peace with the fact that she is going to die… and breaks the block.

Sound familiar to anything that I’m going through?

That doesn’t even begin to describe the story arch of this character. And there are more- Min Farshaw, Egwene al’Vere, Elaine Trakand, Birgitte Silverbow… just to name a few. I have never encountered stronger female archetypes in my life. MAYBE Princess Leia… if she isn’t at the top of the list, she is at least the reason why I like smart mouthed women.

Even the bad girls are good archetypes because the villainesses represent egocentrism, greed, vanity, lust, and even sadism. Lanfear kills hundreds of people when she learns that the reincarnation of her past love (who didn’t love her back) STILL doesn’t love her in his reincarnated form. Semirhage controlled the minds of an entire city and forced loved ones to kill one another (presumably because she was jealous of the ability to love, but that’s just my theory). Graendal represents vanity and greed… I better make myself stop or I never will.

In the world of fiction, villainesses can be just as important role models as the heroines in the context of “here’s what not to do” or “here is the hubris in behaving this way”. But will that make money? No. It’s more profitable to make people feel bad about themselves so they will go out and buy shiny things and comfort food to feel better about themselves. Americans just continue to stick their faces in the meat grinder that is pop culture. This is not the way to a peaceful mind. I guess not everyone wants that, but I need it. So I’m going to pass on Twilight (and any movie that Michael Bay directs- who the hell thinks that scenes that average 1.5 seconds before the cutaway is any good??). I’m going to stick with more fulfilling forms of entertainment because that’s what I need to maintain my health and psyche.

Although some pizza and football every once in a while won’t kill me.