freckles_and_doubt

This job possibly requires danger pay. A student has just phoned me in the usual panic. I checked her record and told her that as far as I can work out she's not about to be academically excluded and should be able to continue studying next year, whereupon she let out this express-train shriek of joy that went through my skull like an electric fish-skewer and may actually have perforated my eardrum. Matters were not improved by the fact that I celebrated stress, tension and overwork by becoming Naughtily Drunk while playing Munchkin last night, and am hungover. Thanks, joyous student. Glad you're happy. Now send painkillers.

I have earlier vouchsafed to the universe my views on the Twilight teen vampire series, which I persist in believing is a stale, flat and extremely profitable piece of no-content, high-sugar literary junk food whose most redeeming feature to date is its ability to make me realise that for a given value of "write" JK Rowling actually isn't as bad as all that. Therefore this article is interesting, setting out as it does to explain why Twilight's schlocky dreck, or drecky schlock, is so irresistibly mesmerising to teenaged girls. Or, in fact, older than teenaged girls: I keep running across blog posts where twenty- and thirty-something commenters discuss the fact that they hate the books and think they're dreadful but can't help reading. I hated them but have read the first three. It may, in fact, be the case that they're speaking to some weird, buried adolescent girlness I thought I'd outgrown. Damn those vampires and their symbolic power, anyway.

Current Mood: hungover

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

confluence.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)

I love twilight anti-fans; I have had great fun reading flamewars between people snarkily eviscerating the books, and people who think they are ZOMg teh bestest books EVAR. :D

Most recently, the poor actor cast as the sparkly vampire has stopped even vaguely pretending that he doesn't find the franchise horrendous and more than slightly creepy.

Teenage girls lap it up for the same reason they lap up nearly identical Mary Sue fanfiction written by their peers on the internet. It's emotional porn. Reviewing it like a normal book is a little like criticising mainstream porn movies for having poor plotting, bad acting and a lack of characterisation. But at least people who watch crappy porn don't passionately claim that it's awesome moviemaking.

Now, if mainstream comic book publishers stopped wringing their hands and debating "what girls like" for five minutes, and looked at what is right in front of them, they could make a killing. Mary Sue + Vampires = epic profits for ever. ;)

From:

extemporanea.livejournal.com

Yes, of course: Mary Sue-ism is all about being the centre of everyone's universe, particularly someone devastatingly attractive. Also, being interestingly conflicted and withholding oneself, because of the POWER! Teenage girls want to be in control. Particularly of powerful men who have the potential to completely control them.

So far absolutely the best take on Twilight that I've seen is by the Fug girls (http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2008/12/fuglight.html), who have snark down to a slightly flamboyant laser-scalpel art.

Edited Date: Friday, 5 December 2008 08:50 am (UTC)

From:

bronchitikat.livejournal.com

They could just grow up a bit & become wives & mothers. Though, given too many teenage ideas these days, that might just be too much like hard work.

Still, I survived &, twenty-something years on, I get to reinvent myself. Though still as Mrs ---.

Maybe that's where the career-holding wives & mothers miss out? They're not at home long enough to be able to concentrate fully on being the centre of that particular universe.
That & women have been sold the lie that being a full-time wife, mother & homemaker is way down the list from second best & they really should be 'out there' 'contributing' to the world. That & they're too often trying/having to do it on their own.

Hah! I may not be contributing that much in the way of Income Tax (not actually having a Taxable Income), but I've contributed loads in plenty of other ways. Trouble is the myopic accountants who seem to only be able to count money, & that simply & in very short terms.

Hmmm, maybe that's why the Financial Situation is as bad as it is.

It's my Opinion. Feel free to ignore it!

From:

extemporanea.livejournal.com

I don't think it's entirely relevant what they grow up into: the point is that the novels are speaking to the immature experience of adolescent narcissism, and both representing and validating it. They're thus incredibly attractive both to adolescents who are still experiencing the immaturity, and to any older women who retain a nostalgic memory of the adolescence which, after all, partially shaped them.

We do prolong adolescence these days, though. Whether you do the growing up by marrying, having kids or holding down a career, it's happening later and later.

From:

bronchitikat.livejournal.com

Yeah, realised that point about five minutes after I posted the comment! I can be really slow sometimes.

As for prolonging adolescence - yup, & not a Good Thing. Ok, retain a 'young' outlook on life, but take some responsibility for goodness sake.

Just think, if some of your students were a tad more responsible . . . Maybe they'd bother to read the notices you stick up & then go get their stuff before bothering you. Come to think of it, if their parents were more responsible maybe they'd have tried to make sure that their children could cope with such things. I dunno, parents these days . . . (writes she who has two adult children!)