Defending Twilight

[redlipstick]

I watched a bio on marget Mitchell who wrote gone with the wind. She had the same writing experience as SM. ( she was like SM one of the best selling author with the one exception that her story went in to win 10 academy awards) jenn*sparkles

the short story that came a year after GWIW is "chrysanthemums" by steinbeck. I used that MM's book was published a year before Chrysanthemums, and showed a financial whiz who was female, and rural, to show that JSteinbeck is a monkey's uncle. this was, of course, one of those times I really ought to have called up my careful friend and asked what she would have done to divine what the teacher wanted, rather than pointing out the fairly obvious. and yes, i flunked, with extra-nasty comments tagged to the paper.

GWIW is a barn-burner, even now.

[scoundrel]

oh, here's the ridiculous article by a jealous newbie writer. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...pires/255365/#

Mod note; caution for mature language for linked article.

this guy has been giving interviews forever on campus at UTA, and in the local alternative paper. So he's been half-famous forever, unlike Mrs. Meyer, who rocketed to enormous fame by actually producing marvelous pieces of creative work, one after another.

I followed the link to Mr McGreevy's actual essay and I must observe that Mr Silverman, the reviewer, is a better writer and that Mr Silverman made the essay sound better than it really is. The use of profanities adds no value; it's not a James Jones novel; its meant to be a cultural critique. On Mad Men Mr McGreevy does have some worthwhile points, but I feel that this doesn't support his critique of Twilight, a critique which screams to me that he hasn't read it. The throwaway details are significant; if these are accurate, the indication is that the reviewer did read and pay attention to the work. But we get:

its premise is that the hot, broken guy who breaks into your house to draw you while you sleep wants to wait until marriage...

and:

...a young female protagonist, and a vampire love interest who does not even try to eat her.

No mention of the meadow scene there, in which Edward is nearly overcome by the scent of Bella's throat. I don't think this man has actually read the books; seriously, I think he's winging it.

Neville Cardus, a cricket writer for the Manchester Guardian in the thirties, forties and fifties, once absconded early from a match because he had a hot date with an aristocratic socialite whom, chivalrously, he refused ever to name, always referring to her as "Milady". The batting side were sure to lose, their last man was "in" and they were over 100 runs in arrears. To his consternation, a friend in the press box sent him an urgent telegram to warn him that the batters had won! He was forced to fake an article describing the victorious last wicket partnership in detail, played while he elsewhere, was up to no good with "Milady". Cardus got away with it because he knew a lot about all the players involved and could imagine a convincing account of what must have taken place.

Mr McGreevy, however, knows not a great deal about the Twilight characters, how they interact, and how their imagined world works. Mr McGreevy needed to actually read the books and take notes as well if he wanted to produced a detailed and circumstantial account of their egregious rubbishness, as clearly he did want to do. He didn't do his homework; it was too much trouble.

[Elisha]

I know some people are upset with the 50 shades of Grey/Twi FanFic thing...personally I enjoyed the books but was wondering TwiMOMs policy on chatting about the books as I can't find a thread.

[LynnL]

I know some people are upset with the 50 shades of Grey/Twi FanFic thing...personally I enjoyed the books but was wondering TwiMOMs policy on chatting about the books as I can't find a thread.

You can start a discussion there here. The same rules apply for language and content discussion as they do for the TS books.

[redlipstick]

oh. goodness. I found an article online about twilight, and it was quoting people. I'm suspecting, without permission, since your quotes were all used to support her thesis of "neurotic, frightened of sex, preyed upon by large corporations, icky twilight." It was amazing. and reptilian, nearly. and stupid. malignantly, malevolently, maliciously mendacious.

[scoundrel]

oh. goodness. I found an article online about twilight, and it was quoting people. I'm suspecting, without permission, since your quotes were all used to support her thesis of "neurotic, frightened of sex, preyed upon by large corporations, icky twilight." It was amazing. and reptilian, nearly. and stupid. malignantly, malevolently, maliciously mendacious.

Did they quote me, RLS? Have I had a down-payment on my 15 minutes of fame?

One must have a sense of humour. The best revenge on people who hate the things we love is to be happy in spite of what they think and say. Be prepared also to give the Devil his due. For example, I recently encountered a picture from the film Alien, a still from the infamous "alien birth" scene in which the monster is emerging in a really repulsive way from William Hurt's still-living body; the subtitle was: "...Still a better love story than Twilight." It didn't trouble me at all, and yes, I laughed, because it was witty. It doesn't tell us a thing about Twilight though; it only tells us about the intensity of the author's ill will towards the Twilight phenomenon. And here's the thing; I couldn't give two hoots about the opinions of anyone who dislikes Twilight or the other books.

