I haven't read any of the
Twilight books, nor seen any of the movies, and I don't really plan to unless it's with a group of people and the Rifftrax or something. Most of my knowledge comes from the parodies and discussions surrounding the series. I'm loath to condemn it too hard - after all, I enjoy the
Vampire Diaries books, and I doubt they're that much better (the TV series totally is though). I suspect that if
Twilight had been written while I was a teenager I would have been all over it. I agree that the series seems to promote an unhealthy, dangerous relationship and that should be talked about. However, some of the criticism of the series is getting creepily misogynistic.
What got me thinking about this was seeing two different video reviews of the
New Moon movie (both giving spoilers for the whole movie):
Bum Reviews and
The Spoony Experiment. I really liked the Bum Reviews one, because the guy was clearly enjoying the lulz without getting all 'ew icky girls' about it. The Spoony one (which goes on for more than
forty-five minutes about just how much he hated it), on the other hand, had a lot of good points, but it also had some upsetting parts.
In one breath (around 10:30), he talks about what a bad feminist example Bella is setting for young women, and in the next (around 12:00) he uses misogynistic slurs about her. And while we're at it, isn't 'cocktease of a whore' kind of an oxymoron? Though it seems to me that 'whore' is becoming the go-to slur for 'woman I don't like', maybe because 'bitch' is starting to get reclaimed in some ways.
His complaints about how Bella treats Jacob (13:00) sound pretty much like the Nice-Guy argument to me. According to Spoony, Bella is clearly in love with Edward, and asks Jacob for a lot of favours. Apparently Jacob granting those favours means she's obligated to go out with him. Maybe she's not being a very good friend, but she sure as hell isn't
required be his girlfriend.
Finally, there's his comments about all the attractive shirtless men in the movie (42:50 onwards). Apparently anyone who wants to look at sexually attractive people should just look at porn. Okay, first of all, this is a series that's particularly popular among teenagers (not only teenagers, of course), and you want to encourage them to look at porn? Certainly plenty of teenagers would be happy with that, but not all would be comfortable with it, and I doubt their parents would be.
Secondly, where is all this porn that's not BL that's designed to appeal to women? It's notable that he spends a lot of time talking about 'googling titties', and doesn't seem to think about it much from the other side.
Thirdly, the big appeal of
Twilight to those that like it is the emotional connection.
cleolinda talks about Edward's 'tenderness'
here. And this isn't something that's exclusive to women either - look at
Kanon,
Air, and
Clannad, and other romance anime/games of that ilk. They're all about the women's emotional connection with the hero, and they're aimed at men. Just looking at shirtless pictures of pretty people is nice, but it's not going to give you that.
The thing about
Twilight is that it ignores the Male Gaze. Notice how Spoony tells his male viewers, 'If you're hoping to see hot chicks, they exist in this movie, but they don't show you nothing.' (45:30) This is a series that doesn't care about what men think of it, and that's unusual.
Here's another comment from
cleolinda about how men seem to hate Edward the Pretty-Boy. Her theory is that Edward represents a type of masculinity that men don't want to be and therefore don't want women to be attracted to. And this is something that comes out in anime fandom as well - what's with the bishonen, why do all these women seem to like dudes who look like ladies? If nothing else, I've got to give
Twilight props for being by a woman, about a woman (I don't know if it passes the Bechdel Test, but still), its first movie directed by a woman, aimed entirely at women, and hugely successful.
ETA: ...What the hell, why have half my icons disappeared?
ETA2: Aaaaand they're back.