Twilight Hypnotism
So Twilight recently got its sorry ass banned in a Catholic school in Britain for being too sexual.
Most of the reactions I've heard have been along the lines of "They don't touch each other for three books and then we get a fade out during the wedding night! How the hell does it get banned for that?"
Well, this song doesn't have any bad words either:
There was an old farmer who lived by a rock,
He sat in the meadow a-waving his
fists at some boys who were down by the creek
their feet in the water, their hands on their
marbles and playthings and in days of yore
there came a young lady who looked like a
lovely young maiden, she sat on the grass
she lifted her skirts and showed us her
ruffles and laces and a neat little tuck
she told us she was learning a new way to
raise up her children and teach them to knit
while the boys in the barnyard were shoveling
straw from the stables and they worked day and night
If you think this is vulgar then bless ya, yer right!
(The Farmer, by Wicked Tinkers)
Twilight is inherently sexual by nature, even if there aren't any blatant hot steamy sex scenes. Think about it. There may not be any sex in the books, but what effect does it have on idiot teenage girls who read them? I'm sure most Twilight haters have said something similar to "Teenage girl masturbation material" in reference to Twilight because that's what it is.
I've got a theory that Twilight is more emotional libido stimulation material than physical titillation. You also have to be in a certain state of mind to read and comprehend it...like you would have to be daydreaming the steamiest fantasy you've ever had in your paltry love life in order to understand the attraction Twilight lovers feel toward the story. There are certain ideas and concepts that trigger that weird feverish fantasy state (or perhaps the precursor to what is commonly described as 'the mood' in romantic situations) in females, and Twilight seems to have a lot of them. That's why, even though it's terrible, it has a ton of fans.
So...what goes through the mind of the average non-critical (or should I say gullible) Twilight reader? In the normal way, I'd claim that Meyer bores them into a state of hypnosis and from there sucks their brains out through a straw labeled JOSEPH SMITH Edward Cullen. What's disturbing is that it's true in a way.
Certain words, phrases, or ideas will trigger certain mental states in humans - this is the basis for hypnosis (See Darren Brown). Twilight uses some key words ('like supermodels', 'inhumanely beautiful', etc) that cause readers prone to falling into romantic daydream states to do so, though whether or not this is aimed at Edward or someone else is entirely up to the reader. It has to do with triggering subconscious, mostly instinctive desires to find a mate with a lot of social status, which in our society involves good looking, celebrity-like males, and that in turn plunges the reader into a daydream-like state (which is an actual physical state where your brain ceases to pay any substantial attention to things in reality in favor of the daydream).
Two years ago, I had the privilege of witnessing one of my friends be fully hypnotized on stage at the state fair as well as a substantial group of teenage boys (though not at the same time). Though all of them were hypnotized by the same person, and in the case of the boys, all at the same time, their reactions were all different. An example is the time when all the boys were told to turn to the person on their left and act like that person was their one true love. The boy second from the right had no problem letting the boy on the end cuddle him while he was cuddling the third boy, but the third boy (clinging to the hypnotist) kept trying to shove his inadvertent admirer off so he could be properly affectionate to the hypnotist. None of them turned into robots, and from what I saw of my friend's session, their personalities are fully intact the entire time. When I asked my friend what it was like, she said she didn't remember much of it, but the part she did remember (the bit with the squirrel and the joke), she said she knew she hadn't heard anything particularly funny, but for some reason she thought it was absolutely hilarious. She said it was also very dreamlike. She saw reality, but it simply didn't register enough for her to react to it instead of to her current impression of it.
It's interesting to read accounts by people who used to be 'rabid Twilight fans' (in their own words) but now they hate it. For some, it's as if they woke up. For others, they don't even know what they loved about it before. Even more, I hear people saying they ripped through it but didn't even know why they liked it so much afterward when they first read it.
There was nothing to like, for them. They saw reality, but it simply didn't register enough for them to react to it instead of to their current impression of it.
I'm not saying that Twilight is subtle. Twilight is blatant. Twilight is a hammer to the face. The hypnotist at the fair told us that certain conditions have to be fulfilled before he can hypnotize you: 1) You must be willing. 2) You must be sane (as in your mind functions and reacts the same as the majority of humanity). 3) You must be able to be hypnotized. Twilight readers are all three.
And yes, they must be sane, or else the book wouldn't work on them. They are also willing and able to be hypnotized. Hypnotism lowers inhibitions, embarrassment factor, and logic faculties, so you can see how someone sane would seem to be somewhat insane. The book, the marketing hype, the social pressure, and their own mental state all work together to push people into doing stuff they might not normally do. Is Meyer a hypnotist? I would say no, actually. She wrote the book for her own pleasure, so in fact what we see is literally what would work on her. It just happens to work on a lot of other people as well.
Most professional hypnotists have to make sure to 'place' a guaranteed escape trigger so they can snap their subjects out of their trances. If only Twilight were so easy to fix. Now that is where groupthink comes into play...
