Twilight Series

[CFTraveler]

Unfortunately I can't address the reasons why it's empowering or why she is in love with him, because it would spoil the ending for anyone who likes the series and wants to watch the last movie.
However, my point is that you are all jumping to conclusions about it without having the pertinent information.

[ButterflyWoman]

However, my point is that you are all jumping to conclusions about it without having the pertinent information.

Errr, the Jananz was actually talking about having just seen the film, so I'm probably the only conclusion jumper here.

And my conclusion is: I don't want to read the books, I don't want to see the films, I think I'd spend more time rolling my eyes than enjoying any of it, and I do think it's all pretty shallow and vapid. On my deathbed, perhaps I'll regret that I never read the Twilight series, but somehow I kind of doubt it.

Oh, I will say that I DID take the time some months ago to read complete synopses of all of the books. That's what convinced me I didn't want to actually read them.

[CFTraveler]

Ok, I'll take it back- I thought she had said she hadn't seen the movies or read the book either.
Maybe I'm defending it because I read the books, and I get that if someone saw the movie and didn't read the books they can't possibly get what it's about, other than a visual spectacle for young ones who enjoy mythology and like their teenage drama in a supernatural context.

[Jananz]

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bio.html

Stephenie Meyer---Second oldest of 6 children, lives in AZ (heatstroke) and graduated from Brigham Young University with a bach. She was obviously depressed at being a stay at home mum with 3 children and stayed in bed all day fantasizing about being a teenager again with no responsibilities. Her christian upbringing having repressed her most carnal desires which turned morbid and vampirous. Then she packaged her fantasies into some books and fed them to an equally repressed, depressed and purposeless christian population. Instead of presenting the cure to the vampirous christian church, she offers more of the sickness. But presented in such style and fashion, along with the promise of Native American wisdom/integrity it captures the interest of naive youth...who have no idea that church and state utilize their sexual frustration and energy in order to fight their wars of plunder.

[CFTraveler]

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bio.html

Stephenie Meyer---Second oldest of 6 children, lives in AZ (heatstroke) and graduated from Brigham Young University with a bach. She was obviously depressed at being a stay at home mum with 3 children and stayed in bed all day fantasizing about being a teenager again with no responsibilities. Her christian upbringing having repressed her most carnal desires which turned morbid and vampirous. Then she packaged her fantasies into some books and fed them to an equally repressed, depressed and purposeless christian population. Instead of presenting the cure to the vampirous christian church, she offers more of the sickness. But presented in such style and fashion, along with the promise of Native American wisdom/integrity it captures the interest of naive youth...who have no idea that church and state utilize their sexual frustration and energy in order to fight their wars of plunder.

Interesting opinion, but it doesn't consider the actual material in the book. First of all, the books criticize christian hypocrisy in the telling of the story of his vampire family, the Cullens, especially how the patriarch's character was the son of a preacher that so persecuted anything occult that he actually tried to kill his son when he was turned into a vampire, and later on in the characters of the Volturi which show how the church is essentially corrupt, with horrible things happening in the bowels of it's cathedrals. Both show that she considers religious institutions to be essentially corrupt and hypocritical. Personally? I don't know because I don't know her. But I know what the books portray because I actually read them.
The heroes in this are native american shapeshifters, so she actually points to a turning away from organized religion towards a more nature-oriented approach to reality, and in the end, there is a melding of realities. I will say no more.

Reading the above criticism makes me think that your objection is not to the story itself- it's to the fact that a stay at home mom should dare make something of herself and succeed at it- and the criticism about the church and state brings home the fact that they are not based in the material of the book at all.

[Jananz]

No not based on the books at all but only on the "effect" rather than the content of the movie.
But one cannot really blame the author for the movies.
Still to decry the church by turning heros into vampires is a strange assbackward step.

Personally I think new HEALTHY models need to be produced rather than pointing out the systemic evil in the human species.
These movies at least do not offer a viable alternative, and I am not sure what they do offer.

[ButterflyWoman]

turning heros into vampires is a strange assbackward step.

Yeah, I feel the same way.

The thing is, this is a recurring pattern in human society. Things that are, at first, seen as horrifyingly frightening eventually get turned into figures of romantic and poetic stature, and eventually into jokes or something harmless or even children's toys.

Just to name a few things to which this has happened, bears (which went from Ursa Major to eventually the teddy bear), fairies (which went from fascinating but very dangerous otherworldly beings to cute little decorations we hang from the windows as light catchers and to a range of utterly harmless Disney characters), pirates (from the genuine terror of the seas to Pirates of Penzance to Capt. Feathersword and International Talk Like a Pirate Day), and plenty of others.

The same is true of vampires (think of The Count on Seasame Street, for an example of cute and harmless and children's toy). They're "romantic", they're "poetic", they're "misunderstood souls", they're anything but the horrifying supernatural undead predators they were originally... Oh, sure, they still sometimes prey on people, but only the BAD ones, and only when they can't keep their addiction under control...

Personally I think new HEALTHY models need to be produced rather than pointing out the systemic evil in the human species.

Good luck on that one.

I am not sure what they do offer.

I don't get it, either. I really don't. But as I noted before, I really am NOT turned on by the whole vampire thing. Pale, dead, blood-addicted predators/addicts just aren't my thing. (I'm not codependent enough any more, I guess )

BTW, to those reading, I'm not actually arguing. This is all pretty lighthearted as far as I'm concerned, other than my genuine distaste for the whole Twilight phenomenon, which is in deadly earnest. *makes a deadly earnest face*

[Jananz]

The interest in Goth and vampirism could reflect the general energy depletion and fungi/pathogen/parasite infection of the population. A turning away from the sun and into the night and down into the earth for recycling of nutrients.
Now if there were healthy forms of teaching people to contact their subtle inner life, have initiations, build psi-visionary communities and regenerate body and earth...then we would lose our interest in war and the darkside in general.

Walk on into the rising sun and don't look back. As the giant's existence is threatened, it increases its tirade. There is no point in harming the subtle growth of new beginnings with the death throws of the old. It is a significant shift from old brain to new brain regions when we move from fighting with that which we don't want, to projecting the energy of what we do want out into the universe. I think this is perhaps the most significant challenge the human species is now undergoing...where the new warrior, the new hero is he or she who has the strength of heart to positively project the desired outcome, rather than simply shadow dancing with the darkside. We must call out our demons and name them…and set about creating the new way out of transcendent energy, rather than the direct reactionary response to the colossus. For who are not in touch with their inner visionary need to see the vision manifest if they are to believe there is any other way. Remember always, the Borg cannot be fought on its own terms. Instead spirit must be lit through inspiration to start a contagion of evolutionary fire.

[Korpo]

I doubt this is even remotely related to anything dark. It's just entertainment. "Transformers" made a lot of money, too - so what? I doubt we will remember any of this ten years down the road.

Oliver

[ButterflyWoman]

I doubt we will remember any of this ten years down the road.

Yeah, we will. We'll go, "Oh, wow, remember back when Twilight was all the rage?" and kind of laugh or just look embarrassed, just like people now look back on the disco era, "country geese" (the geese with bows around their necks that everyone used to decorate their kitchen), mullets (the haircut, aka business in the front, party in the back), and a whole host of things that we might now think are weird, stupid, pointless, or regard with nostalgia.