I haven’t read Twilight, and I don’t criticize books I haven’t read, but I do object in general to the idea that something can’t be ideologically offensive just because it’s justified in-story.
Birth of a Nation, for example, depicts the founding of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic response to a bestial, aggressive black militia that’s been terrorizing the countryside. In the presence of a bestial, aggressive black militia, forming the KKK isn’t really a racist thing to do. But the movie is still racist as all hell for contriving a situation where forming the KKK makes sense.
Similarly, I’d view a thriller about an evil international conspiracy of Jewish bankers with profound suspicion.
Well, sure, but men who think women need to stay in the kitchen for their own good are. What makes Twilight sound bad is that it’s recreating something that actually happens, and something that plenty of people think should happen more, in a context where it makes more sense.
There are other female characters in the story. Alice can see enough to dance circles around the average opponent. Rosalie runs around doing things. Esme’s kind of ineffectual, but then, her husband isn’t made out to be great shakes in a fight either. Victoria spends two books as the main antagonist. Jane is scary as hell. And—I repeat—the minute Bella is not fragile, there is no more of the objectionable attitude.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Edward/Bella dynamic wasn’t written to appeal to patriarchal tendencies, and just arose naturally from the plot. I’m completely unequipped to argue about whether or not this was the case. But I’m pretty confident the reason people who haven’t read the book think it sounds anti-feminist is that we assume that Stephenie Meyer started with the Edward-Bella relationship and built the characters and the world around it.
I haven’t read Twilight, and I don’t criticize books I haven’t read, but I do object in general to the idea that something can’t be ideologically offensive just because it’s justified in-story.
Birth of a Nation, for example, depicts the founding of the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic response to a bestial, aggressive black militia that’s been terrorizing the countryside. In the presence of a bestial, aggressive black militia, forming the KKK isn’t really a racist thing to do. But the movie is still racist as all hell for contriving a situation where forming the KKK makes sense.
Similarly, I’d view a thriller about an evil international conspiracy of Jewish bankers with profound suspicion.
I think it’s relevant here that vampires are not real.
Well, sure, but men who think women need to stay in the kitchen for their own good are. What makes Twilight sound bad is that it’s recreating something that actually happens, and something that plenty of people think should happen more, in a context where it makes more sense.
There are other female characters in the story. Alice can see enough to dance circles around the average opponent. Rosalie runs around doing things. Esme’s kind of ineffectual, but then, her husband isn’t made out to be great shakes in a fight either. Victoria spends two books as the main antagonist. Jane is scary as hell. And—I repeat—the minute Bella is not fragile, there is no more of the objectionable attitude.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Edward/Bella dynamic wasn’t written to appeal to patriarchal tendencies, and just arose naturally from the plot. I’m completely unequipped to argue about whether or not this was the case. But I’m pretty confident the reason people who haven’t read the book think it sounds anti-feminist is that we assume that Stephenie Meyer started with the Edward-Bella relationship and built the characters and the world around it.