My thoughts on Twilight, let me show you them.
OK, besides agreeing 100% with cleolinda and her recaps/commentary....
The one original thought I have to put out there is smeyers obvious (IMO) opinion-insert on Right To Life.
OK, I get that she's a Mormon. I get that she's not "trying" to put her beliefs in these books, but it comes through nonetheless. Like how Bella can't exist without Edward around. That's so the typical Mormon female stereotype, it's not even funny.
The thing that really gets me though, doesn't happen until "Breaking Dawn", the fourth and final book in the series.
Spoilers.
I am ALL for a woman's right to choose. In this book, though, we have a woman (Bella, the reader proxy, basically) who refuses from the first second of knowing she's pregnant to even consider abortion, although this baby is 100% going to kill her.
I mean, yeah. We all know at this point where the book is going. She births this baby and she gets vamped. Yay! Perfect happy ending! No. Not so much. For as much as SMeyer talks about the books being about choices, this is the final straw for me in the series being about preaching her LDS POV. See Cleo's commentary about the whole friggin' rest of it, because my head wants to explode thinking about it.
Now, I'm one who loves my escapist fiction. And I understand those who say "Twilight" is that for them. It was for me, too, to a point. The sparkley, vampy, cracky, romance in this "saga" was pretty page-turning, if only to see what train-wreck would be next. It was especially awesome to read along side Cleo's aforementioned commentary, since that's what drew me to the books, and I could "No REALLY" right along with her at outrageous moments.
But the fourth book stopped me cold, especially once the OTHER 1/2 human 1/2 vamp was revealed, and he talked about him and his siblings killing their mothers, too.
It's this whole plot-point centered around what I feel is one of the worst facets of the Christian Right. The importance of fetus over mother.
On parenting boards I've been a part of over the years, I can't tell you the number of women who've had high-risk pregnancies, and because of their beliefs, felt that them dying was preferable to termination, even if they had small children at home.
As the mother of 2 children, I can't think of anything worse, IMO, than knowingly leaving my children motherless if I had the choice to be there for them.
No wonder the Right's not attacking these books as they did the Potter series. Even if they are vampire books, they are at least vampire boks where the female is totally submissive, she revolves around the male, she's a virgin until marriage, and she's willing to DIE in childbirth, rather than have an abortion.
Way to go SMeyer. Way to brainwash even more young girls into thinking teeage motherhood is romantic and the way to go.
It makes me sick that I paid money for these books (as I totally did not know about the other dead mothers before I bought them), and I'll never (until they're MUCH older, screw the peer pressure!) let my daughters watch these movies. These books are hitting the resale shop as soon as I've a day off, and if my daughters choose to check them out from the library in the future (which I WILL let them do), I will make sure I'm there, discussing every moment of awfulness with them.
The one original thought I have to put out there is smeyers obvious (IMO) opinion-insert on Right To Life.
OK, I get that she's a Mormon. I get that she's not "trying" to put her beliefs in these books, but it comes through nonetheless. Like how Bella can't exist without Edward around. That's so the typical Mormon female stereotype, it's not even funny.
The thing that really gets me though, doesn't happen until "Breaking Dawn", the fourth and final book in the series.
Spoilers.
I am ALL for a woman's right to choose. In this book, though, we have a woman (Bella, the reader proxy, basically) who refuses from the first second of knowing she's pregnant to even consider abortion, although this baby is 100% going to kill her.
I mean, yeah. We all know at this point where the book is going. She births this baby and she gets vamped. Yay! Perfect happy ending! No. Not so much. For as much as SMeyer talks about the books being about choices, this is the final straw for me in the series being about preaching her LDS POV. See Cleo's commentary about the whole friggin' rest of it, because my head wants to explode thinking about it.
Now, I'm one who loves my escapist fiction. And I understand those who say "Twilight" is that for them. It was for me, too, to a point. The sparkley, vampy, cracky, romance in this "saga" was pretty page-turning, if only to see what train-wreck would be next. It was especially awesome to read along side Cleo's aforementioned commentary, since that's what drew me to the books, and I could "No REALLY" right along with her at outrageous moments.
But the fourth book stopped me cold, especially once the OTHER 1/2 human 1/2 vamp was revealed, and he talked about him and his siblings killing their mothers, too.
It's this whole plot-point centered around what I feel is one of the worst facets of the Christian Right. The importance of fetus over mother.
On parenting boards I've been a part of over the years, I can't tell you the number of women who've had high-risk pregnancies, and because of their beliefs, felt that them dying was preferable to termination, even if they had small children at home.
As the mother of 2 children, I can't think of anything worse, IMO, than knowingly leaving my children motherless if I had the choice to be there for them.
No wonder the Right's not attacking these books as they did the Potter series. Even if they are vampire books, they are at least vampire boks where the female is totally submissive, she revolves around the male, she's a virgin until marriage, and she's willing to DIE in childbirth, rather than have an abortion.
Way to go SMeyer. Way to brainwash even more young girls into thinking teeage motherhood is romantic and the way to go.
It makes me sick that I paid money for these books (as I totally did not know about the other dead mothers before I bought them), and I'll never (until they're MUCH older, screw the peer pressure!) let my daughters watch these movies. These books are hitting the resale shop as soon as I've a day off, and if my daughters choose to check them out from the library in the future (which I WILL let them do), I will make sure I'm there, discussing every moment of awfulness with them.