Holly Twilightly?

[cyrano]

Had a date with a new person which went very well. But oddly enough that's not what I'm here to ask you about.

I was thinking, on the drive home, and wondering if there's been a similar religious reaction to the Twilight books as there was to Harry Potter. I mean, there's necrophilic themes, paedophilic themes, and bestiality--I don't know if vampires in the Meyer books have souls or not. But I haven't seen that level of concern. Maybe because people feel they're written for twelve year olds rather than eight year olds?

You may consider this an IFIAYAQD! entry.

Comments

[mnarra.livejournal.com]

Why hasn't there been a Christian outcry? I quote almighty Wikipedia:

Meyer says that she does not consciously intend her novels to be Mormon-influenced, or to promote the virtues of sexual abstinence and spiritual purity, but admits that her writing is shaped by her values, saying, "I don't think my books are going to be really graphic or dark, because of who I am. There's always going to be a lot of light in my stories."

You don't burn the witch if she's shilling for your particular sideshow. You do, however, burn the guy mixing his metaphors.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. I'd add (from my slightly-bitter-feminist standpoint) that while the Harry Potter series contains a number of female characters who break out of "accepted" norms of storybook femininity (Hermione is, in the books at least, not-classically-pretty as well as intelligent and driven, and even domestically-oriented Molly Weasley shows ferocity in defending her family), Twilight's Bella behaves almost exactly as the more conservative sector would have her do: sitting around passively, constantly cutting herself down mentally, maintaining her 'purity' ('cos that's where her entire value lies, donchaknow), letting her boyfriends simultaneously put her on a pedestal and infantilize her. Which, considering the hilariously dysfunctional relationships that result in the books (I understand that Eclipse, at least, parts ways drastically), should really serve as its own argument against such behavior, and yet somehow taps into some cultural fantasy girls are prone to.

This convoluted and overcomplex posting brought to you by the Parenthesis and his good buddy the Hyphen. (If they're good enough for Virginia Woolf...)

[technocowboy.livejournal.com]

This. This right here. Of course they're not going to object to vampires if those vampires are Mormon. That's why the rest of us are offended.

There was a tweet making the rounds yesterday that made me laugh: Dear Confused Teen Girls: someone who sparkles and won't have sex with you isn't a vampire; it's a gay guy.