My up and coming book needs some research. Research into teen fiction with a female lead. I have some strong ideas on what I want it to be, say and convey about young girls. I am writing it for my daughters to read in 10 years’ time basically.
So I watched Twilight. It was awful. Worse than awful; offensive.
But I know what it is like when a book is butchered by a film, condensing the 5 hour narrative into a 90 minute fly-through. So I read the book (audio-book). It is, unbelievably, actually so much worse. You see, while a film usually chops up the narrative into a barely recognisable bloody mess this film thankfully reduces the amount of extraneous garbage and extended, drawn out dribble that is taking the place of regular teenage thought processes and conversation.
Other people with more time and knowledge and who can write much better than me (or is it ‘I’) have done so here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/twilight-lessons-girls-learn/
But just in case you do want my thoughts:
It is a backward, middle-American, sentimentalist, masochistic, servitudal dribble.
Bella is very much a possession rather than an individual. She is also completely helpless, hapless and horribly clingy.
She has attributes but they are completely overridden by her inability to do or think anything when she is around this boy.
She is quite quick witted with sharp enough come backs and retorts. She is, of course, good at household chores and other womanly things. But her greatest attribute is her willingness to be at the beck and call of the ‘God-like’ Edward and to not think it is weird when he is obsessive and abusive.
As for Edward himself. He is not brooding, mysterious and certainly not romantic. Edward is:
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Aggressive
Possessive
Jealous
All-consuming
Controlling
Secretive
Obsessive – needs to know everything
Intrusive
Oversteps boundaries
Reckless
Pile of pish. But, to be honest, good research.
// Jun 17th, 2011