Books - Twilght Series

For fear of being out of touch, I have started reading the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer. I have read the first book and am into the second. My husband has even joined the fun, having already finished “Twilight” and “New Moon” (a family that reads young adult vampire romance stories stays together, right?). Although I haven’t finished the entire series, I thought I’d go ahead and start blogging about these books now.

Most of the buzz I’ve heard about this series is that it sets up unrealistic romance expectations for the young female readers. Man, that’s for sure! But let’s broaden up this discussion to whether you’d be okay with your hypothetical 12 year-old daughter getting sucked up into Meyer’s smoldering world of vampires.


First off, I’m always going to be in favor of any book that gets young adults passionate about reading. So much better than a video game or reality TV show for their supple brains!

However, as an avid reader myself, I don’t think I’d be able to help myself but be disappointed in the lack of literary merit these books bring to the table. Sure - it is a successful piece of escapist literature if droves of people go out and buy the books and read them ravenously. However, who says escapist literature can’t have complex sentence structures? Or better-developed characters and mythologies? I know that these books are supposed to be written from the perspective of a 17 and counting year-old girl, but she is also supposed to be intelligent. How come she keeps awkwardly forcing nouns into adverbs? I distinctly remember Bella describing her day as “nightmarish.”

And Bella herself isn’t much more than a “Mary Sue” character, to borrow a phrase from the world of fan fiction. Through Bella, we live a fantasy of being swept off our feet by a beautiful boy… and better yet we get to choose this handsome devil over scores of other eligible bachelors, because every single male Bella meets fancies her. But Bella herself is short-changed of real-depth. We know she is clumsy (all the better for getting saved!) and we know she sacrifices hers safety and sanity for those she loves (dating a dude who kind of wants to kill her, hanging with his family of fellow vamps, and even the fact that she gave up her entire teenage life in order to give her mom some space to get jiggy with a minor-leaguer).

But literary criticism aside, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty with our issues of feminism and saving our beloved hypothetical teenage daughter from a world of romantic disillusionment. Surely this book presents a scary idea for teenage love: Edward likes to creep into Bella’s home without permission and watch her sleep. He is possessive and invades her privacy. He spies on her friends to get closer to her. He has unpredictable mood-swings and some major anger issues. And Bella is nothing but flattered by his gestures and treasures his every broody characteristic. Is this the sort-of relationship we’d like to see our daughter be a part of? Surely not- it’s abusive! However, our daughter is not reading an instruction manual on how to be a teenager in love. She’s reading a piece of fiction, and we’ve raised her better than for her to take any one piece of media and hold it as the ultimate guide for how to live a life.

And afterall, isn’t this essentially the story of Romeo and Juliet? There’s a love that forces the young couple (Juliet’s 15, no?) to forsake their families and their safety in order to be together? However, at least then our daughter would be reading Shakespeare.

So for all the hub-bub out there about this book being bad for its female readers, I’m going to go ahead and vote “nay.” We can’t blame Meyer for our daughter’s decision to date abusive weirdos- that’s a parental failure. More than likely Meyer is doing us a favor: setting our daughters up with high enough expectations that they won’t waste their time dating immature high-school jocks, saving themselves for more worthy suitors in college.

And just in case you really do have a high-school daughter reading these books, you might just want to show her THIS VIDEO MASHUP showing us in a nicely produced 6 minute movie how Buffy would react to Edward’s stalking.

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The Apocalypse - A Buffy movie sans Joss Whedon

Thanks, Jenna, for bringing the apocalypse to my attention.

Fran Rubel Kuzui is a complete idiot. There has been talk of a Buffy movie since the series went off the air in 2003. Alternating rumors that it was in development or that it would never happen made fans like myself appear bi-polar to outside observers. You'd think we would all be thrilled now that Kuzui, the rights holder to the franchise, is actively pursuing a Buffy feature film. You'd be wrong.

The reason we fans have been clamoring for a film, is that we are invested in the lives of the characters from the TV show. We want to know what happens to them after Sunnydale is leveled. Luckily, Joss Whedon's Season Eight comics have done that, to an extent, but I'd really like to see a movie with all of the characters from the Buffyverse with a little bit more closure on some of the main storylines (who does Buffy end up with, or does she not end up with anyone?, does Angel get to become human?, why was Angel brought back from hell?).

However, this feature film, spearheaded by Kuzui isn't going to be a sequel or continuation of the television show. Instead, in the wake of the Twilight frenzy, it's going to be a complete reboot, ignoring both the TV show, and the 1992 movie, and trying to gain a whole new generation of fans. Seems like a good idea, right?

Problem #1: The only reason the Buffy franchise is so successful is because of the insanely rabid fans. There aren't very many casual Buffy-watchers. People either never watched enough to get hooked, or they are completely nuts about it. Those are the only two options. By rebooting the franchise, and ignoring the characters that the fanbase cares about, the feature film may appeal to a new generation, but it will completely alienate the existing fans. And without the existing fans on board, I doubt the movie will do very well.

Problem #2: Joss Whedon has not even been approached about being involved. So, this pretty much guarantees that the movie will suck. You can't do Buffy without Joss in complete control. They took control away from Joss for the 1992 movie, and look what happened. Plus, now, the rapid fans of the TV show aren't just going to ignore the movie, they will actively work to undermine it. Speaking as a rabid fan, I promise you, this will happen. Check out the article and accompanying poll at EW.com. If there are riots, I will totally go.

Problem #3: We are flooded with vampire related TV shows and movies right now. The CW just picked up a show based on L.J. Smith's "The Vampire Diaries" starring Ian Somerhalder (Boone from Lost), and some other people that I don't care about. Plus the Twilight books and movies, True Blood, etc. I can't think of others right now, but it just seems like it is everywhere. A reboot of Buffy right now would just fall in with the vampire frenzy and probably wouldn't stand out at all. If it were a sequel to the series, it would work, because the aforementioned rabid fans would make it stand out. But if it's just going to be a from scratch movie, what makes it different from all the other vampire stuff. I realize that the fact that vampires are "so hot right now" is a reason to make the film now. Kuzui practically says as much in the Hollywood Reporter article, but fads change so quickly. By the time the movie is made and comes out, vampires might be "so over."

Problem #4: I hate the idea. And we all know how much pull I have with my highpowered blog. Read more!