Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about the Twilight Saga

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 1

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Vampires and werewolves and regressive gender norms, oh my!

In this first episode, Emily shares her deep thoughts about the Twilight saga, from concerns about what the series might be teaching teenage girls about their own agency in romance to the fact that society feels justified in denigrating the series precisely because teenage girls like it. Meanwhile, Tracie, who has never read nor seen the Twilight books and movies (which may end up on her tombstone?) is downright flabbergasted by what she learns.

Learn more about the craft, the plot (and research holes), and the head-scratching implications of the vampire/werewolf/unremarkable teenage girl love triangle that society loves to hate.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, and secure early access to Deep Thoughts (and other perks!) by visiting us on Patreon.  New episodes will be released on Thursdays for Patrons and the following Tuesday for everyone else,


Speaker 1:

Hi there, I'm Emily Guy-Burken, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today, I'll be sharing my Deep Thoughts About Twilight with my sister, tracy Guy Decker, and with you. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we Come over, think with us as we delve into our Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit.

Speaker 1:

So, tracy, tell me what you know about Twilight saga and how you know it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I don't know it from reading them or watching the movies, because I have done neither, which you should put on your tombstone but I guess just from Osmosis and the Zeitgeist. Here's what I know about the Twilight Saga. It is a love triangle between a human teenage girl, a vampire and a werewolf. I know that vampires aren't hurt by sunlight, but they're skin sparkles. I guess. I know that there is big beef among Twilight fans about whether your team werewolf or team vampire. I actually don't know their names, and I know that Fifty Shades of Grey, which I also have not read nor seen the movie, that's actually what should go on your own. I know that Fifty Shades of Grey was originally fan fiction from Twilight, with a global replace for their names. So that's it. That's about what I know about Twilight.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so that's a reasonable view, based on just kind of picking things up from the Zeitgeist. So I was teaching high school English when Twilight first came out, or well, at least once the the the mania really took over. I can recall hearing like little comments about it from as early as my first year of teaching, and I think it was my final year of teaching when I finally read all four books. A student loaned me her copies and I found myself when reading them. At the time I was 30 or 31 years old. I was a full grown adult, I was married, I had a real job, I worked with kids, so I very much knew the difference between my teenage self and and my adult self, and reading these books made me feel like I was 15 years old again. However, the second I closed the book, and this did not stop me from reading all four of them. But the second I closed the book I was like, oh, this is not good.

Speaker 1:

And I had two very strong thoughts at the time, which is one that I was very grateful that the books had not been around when I was between the ages of about 12 and 15.

Speaker 1:

I would have read them uncritically and taken them in and they would have become a part of my, of how I looked at the world in a way that would have been very damaging. And two, I was very grateful that I did not have a daughter who was that age at the time, because it would have been a situation where I couldn't say, no, you can't read this, because everyone is reading it and even reading it along with her and trying to mitigate some of the the the damaging lessons from it. I did not think I would be able to break through the way that Meyer writes that is so all-encompassing and so immersive. So I find that Twilight offers some very damaging and regressive lessons on gender politics, relationships, what romance is, and I think that, while I know that that has been explored many times, I think that that is something that would be fruitful for us to talk about, and to talk about why it took over so so strongly and what it means for for us and for our society that teenage girls so loved it, as did adult women.

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, I mean based on the way that 50 Shades was received, adult women did too. I was working at the JCC in Virginia Beach when 50 Shades really like took off and like some of the women that I worked with were like really into it.

Speaker 2:

I just read about it and I was like yep, that is not for me, but they were like really like they were like hot under the collar from for this book, that even even in the blurb, like what people were talking about about it. I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I don't find anything sexy about the idea of BDSM where a man is dominant. Like I just feel like that's patriarchy and I live that every freak, every freaking day. Like that's not, there's nothing sexy about that you know.

Speaker 1:

So the thing with and I'm not proud of this, but I have also read the first book of 50 Shades before I knew what it was. I'm gonna say that it was suggested to me as like because I do read romance novels. It was suggested to me on McKindle as like he might be interested in this. I'm like, oh, I've never heard of it. And then, like a week later I hadn't, I hadn't done that. A week later I heard some of the early rumblings about it and I was like, oh, that's interesting, and I had received a free gift card so I was like, all right, I'm not even paying for it.

Speaker 1:

The BDSM aspect of like the sex dominance was fine. It was the fact that it is not BDSM that EL James was like knew nothing about the BDSM community, knew nothing about how the actual contracts work between people, knew nothing about what aftercare was, knew nothing about how, even if you choose to be in some sort of BDSM relationship as a submissive, you are still in control. And this is entirely a fantasy about male control. And I literally had nightmares about that book after I read it, not based on the red room of pain stuff which you might have heard about. There's a point where he whips her as a sexual thing. It wasn't about that. It was about he was telling her what to eat and when to eat and what she could wear and what car she could drive, and just overriding her wishes.

