In case you haven't been watching the media lately, a new craze has taken over the hearts, minds, and tee shirts of the 12-16 year old female. Something like Rudolf Valentino, heroin, Walt Disney's Prince Charming, and NightStalker all mixed together, the Twilight Phenomenon was witnessed first hand this weekend, when some young friends went to the movie wearing Team Edward tee shirts (two store-bought and one home-made with green glitter pen.) Words cannot describe the pent up hysteria that threatened to unleash itself in the car on the way to the theatre. Dogs could not tolerate the frequency of the shrieking that reverberated through the theatre while waiting for the movie to begin. Long hair, tight straight legged jeans, Converse sneakers, and popcorn were de rigueur.
Stephanie Meyer's gothic teenage vampire franchise had its seeds in a dream she couldn't stop writing about, resulting in four books and now a movie about a teenage girl's obsessive relationship with a seventeen year and 100 year old vampire boyfriend. Bella and Edward have inspired the swooning equivalent of the bobby soxers, only these kids are reading. Also texting, IM'ing, Facebooking, and making green glitter pen tee shirts.
What is so bad about all this vampire love?
1. It's actually not the vampire-ness, but the same sort of distorted romantic expectations that were created in the mothers of the Twilight fans by the heaving-bodice-romance novels from the 70's like The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. Of course, rather than a dominance/submission fantasy, the vampire boyfriend is so attentive and devoted that he seems sure to turn into an abuser, as his protectiveness and perfect anticipation of the young heroine's needs begin to seem creepy and controlling to women familiar with the pattern. But not to young readers, who sigh for the brooding passion and mind-meld that emulates the constant connection they maintain with their female friends over their devices and in their giggling cliques. It turns out, fortunately or not, that men and women don't really relate like that, no matter how passionate or soul-matey their communion.
2. The heroine starts out as an extra smart independent girl who is funny and with whom people want to be friends. She ends up totally focussed on an icy cold boy who comes into her room and watches her sleep every night, drives her to school, and then inexplicably rejects her just when she is most vulnerable. All of that is in book one. The result, as you might expect, is not especially becoming or healthy.
3. The couple cannot have sex, although their desire is the engine that keeps the books chugging along. Also the quest for survival. And sometimes both at the same time. The boyfriend tries to protect the heroine from his dangerous desire to drain her of all of her blood, so they endure a forced chastity while spending 24 hours a day together. A more skeptical person might suspect that the boyfriend was really gay. But that's another book.
New York Times: The Vampire of the Shopping Mall
New York Times: Love and Pain and the Teenage Vampire Thing
Vanity Fair: The Twilight Zone
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