It's no skin off my nose. They can go their own way and I'll do as I please.

[Shimmerskin]

oh. goodness. I found an article online about twilight, and it was quoting people. I'm suspecting, without permission, since your quotes were all used to support her thesis of "neurotic, frightened of sex, preyed upon by large corporations, icky twilight." It was amazing. and reptilian, nearly. and stupid. malignantly, malevolently, maliciously mendacious.

I know that comments of mine from TM have been quoted without my permission in the past. I only know this because alert members usually apprise me of it. In nearly every case, the comments were taken wildly out of context to bolster whatever point the article's writer was attempting to make.

I like Scoundrel's approach. That can be our motto: "No two hoots from us!"

[redlipstick]

no, scoundrel, your fifteen minutes are coming up, since you are a brilliant writer. I have publisher kevorka, it turns out. you'll be as mobbed up with fans as ian fleming at a cocktail convention.

I'm in the middle of this wretched, wretched enterprise- I ask you- I'm trying to find a needle in a haystack- a name that I read a year ago, and had no idea how significant it was- and all my whining and whining and whining and avoiding- has meant that (1) one person moved half-way around the world, b/c I made it sound interesting and (2) other people have written books, b/c I made it sound do-able and (3) other people have gone on to do much better things in their lives, b/c they could do a better job of it than me. I've got whining skills, or should I say Skillzzz.
and you should write, too, ms shimmerskin, since you are so very, very quoteable.

I'm trying to find this one obscure philosophy lecturer in Paris, right at the end of World War 2. I keep having to get up from the computer, b/c the sheer destructive malignancy of all the options available is really overwhelming. These are bad people. Their sheer inhumane awfulness is fully documented: and yet, no one recoils in horror. I don't understand it. This one guys theory was that all men would join in some ecstatic union with the state, as new marxist men, I'm guessing, but I could be wrong, and all women would be subservient and available to all men, b/c all women are lower than all men. He was telling men to work towards this totalitarian goal b/c they'd be happy. Women would be happy being servants. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that Ms deBeauvoir was taking notes in class for herself to study, without throwing down her pen, or using it as a dart. She thought this was brilliant. I'm trying to figure out which child molester, killer, rapist, depraved predator, disease nexus, was the first one to spout this nonsense to the others.

I'm glad you are laughing at your words being mis-used. It's very big of you. I've been sorting through copyright issues. It's a cloudy area. For the longest time the rule of thumb was 150 words. Well, Jerry Seinfeld's show, with it's witticisms of two or three words- the soup Nazi, the yadda-yadda, the close-talker- the show took all sorts of enterprises to court- and won. Rap music sampled all sorts of bars of music- and rappers make more money than obscure recording artists from long- ago- and those long-ago musicians would like to get dog-biscuits to go with their tins of cat-food, and maybe buy some bubble-wrap to insulate their cardboard boxes ( serious poverty going on) ( I-tunes is total karmic payback to record companies) so even a little snippet of sound-quote now has value. The one exception is still academic writing. Although I suspect at some point, that's going to get the turned upside down and pocket-change shaken out treatment. There are two textbooks on Twilight. One prof is one who mis-quoted you, for instance. It's a $35 textbook. It belabors Twilight as insufficiently femininist. It slags Bella for virginity, and on and on. Because, you know, Twilight is the only book out there. There aren't any other books, ever, to take a different approach. not one. nope.

I'm going to have to go with paraphrase and credit, which is kind of sad. I'm reading some fantastic prose stylists. i wish they'd get to swan about in my word pool, you know?

[LadyEsme]

Exactly. RLS, laugh it off. Negative people can have their negative opinions. Has no effect on my enjoyment of what I like. I often go to a movie or read a book in spite of critics. I know they do not appreciate what I do. I also think that negative feelings are destructive to your health and self-worth.
RLS, you have TM power. Sounds like you have a tough project on the go. Good luck with the research and finding that elusive mad-hatter philosophy lecturer.
Cheers, LadyEsme

[redlipstick]

I found him. He's awful.
and, apparently, not much wonderful himself, but wildly influential, as a teacher. He teamed up with an academic in America, and they'd put the polish on aspiring political types.

