Pop Culture Commentary - The Really Bad and The Really Good
So I logged on today to talk about two things that have occupied my thoughts today from the world of pop culture.
The first, qualm your fears and bear with me, is the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer. My involvement with this series began when C erroneously bought me the series for Christmas. Erroneously? yes. I have a Chapters wish list that is non public, I browse the site a lot, find books that interest me, keep them in my wish list, and when I want new books I load 'er up and order 3 or 4. It's a lot cheaper than buying them in the bookstore. Twilight was not on it.
I had heard a lot of adults say they had read these books and despite being for kids they found them really hard to put down. I was curious about them and probably would have read at least one of them eventually but they were not on my list.
C hinted that she had been on my wish list and bought books for me. So on Christmas I was pretty surprised to open the set of these books. Since I couldn't conceal my surprise, C told me that she had bought them off my list. But they weren't on it. Further discussion revealed that she hadn't been on my list at all. Due to a quirk of the site, it always appears that I am logged on there unless I specifically log off, but to see my list or account details I have to log on again. C hadn't made it to my list, she'd made it to the main page for the wish lists for that day, and bought me the books there.
By happy coincidence the other two featured books were great choices, one of which was on my actual list.
So, because the set is hardcover and expensive, I said that we should take them back. We did, and C picked up the first book for herself later, in softcover. They are quick reads, and as we went on vacation and came back she quickly read all four. I read the first three after her, they are really quick reads and take about a day.
I'll give it that the books are hard to put down. It could be the large print and large margins and the fact that each first half is so utterly devoid of plot that I basically just skimmed each page, so one keeps reading just to see if something will happen. The action parts at the end of each book are ok but you get the distinct impression that the books are written to be made into movies.
What really really bothered me in these books is that the behaviour which is being touted as "Romantic" on the part of Edward is the behaviour I have counseled all too many real life Bellas about as they sit across from me, victims of Domestic Violence. In fact, all the books need is the addition of a few little slaps here and there for Edward to bring a hysterical Bella back in line and we would all be horrified by the relationship. Really, the physical aspect of the dominance and control cycle is all that is missing.
How many times does Edward tell her that he could kill her? Without meaning to, wanting to, by accident, whatever. How many clenched fists, clenched jaws, fuming faces, furious eyes, are described when Bella's behaviour meets with disapproval? Dominance and control by intimidation. He sits in her room at night, guarding her as she sleeps. He tells her whom she can visit, and when, eliminates or alienates her other friendships. He disconnects her truck so she cannot drive it to get away from the house when he is not there, he even has his sister kidnap her and hold her hostage for the weekend while he goes out of town.
yes, yes..... all for her own good, all to keep her safe. Whatever.
Even when Bella does something that distinguishes her as an individual with the ability to think without swooning, like decide to sacrifice herself to save her mother, ride a motorcycle, or whatever, something brave, something with substance (if you can call it that, the pickings are slim), she is forced to lie about the causes of her injuries - play the "I walked into a door" card - hide her personal victories behind her clumsiness and instead of being able to say "I did this, and it was great, I have personal power", say "I tripped and fell through a plate glass window".
Recently Bitch Magazine published an article about the books discussing them as abstinence porn. The article was good but I would have liked them to actually discuss the books in more depth. I logged on to the website and was absolutely shocked by the number of posts (the fact that there was even one would have surprised me) that criticized the magazine for publishing the article without a spoiler alert! The same posters often defended the content of the books, saying that it wasn't anti-feminist.
As an adult, I know I can look at the novels for what they are to an audience made up of people such as myself. Books that can be read in a day for mindless quasi entertainment. I can rationalize that the over protectiveness that the vampires have for Bella is to protect her from the ones who are actively seeking to kill her, and would if she were exposed.
I fear for the legions of young girls and women who are reading this book and looking at Edward's behaviour as "Romantic", and are not critical thinkers enough to identify that this level of risk does not exist in the real world, and that men who would seek to dominate them in this way should not be allowed.
I do regret that I kept reading the damn books and came to the realization that I was doing it to see if, in my mind, Bella would "grow a set". I realized at the same time that in my own disdain of the character I was being anti-feminist, as clearly in my mind Bella needed to take on male attributes in order to take power. duh. I include this because I find it funny, but also telling commentary. At least I can laugh at myself.
The second thing is Battlestar Galactica. Man I love this show!