Most of the reactions I've heard have been along the lines of "They don't touch each other for three books and then we get a fade out during the wedding night! How the hell does it get banned for that?"
Well, this song doesn't have any bad words either:
There was an old farmer who lived by a rock,
He sat in the meadow a-waving his
fists at some boys who were down by the creek
their feet in the water, their hands on their
marbles and playthings and in days of yore
there came a young lady who looked like a
lovely young maiden, she sat on the grass
she lifted her skirts and showed us her
ruffles and laces and a neat little tuck
she told us she was learning a new way to
raise up her children and teach them to knit
while the boys in the barnyard were shoveling
straw from the stables and they worked day and night
If you think this is vulgar then bless ya, yer right!
(The Farmer, by Wicked Tinkers)
Twilight is inherently sexual by nature, even if there aren't any blatant hot steamy sex scenes. Think about it. There may not be any sex in the books, but what effect does it have on idiot teenage girls who read them? I'm sure most Twilight haters have said something similar to "Teenage girl masturbation material" in reference to Twilight because that's what it is.
I've got a theory that Twilight is more emotional libido stimulation material than physical titillation. You also have to be in a certain state of mind to read and comprehend it...like you would have to be daydreaming the steamiest fantasy you've ever had in your paltry love life in order to understand the attraction Twilight lovers feel toward the story. There are certain ideas and concepts that trigger that weird feverish fantasy state (or perhaps the precursor to what is commonly described as 'the mood' in romantic situations) in females, and Twilight seems to have a lot of them. That's why, even though it's terrible, it has a ton of fans.
So...what goes through the mind of the average non-critical (or should I say gullible) Twilight reader? In the normal way, I'd claim that Meyer bores them into a state of hypnosis and from there sucks their brains out through a straw labeled JOSEPH SMITH Edward Cullen. What's disturbing is that it's true in a way.
Certain words, phrases, or ideas will trigger certain mental states in humans - this is the basis for hypnosis (See Darren Brown). Twilight uses some key words ('like supermodels', 'inhumanely beautiful', etc) that cause readers prone to falling into romantic daydream states to do so, though whether or not this is aimed at Edward or someone else is entirely up to the reader. It has to do with triggering subconscious, mostly instinctive desires to find a mate with a lot of social status, which in our society involves good looking, celebrity-like males, and that in turn plunges the reader into a daydream-like state (which is an actual physical state where your brain ceases to pay any substantial attention to things in reality in favor of the daydream).
Two years ago, I had the privilege of witnessing one of my friends be fully hypnotized on stage at the state fair as well as a substantial group of teenage boys (though not at the same time). Though all of them were hypnotized by the same person, and in the case of the boys, all at the same time, their reactions were all different. An example is the time when all the boys were told to turn to the person on their left and act like that person was their one true love. The boy second from the right had no problem letting the boy on the end cuddle him while he was cuddling the third boy, but the third boy (clinging to the hypnotist) kept trying to shove his inadvertent admirer off so he could be properly affectionate to the hypnotist. None of them turned into robots, and from what I saw of my friend's session, their personalities are fully intact the entire time. When I asked my friend what it was like, she said she didn't remember much of it, but the part she did remember (the bit with the squirrel and the joke), she said she knew she hadn't heard anything particularly funny, but for some reason she thought it was absolutely hilarious. She said it was also very dreamlike. She saw reality, but it simply didn't register enough for her to react to it instead of to her current impression of it.
It's interesting to read accounts by people who used to be 'rabid Twilight fans' (in their own words) but now they hate it. For some, it's as if they woke up. For others, they don't even know what they loved about it before. Even more, I hear people saying they ripped through it but didn't even know why they liked it so much afterward when they first read it.
There was nothing to like, for them. They saw reality, but it simply didn't register enough for them to react to it instead of to their current impression of it.
I'm not saying that Twilight is subtle. Twilight is blatant. Twilight is a hammer to the face. The hypnotist at the fair told us that certain conditions have to be fulfilled before he can hypnotize you: 1) You must be willing. 2) You must be sane (as in your mind functions and reacts the same as the majority of humanity). 3) You must be able to be hypnotized. Twilight readers are all three.
And yes, they must be sane, or else the book wouldn't work on them. They are also willing and able to be hypnotized. Hypnotism lowers inhibitions, embarrassment factor, and logic faculties, so you can see how someone sane would seem to be somewhat insane. The book, the marketing hype, the social pressure, and their own mental state all work together to push people into doing stuff they might not normally do. Is Meyer a hypnotist? I would say no, actually. She wrote the book for her own pleasure, so in fact what we see is literally what would work on her. It just happens to work on a lot of other people as well.
Most professional hypnotists have to make sure to 'place' a guaranteed escape trigger so they can snap their subjects out of their trances. If only Twilight were so easy to fix. Now that is where groupthink comes into play...