Putting words to my thoughts

[frualeydis]

An excellent article about the new vampire books, women and feminism. I have longed to have the energy to write about this, though I also wanted to link it to the romantic era with it's backlash for women (compared to the Enlightenment), it's demonic lovers, obsession with purity and abstinence and the same female submission as you see in these new vampire books. Scary stuff.

Oh, and Edward Cullen is a seriously creepy guy.

Comments

[therru.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the Twilight books, but I did see the first film. I found it both gripping, absurd, and very, very disturbing. Bella is basically a non-entity, an empty vessel, and she submits completely to Edward, regardless of the danger. What does this say to young girls (who are, by and large, the target group for the novels) about love and relationships? If Edward had been a crack-smoking, violent mobster with anger issues, he would scarcely have been more dangerous to be with.

I know it's a fantasy, and the Dangerous Man does have a kind of allure, which I suppose is why the (more-or-less) romantic vampire genre is so big, although the Dangerous Man as romantic hero is not at all limited to that genre. But it does make me uneasy.