It's kind of interesting. I'm poking around finding, of all things, doctoral dissertations by catholic intellectuals, and most of it's over my head- but you know that bit where the poor screenwriter had to square the circle to let Bella choose to carry her pregnancy to term, and she had Edward both outraged, angry and horrified at her? That's the sort of thing getting argued over, back when. Apparently, there's this whole set of novels where the choice ought to be to have an abortion, or kill someone. The only times the heroines are shown to be lovely, desirable and admirable, is the day after the abortion or murder. Pregnancies are referred to as fetuses, things, monsters, aliens, as rot. Rot, repeatedly, dry rot, slow rot, rot and decay, rot from the grave, all sorts of dissolution of the mother. These are supposedly major literary works.

It's really a unified theory. I didn't know that. There are lots of books about romance and love, about young love, about marriage, and so on. Twilight has managed to be the one book I can think of where the critics aren't saying " don't read this b/c of this, that or the other." it's "don't even gaze upon this work- drive by the car wreck." That's what interested me in Twilight at first- the hatred was so out-sized and out of proportion. I'm used to contempt for books- that's the go-to for a book appealing primarily to women. This was different, and I've been trying to figure out why.

I feel very small, though. The people who come up with these theories that get watered down into " of course" and " as a femininist critic..." and " as a literary critic...." are such uniformly awful people. I'm stuck at " So.....you molested your students.......and you have moral authority to pronounce on anything- how?" or " you're an admitted meth-head. We call them tweakers, here, and make fun of them as the lowest of the low. You keep making moral pronouncements. Why?" or " So, you admitted to exposing people to life-threatening diseases without consent? and you're proud of this? and I'm supposed to listen to you?" or " you 'accidentally' killed your wife. and wrote a book about it. and you're still teaching classes? not to a prison population?" I can't quite get to their philosophy, since I'm mesmerized by the pure train-wreckiness of their private behavior. I feel like I'm doing the naked emperor waltz.

[scoundrel]

DW Griffiths and Leni Riefenstahl were great film makers; both geniuses and ground breaking innovators in the cinematic art. I have to say that when I think of the Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue in The Birth of a Nation and of Hitler's aeroplane overflying the stadium of the Nuremburg Rally, I cannot respect the way they used their talents. Ultimately, they made bad choices.

The student-molester I take to be Simone de Beauvoir? The meth-head I take to be Jean Paul Satre, who apparently once hallucinated that he was being chased by a giant lobster down the Champs Elysee (as you do). Patient Zero and the wife-murderer I don't recognise. One must address the arguments. It is common for people not to be as nice as they appear to be. Also, and I will express this thought as delicately as I can, no matter how exalted or rarified another person seems, they too must visit the mans/ladies room exactly as we all have to do. They may have qualities we don't have, but their...er...well, it stinks as well. But conversely, no matter how despicable these philosophers were, they never claimed to be moral exemplars and they aren't trying to run for President; so it's the quality of their thinking, of their argument, which matters.

A man's a man for a' that. ~ Robert Burns.

I hope that's helpful, RLS.

[redlipstick]

Patient Zero was Michel Foucault. Revolting. Truly appalling. He became infected with HIV. He continued to practice intimacies without protection, knowingly exposing his partners to disease. It was in the eighties, so it was a violent, degrading death. He would go from France, where he was a nebbishy linguistics professor, to Berkeley, California, during the summers. He would desport himself in the bath-houses in California, in every sort of improbable way. When asked about this, his responses went from- they'd accompany his soul in death to some version of they asked for it, to they should count themselves lucky to have his famous germs.

Since I've friends in Berkeley, and in San Francisco, it's a little too uncomfortably close to him wishing death on people quite dear to me. It's especially appalling, in that the French variations on the disease were noticeably more virulent than what had first appeared in the US. That he could be so self- centered, self- pitying, and back-stabbing, and still look at himself in a mirror, is beyond me. What's most infuriating is that not only is he the bass note for the throb of the seventies, but that reckoning with him as a moral agent is taking up so much time from people who ought to know better ( researching angela weber- amazing numbers of theologians spend time trying to make the case he's a prophet.) ( I'm mingy. A homicidal maniac, basically, is not a prophet, I don't think.) ( I do feel very small and rules oriented, vs this big, empathic reaching towards the limits of everything)