Recently I passed out of my “mid-20’s” and officially entered my “late-20’s”. Since marking arbitrary transitions in age is something that our society does well, I actually spent a decent amount of time deciding what I wanted to do. In the end, it was a simple evening at home with some friends, a calzone (cleverly skirting the fact that I had given up pizza for Lent), and a movie. Specifically, Twilight. Yes, I admit that I willingly watched a movie aimed at teen girls. Call it a train wreck response. I simply couldn’t resist the chance to see if Flash Gordon might finally have a legitimate competitor.
I was not disappointed. In the realm of flat dialogue, stunted characterizations, and forced symbolism, Twilight has few peers.
I know what you’re thinking. Yet another anti-Twilight blogger. You probably think I’m going to make fun of the fifth-grade attempt at symbolism when Bella arrives in Forks, clutching her little cactus as though the blunt declaration in earlier dialogue that she “always hated Forks” wasn’t already as subtle as a sledgehammer. Or maybe you think I’ll take pot-shots at lines like, “This is the skin of a killer!” or, “your scent, it’s like a drug to me”. Or perhaps you think I’ll lament the fact that the best acting in the film (Billy Burke) is wasted by deliberate editing choices that consistently thwart Burke’s attempts at clawing his way out of the one-dimensional “emotionally-absent and overprotective father” stereotype. Those are all legitimate criticisms, but they aren’t really what I want to talk about. I won’t even get into the debate about Bella’s frankly dangerous inability to function without Edward.
No, I’m not interested in those criticisms. I’m interested in the response that the criticisms have received. The more cogent responses point out (rightly) that these books (and, by extension, the movie) are “junk food”. And, these responses continue, because the books (and movie) are junk food, and the fans know they are junk food, the criticisms above don’t matter. Fair enough. Concerns that these books promote abusive/controlling relationships are certainly overblown. Women have fantasized over far more controlling characters after all (I know very few women who have not, at some point, at least wondered what it would have been like to be with Heathcliff). The defenders also point out that these books at least get teens to read when they may otherwise not be inclined to do so, under the theory being that any reading at all is a good thing. This too is reasonable.
But to these responses, I offer further criticism. The issue is not so much that the Twilight series is junk food, but rather that it is bad junk food. There’s a difference between a circus peanut and a bar of Lindt chocolate. Both are technically junk food, but anyone who has tried both can tell you that there’s a world of difference between the two. The Harry Potter series are junk food too, but they are reasonably well-written junk food, with characters who have actual flaws and who manage to struggle through relationships without excessive melodrama. Yes, in Rowling’s books the whole Harry/Ginny relationship is a side plot, but it’s still handled with more depth and believeability than Meyer’s portrayal of Edward and Bella.
It’s all well and good to say that Twilight is at least encouraging teens to read, but suggesting that as a merit seems to me akin to feeding a starving man nothing but those aforementioned circus peanuts and then saying, “well, at least he’s eating”. “But,” the defenders say, “teens won’t stop with just Twilight, they’ll hunger for more literature; we can use Twilight as a gateway book.” This is wishful thinking; an example of hope overcoming experience where otherwise intelligent people prefer to delude themselves into believing that non-readers will “graduate” from Twilight to more substantial food rather than to face the reality that non-readers will instead cling to books that embrace Twilight‘s purple prose and simplistic constructions. (Somewhere, someone is saying that you can’t have both purple prose and simplistic construction. I can only reply that simply adding a barrage of multisyllabic thesaurus-nuggets does not a complex sentence make; to be sure, such a style can help to increase the reader’s vocabulary, but it does nothing to enhance his or her ability to form a coherent sentence that properly expresses a complex idea.)
I can see the last response to my criticisms coming: “If the Twilight series were as bad as you believe it is, then there’s no way it would be as popular as it is. You’re just another literary elietist who wants to scoff at anything that is modern and popular.” This is where I drop the bomb. I like Twilight. I think that the idea behind it could make for a most exceptional series. I think that the characters have the potential to show great depth and humanity. In the hands of a competent author, it could be an incredible fantasy series. Instead, we get Stephanie Meyer and the whole thing falls flat. That’s the problem.
