So long as I'm daring the gods of wank to smite me... the kids are alright

[seriousfic]

Yes, Twilight sucks. But feminists? Is your main complaint that it's sexist or that it's sexist and young girls are reading it? Let me exercise my psychic power... you played with Barbie and turned out just fine? Or some other terribly prejudiced thing? I highly doubt you were raised liking everyone racially sensitive, sexually unproblematic, and gay-friendly.

Seriously, now, "Won't someone please think of the children"? You know who you sound like, right?

Here's how it's going to happen. Twilight will be popular for another few years, then people will forget all about it. All those die-hard fans now? They'll wonder why they ever liked it. They'll deny all those badfics they wrote about kissing Edward Cullen and you know what? They'll turn out just fine.

Because, let's face it... as bad as Twilight is, is it any worse than Flowers In The Attic or a thousand other trashy novels that young girls have been reading since the beginning of time? Twilight will implode all on its own, and twenty years from now it will just be a Yuletide request to write a feminist spin on "my childhood shame."

And yes, I know Twilight is no Harry Potter, but was Harry Potter really all that great? Be honest now.

(Okay, honestly, HP is still awesome and Twilight can't lick its boots, but still, not that awesome.)

Comments

[mylenn.livejournal.com]

I don't quite get the whole thing over Twilight. Having read a bit online, I cansee why people might be a bit miffed over them, but they need to get over it. It's just a book. It will not overly-traumatize anyone. ;)

[runa27.livejournal.com]

*snerk!* Won't traumatize? You haven't read the middle "book" in Breaking Dawn yet, have you? It almost makes Rosemary's Baby look TAME. :P

But that's more of a regular squick factor, really.

Although, I will say this much: I hate when people try to brush off potential influence or meaning by saying "it's just a book", as if the mere fact that it's in book form is going to make people not take it seriously. You know what else was "just a book"? The Bible and Uncle Tom's Cabin. :P Not that I think Twilight is going to have all that much of an impact in and of itself (if you look at my previous post above, I'm actually more inclined to think that idolizing Edward's a potential "warning sign" more than a "cause" of anything), but that's a really cop-out kind of argument when you put it that way. Now "it's just a cheesy, unrealistic angsty teen fantasy-romance story" I could almost get behind, but - and yeah, maybe it's just me, but - phrases like "it's just a book" kind of make me twitch a little. :P