We watched it as television should really be watched. That is, we bought the series on DVD and watched it like total addicts, hours at a time. Hey, no commercials!
But here I am, patiently waiting 9 more hours until the show's final season starts and we get a little closer to finding out..... who is the 5th of the final five?
Just wanted to write in here about who I think it has to be.
When the rebel Cyclons have the prez and some of Galactica's crew hostage aboard their Base Ship, D'Anna tells Lee that there are 4 of the final 5 in his fleet. Since every indication was that all 5 were in the fleet before the hostages were taken, we're left with the 5th being one of the hostages. The producers of the show have made it clear that the 5th will be a main character, not someone we have not seen before or someone who is dead or whatever.
The main characters that are on the Base Ship with the Cylons are Adama, Roslin, Helo, and Baltar. The rest of the hostages are day-player pilots and crew, and I can't see it being one of them.
D'Anna takes Adama back to the Galactica with him, as a hostage, when going to get the four. So I think it is safe to say that the 5th is not Adama. So we have Helo, Baltar, and Roslin. I don't think that it's Helo, because his being a Cylon does not have enough ramification for the plot.
So, Roslin? D'Anna does the head fake by telling her "You didn't realise you were one of them?" Is this a play to see if Roslin knows she is a Cylon, or not? She shrugs it off as a joke after - "you should have seen your face".
So, Baltar? He's long been my favourite to win this race. I thought, since the idea of the 5 was brought out in the show, that he was a Cylon. In fact, even before. For chrissakes, he bangs a Six bent over a table in his imagination, but acted out in reality. The Cylons can project themselves into environments they want to see, Baltar has had visions from the start - of Six, living back in his house on Caprica, everything. Constantly. Whenever. I always thought that was a good argument for his being one of them.
They hybrid says: "And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering."
Baltar - condemned humanity to destruction in the Cylon attacks, and has sought redemption and forgiveness with the one god.
My money is still on him!
[edit] - I am aware that Ron Moore has said that the 5th is someone missing from the "Last Supper" photo of the cast, which would negate both these choices, and in fact, all the major players. Basically, I think he was either misunderstood in context or content by the reporter, or he lied. Lied to throw fans off the scent? How shocking! Like fer sure! Why not?
The first, qualm your fears and bear with me, is the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer. My involvement with this series began when C erroneously bought me the series for Christmas. Erroneously? yes. I have a Chapters wish list that is non public, I browse the site a lot, find books that interest me, keep them in my wish list, and when I want new books I load 'er up and order 3 or 4. It's a lot cheaper than buying them in the bookstore. Twilight was not on it.
I had heard a lot of adults say they had read these books and despite being for kids they found them really hard to put down. I was curious about them and probably would have read at least one of them eventually but they were not on my list.
C hinted that she had been on my wish list and bought books for me. So on Christmas I was pretty surprised to open the set of these books. Since I couldn't conceal my surprise, C told me that she had bought them off my list. But they weren't on it. Further discussion revealed that she hadn't been on my list at all. Due to a quirk of the site, it always appears that I am logged on there unless I specifically log off, but to see my list or account details I have to log on again. C hadn't made it to my list, she'd made it to the main page for the wish lists for that day, and bought me the books there.
By happy coincidence the other two featured books were great choices, one of which was on my actual list.
So, because the set is hardcover and expensive, I said that we should take them back. We did, and C picked up the first book for herself later, in softcover. They are quick reads, and as we went on vacation and came back she quickly read all four. I read the first three after her, they are really quick reads and take about a day.
I'll give it that the books are hard to put down. It could be the large print and large margins and the fact that each first half is so utterly devoid of plot that I basically just skimmed each page, so one keeps reading just to see if something will happen. The action parts at the end of each book are ok but you get the distinct impression that the books are written to be made into movies.
What really really bothered me in these books is that the behaviour which is being touted as "Romantic" on the part of Edward is the behaviour I have counseled all too many real life Bellas about as they sit across from me, victims of Domestic Violence. In fact, all the books need is the addition of a few little slaps here and there for Edward to bring a hysterical Bella back in line and we would all be horrified by the relationship. Really, the physical aspect of the dominance and control cycle is all that is missing.
