Protest against Stephenie Meyer

I have to blog because I won't be able to sleep until I've ranted.

Trevor has just come in and told me that forty pages of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn (released yesterday at midnight to the huge anticipation of thousands of screaming fans worldwide) is devoted to racy descriptions of honeymoon sex. Harlequin romance material. Not kidding. He even read me a passage. We've both been talking about it for the last hour and I'm infuriated.
If you've already endured expressions of my absolute hatred towards the Twilight series, stop reading now. I couldn't finish the first book I was so disturbed, and did not keep that quiet.

I shall list my complaints below:

1. Bella is the worst female role model for young teenage girls ever. She has no personal ambitions, she has no inner drive, no spirit, and as soon as she falls for the enigmatic and gorgeous (and absolutely ridiculous) Edward, her own life essentially ends. She is subsumed by an engulfing obsession, a slave to her emotions. Who wants to be like that? Who wants to read a story about such a namby-pamby, gutless female? Who wants their daughter to read this book and want to be Bella? She's manipulative and weak. After her third swooning in the first book I gagged and threw the book down. Give me true heroines! Give me a Harry Potter's Hermione Granger, Aerin from Hero and the Crown, Beauty from Robin McKinley's Beauty, Cimorene from Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons. Give me a woman with spirit and compassion, none of this Bella nonsense!
I can't express how much this bothers me. Books have a way of wheedling into your psyche and imagination more than anything else. It's all your own construction - and you (generally) read alone, creating your own world. The way you read and imagine stories is a reflection of yourself. Young impressionable girls, who make up the massive fan base for Stephenie Meyer's nauseating series, are exactly the age to fall prey to the destructive ideas portrayed in her books. It terrifies me to think that these ideas may wheedle their way into these girls' imaginations.

2. Meyers reinforces overwhelmingly negative stereotypes. The women in her books are predictably weak and emotional, swooning and weeping. The men are gorgeous, mysterious, sexy and uber-masculine. Women (including me) are always acutely aware of the unfair idealizations that plague the media and are subsequently held as a mirror for ourselves. What about the men? What poor bloke is ever going to measure up to an Edward? It's what I call the 'Darcy Complex.' There are no Mr. Darcys, and I am not saying this as a cynical, unhappy, un-romanced woman because I am quite the opposite, I am saying it because it's true, the same way there aren't real super-model women.
Women (young women particularly) can often build in their minds an unrealistic image of their knight in shining armor, and will inevitably be disappointed at some point. Frankly, I remember countless times in Young Womens when our adviser would hand out clean sheets of paper and pencils and ask us to write down the qualities we wanted in our future husbands. What? Why?! Why waste our time with this? Why not think about our own qualities and how to improve them?

3. There is a world of great literature waiting to be read. Why waste time reading any of Stephenie Meyer's inanity? I am a big supporter of escapist reading (I am currently re-reading Harry Potter III) but there's a difference between escapist reading and absolute worthless reading. Meyers books' purpose is to excite, titillate and insight emotions. Not for me, please.

I wouldn't be so bothered by this if it wasn't such a phenomena in my community. The majority of my dearest friends and family members are sucked into it. In a community that raises such a huge fuss over nudity in art! This is a novel meant for teenaged girls that has descriptions of ripped lingerie and manipulative sex. I am not making this up: Bella wants to have sex with Edward, who will not do it because he hurts her, so she lies to him saying she will promise to go to one semester of college if he will have sex with her (pg. 102-103). Once she is pregnant, Edward wants to destroy the baby so that it will not hurt her. WHAT?! How much more perverse could that be?! What message is that sending to girls?! What message to even adult women? What is that saying about sex? Is that in any way a healthy relationship!?

I am absolutely a romantic, I believe in the power of love and hold true romance in the highest esteem. But I will have none of this. It is purely sensual - where is the marriage of true minds?

Oh, and, her writing style is terrible. Monstrous. How did she get published?

I will have none of it, and I am verbally protesting it.

Now I can go to bed.