Also, meh. I'm uncomfortable with the common characterization of Twilight as "unpopular fat girl's pathetic daydreams." There's plenty to criticize about it-although more often than not the anti-Twilight anti-bandwagon misses the point-but I think that kind of incredibly personal ad hominem against the author is way out of line.
Generally I'm against ad homimem attacks, but not here for 3 reasons:
1) Nothing is sacred; everything is hilarious.
2) When you write something, or paint something, or create something in general, you put a little bit of yourself in it. Your views, ideas, and outlooks on the world in general are reflected in your work. In this way, any criticism of a piece of art is, at least obliquely, a criticism of the person who made it.
3) In this particular case, the above applies even more so, since the Twilight series can generally be considered to be the most succesful Mary Sue story ever written.
Meh. In general, I think the characterization of the movie presented here in increadibly accurate. Of course, I have not read the books, and have only heard about them from other people (one girl recently called it "The most put-down-able book I ever read."), so I cannot say anything about the books themselves without compromising myself. XD
ad hominem is a completely irrelevant personal attack.
The phrase "unpopular fat girl's pathetic daydreams." is not an ad hominem because the phrase, vulgar as it may be, is relevant to the point. It may be a stereotype, and not always true, but it *is* shorthand for a more complicated situation that means "someone who suffered from teasing and dislike from her peers is likely to daydream about being popular and liked in a manner completely devoid of reality since the daydreamer has no personal experience in that subject."
And I think that's a completely accurate assessment of the story. If the author isn't actually an unpopular fat girl with pathetic daydreams, this story plays out like the product of one.
An ad hominem attack would be to say "You are wrong about your claim that vaccines don't cause autism because you're a big poopie-head and you smell bad". Which is completely irrelevant. One can be a big poopie-head and smell bad and the claim can still be correct ... or the claim can be false, but it's not false because he'
( ... )
Yeah, maybe if someone used the phrase in the context of an insightful and well-informed criticism of the novel and the ways in which the author's experiences have influenced it, it would be kind of acceptable, if still pointlessly vulgar.
Given that criticisms like that linked in the OP tend to be neither insightful nor well-informed, though, I think it's a stretch to view them as anything more than gratuitous name-calling.
That was friggin hilarious! I especially liked the line :Yeah but I have a BOYFRIEND now, which means I no longer have to be independent or physically capable of doing anything on my own. GOD!" and the final comment about millions of young girls flocking to see a story about a female lead, written by a female writer, directed by a female director with one of the most mysogonistic themes ever!
I, also, have not read the books, so maybe this was the fault of the director and the actors, but I have a hard time imagining that an entire popular series of books can have a strong, independent, female-power theme and have the director/actors turn it completely into a typical, swooning, female-submission story that epitomizes every stupid fairly tale known to our society that insist women should be rescued by men. It's much more likely that the themes in the movie reflect the themes in the book, rather than completely contradict them.
But, the synopsis made me laugh almost as hard as actually watching the movie with you did.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think the movie really did dilute what was positive about Bella's character. I don't think the books could ever be fairly described as a genuine girl-power manifesto, but I do think there are enough subtle things about them to make a somewhat feminist reading reasonably justified-although it might require you to ignore authorial intent quite a bit.
You also have to keep in mind that the movie only represents about a quarter of the full story, and therefore only the beginning of Bella's character arc. Far from being a flawless Mary Sue who swoons over a pretty boy, I think Bella begins as a very flawed character precisely because she is so prone to said swooning. And the rest of the story is about her attempting to overcome that flaw. (Whether she actually does or not is debatable
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I'm not sure how Bella being flawed due to being too insecure or emotionally dependent on Edward is comparable to a stereotypical Mary Sue being flawed due to being "too pretty."
And, yes, Edward's attitude towards sex and towards the idea of Bella being his equal in power is anti-feminist and sex-negative. That's the attitude of a character, though. It doesn't mean that the novel as a whole is anti-feminist or sex-negative. The fact that Edward is portrayed as a protagonist probably can reasonably be taken to mean that the author's views on the matter are pretty anti-feminist and sex-negative as well. But my point is, it is a perfectly valid alternative reading of the work to regard Bella as a feminist heroine seeking power and self-actualization, and to regard Edward as the antagonist working to thwart her in those goals
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Also, meh. I'm uncomfortable with the common characterization of Twilight as "unpopular fat girl's pathetic daydreams." There's plenty to criticize about it-although more often than not the anti-Twilight anti-bandwagon misses the point-but I think that kind of incredibly personal ad hominem against the author is way out of line.
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1) Nothing is sacred; everything is hilarious.
2) When you write something, or paint something, or create something in general, you put a little bit of yourself in it. Your views, ideas, and outlooks on the world in general are reflected in your work. In this way, any criticism of a piece of art is, at least obliquely, a criticism of the person who made it.
3) In this particular case, the above applies even more so, since the Twilight series can generally be considered to be the most succesful Mary Sue story ever written.
Meh. In general, I think the characterization of the movie presented here in increadibly accurate. Of course, I have not read the books, and have only heard about them from other people (one girl recently called it "The most put-down-able book I ever read."), so I cannot say anything about the books themselves without compromising myself. XD
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The phrase "unpopular fat girl's pathetic daydreams." is not an ad hominem because the phrase, vulgar as it may be, is relevant to the point. It may be a stereotype, and not always true, but it *is* shorthand for a more complicated situation that means "someone who suffered from teasing and dislike from her peers is likely to daydream about being popular and liked in a manner completely devoid of reality since the daydreamer has no personal experience in that subject."
And I think that's a completely accurate assessment of the story. If the author isn't actually an unpopular fat girl with pathetic daydreams, this story plays out like the product of one.
An ad hominem attack would be to say "You are wrong about your claim that vaccines don't cause autism because you're a big poopie-head and you smell bad". Which is completely irrelevant. One can be a big poopie-head and smell bad and the claim can still be correct ... or the claim can be false, but it's not false because he' ( ... )
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Given that criticisms like that linked in the OP tend to be neither insightful nor well-informed, though, I think it's a stretch to view them as anything more than gratuitous name-calling.
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I, also, have not read the books, so maybe this was the fault of the director and the actors, but I have a hard time imagining that an entire popular series of books can have a strong, independent, female-power theme and have the director/actors turn it completely into a typical, swooning, female-submission story that epitomizes every stupid fairly tale known to our society that insist women should be rescued by men. It's much more likely that the themes in the movie reflect the themes in the book, rather than completely contradict them.
But, the synopsis made me laugh almost as hard as actually watching the movie with you did.
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You also have to keep in mind that the movie only represents about a quarter of the full story, and therefore only the beginning of Bella's character arc. Far from being a flawless Mary Sue who swoons over a pretty boy, I think Bella begins as a very flawed character precisely because she is so prone to said swooning. And the rest of the story is about her attempting to overcome that flaw. (Whether she actually does or not is debatable ( ... )
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And, yes, Edward's attitude towards sex and towards the idea of Bella being his equal in power is anti-feminist and sex-negative. That's the attitude of a character, though. It doesn't mean that the novel as a whole is anti-feminist or sex-negative. The fact that Edward is portrayed as a protagonist probably can reasonably be taken to mean that the author's views on the matter are pretty anti-feminist and sex-negative as well. But my point is, it is a perfectly valid alternative reading of the work to regard Bella as a feminist heroine seeking power and self-actualization, and to regard Edward as the antagonist working to thwart her in those goals ( ... )
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Thank you. That made my day.
Personally I want to go from theatre to theatre with a rapid fire pencil gun and shoot everyone watching "Twighlight".
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