How many times does Edward tell her that he could kill her? Without meaning to, wanting to, by accident, whatever. How many clenched fists, clenched jaws, fuming faces, furious eyes, are described when Bella's behaviour meets with disapproval? Dominance and control by intimidation. He sits in her room at night, guarding her as she sleeps. He tells her whom she can visit, and when, eliminates or alienates her other friendships. He disconnects her truck so she cannot drive it to get away from the house when he is not there, he even has his sister kidnap her and hold her hostage for the weekend while he goes out of town.
yes, yes..... all for her own good, all to keep her safe. Whatever.
Even when Bella does something that distinguishes her as an individual with the ability to think without swooning, like decide to sacrifice herself to save her mother, ride a motorcycle, or whatever, something brave, something with substance (if you can call it that, the pickings are slim), she is forced to lie about the causes of her injuries - play the "I walked into a door" card - hide her personal victories behind her clumsiness and instead of being able to say "I did this, and it was great, I have personal power", say "I tripped and fell through a plate glass window".
Recently Bitch Magazine published an article about the books discussing them as abstinence porn. The article was good but I would have liked them to actually discuss the books in more depth. I logged on to the website and was absolutely shocked by the number of posts (the fact that there was even one would have surprised me) that criticized the magazine for publishing the article without a spoiler alert! The same posters often defended the content of the books, saying that it wasn't anti-feminist.
As an adult, I know I can look at the novels for what they are to an audience made up of people such as myself. Books that can be read in a day for mindless quasi entertainment. I can rationalize that the over protectiveness that the vampires have for Bella is to protect her from the ones who are actively seeking to kill her, and would if she were exposed.
I fear for the legions of young girls and women who are reading this book and looking at Edward's behaviour as "Romantic", and are not critical thinkers enough to identify that this level of risk does not exist in the real world, and that men who would seek to dominate them in this way should not be allowed.
I do regret that I kept reading the damn books and came to the realization that I was doing it to see if, in my mind, Bella would "grow a set". I realized at the same time that in my own disdain of the character I was being anti-feminist, as clearly in my mind Bella needed to take on male attributes in order to take power. duh. I include this because I find it funny, but also telling commentary. At least I can laugh at myself.
The second thing is Battlestar Galactica. Man I love this show!
We watched it as television should really be watched. That is, we bought the series on DVD and watched it like total addicts, hours at a time. Hey, no commercials!
But here I am, patiently waiting 9 more hours until the show's final season starts and we get a little closer to finding out..... who is the 5th of the final five?
Just wanted to write in here about who I think it has to be.
When the rebel Cyclons have the prez and some of Galactica's crew hostage aboard their Base Ship, D'Anna tells Lee that there are 4 of the final 5 in his fleet. Since every indication was that all 5 were in the fleet before the hostages were taken, we're left with the 5th being one of the hostages. The producers of the show have made it clear that the 5th will be a main character, not someone we have not seen before or someone who is dead or whatever.
The main characters that are on the Base Ship with the Cylons are Adama, Roslin, Helo, and Baltar. The rest of the hostages are day-player pilots and crew, and I can't see it being one of them.
D'Anna takes Adama back to the Galactica with him, as a hostage, when going to get the four. So I think it is safe to say that the 5th is not Adama. So we have Helo, Baltar, and Roslin. I don't think that it's Helo, because his being a Cylon does not have enough ramification for the plot.
So, Roslin? D'Anna does the head fake by telling her "You didn't realise you were one of them?" Is this a play to see if Roslin knows she is a Cylon, or not? She shrugs it off as a joke after - "you should have seen your face".
So, Baltar? He's long been my favourite to win this race. I thought, since the idea of the 5 was brought out in the show, that he was a Cylon. In fact, even before. For chrissakes, he bangs a Six bent over a table in his imagination, but acted out in reality. The Cylons can project themselves into environments they want to see, Baltar has had visions from the start - of Six, living back in his house on Caprica, everything. Constantly. Whenever. I always thought that was a good argument for his being one of them.
They hybrid says: "And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering."
Baltar - condemned humanity to destruction in the Cylon attacks, and has sought redemption and forgiveness with the one god.
My money is still on him!
[edit] - I am aware that Ron Moore has said that the 5th is someone missing from the "Last Supper" photo of the cast, which would negate both these choices, and in fact, all the major players. Basically, I think he was either misunderstood in context or content by the reporter, or he lied. Lied to throw fans off the scent? How shocking! Like fer sure! Why not?