Speaker 2:

And James is not in this community.

Speaker 1:

No, she's not in the scene she did like. When the book came out, the BDSM community was like this is not what we do Like. We are very much about consent and everyone understanding and enjoying themselves, and this is about creating a safe place to play, and what you are doing is this is describing abuse.

Speaker 2:

That's even grosser than I thought. Oh, it's fine, I don't find any. I don't think BDSM with a male dominant is sexy, but I don't think it's. I mean whether people wanna take like cool, cause I understand I actually have read a little bit about it and all the things that are in place to make sure that a scene is safe and fully consensual. Ooh, gross. All right, and that was. We were supposed to be talking about Twilight, but there is shades grew out of Twilight, so tell me about, like, how does that happen?

Speaker 1:

Very good reason that 50 Shades grew out of Twilight, so some of that controlling aspect is very much in Twilight. So the characters are. Let's start with the protagonist, Bella Swan, because really, cause Pretty McPritterson was not taken. Oh so so Bella Swan. Just to give you a little bit of the plot.

Speaker 1:

Bella Swan is a 17 year old girl who has grown up in Arizona. Her parents are divorced, Her mother has just recently gotten remarried to a professional baseball player who travels for work, and Bella does not want her mother to not be able to be with her stepfather, who has to travel, and she has to finish her last two years of high school. So she agrees to move to a place called Forks Washington, which is a real place To live with her father, who was the chief of police in Forks Washington. So things are a little awkward just cause she hasn't spent a whole lot of time with her dad. She gets to Forks and she has always thought of herself as plain and everyone is falling over themselves with how beautiful she is and just wonderful.

Speaker 1:

Stephanie Meyer has talked about how that is something that actually happened to her, cause she also grew up in Arizona and then she went to Brigham Young University for college and she said she was a five in Arizona and she was an eight at Brigham Young, and so I think it is also significant that Stephanie Meyer describes Bella Swan looking exactly the way Stephanie Meyer looks Long, dark brown hair, brown eyes, heart-shaped face, a small chin, lips that are tubing for her face like she's describing herself. So I went down a rabbit hole about Mary Sue's and the term and what it means for there to be a self-insert.

Speaker 2:

So do a quick. You should do a quick definition for our listeners.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so the term Mary Sue refers to a self-insert or wish fulfillment into a story. Now, the thing is, there's no set definition for Mary Sue, so it can be very subjective. The term comes from, actually, star Trek fan fiction from the 1970s, where a lot of the fan fiction at the time was written by women and it was often about young adolescent girls who were Starfleet graduates who were put on the enterprise. So there was a woman who was an editor of one of the fanzines who created a story the name of which escapes me but where she made her main character literally was named Lieutenant Mary Sue, and she was poking fun at the fact that so many of these stories seemed like wish fulfillment and had just Captain Kirk is immediately attracted to Mary Sue, and so on.

Speaker 2:

Which actually is in character. It is For James Tiberius Kirk.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and Mr Spock is just like eminently logical about everything. She says, things like that. So the issue with the term, mary Sue, is that it is used in a very sexist way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm thinking that I mean Dante, alighieri, anybody I mean, like male authors have been inserting themselves into wish fulfillment, into stories, for forever.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and James Bond is very much a male Mary Sue, which you'll sometimes see a male Mary Sue as a Gary Stu or a Marty Sue, and no one has an issue with that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I mean, dudes have been doing that for I mean really for forever. What long before 20th century? James Bond, I mean, come on, even like Dr Faustus, like that is yeah, like that is the way, that's what authors do, yeah, yeah. So even what's his name? Jose Gerta, who like wrote the story about himself and he like killed, he killed off the character that was him, so that he didn't himself have to die by suicide. Like, come on, this is a thing that writers do.

Speaker 1:

So the joke is, what do you call a male Mary Sue, a protagonist, right, right. So, however, there is something useful in having a term for this when you have an author who so firmly self inserts in a wish fulfillment way at the expensive story. So, and there are kind of sometimes Mary Sue just means a self insert. Sometimes Mary Sue is someone who is perfect in every way. Everybody loves them. There's, they have no flaws. They have, you know, like there's. They are good at everything as soon as they try it, and Bella Swan fits both of those. And so that's the. I think that's also an important understanding of why readers find Twilight so immersive and why people so loved. It is because it was not just the author insert. It very easily becomes the reader insert. So people reading the book imagine themselves as Bella in a way that is very easy to do, in part because Bella doesn't have much in the way of personality.

Speaker 2:

There's no substance there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's no substance there, so you can, you can insert yourself very easily.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let's get back to this story. So you started the time. So Bella Swan, who moves to Forks, washington, and realizes she's an eight when she used to be a five, yes, so she, on her first day of school.

Speaker 1:

she sits next to Edward Cullen, who is one of the kids in school who everyone wonders about is there's like six Cullen siblings. They're all adopted. They date each other, which is really freaking weird. Maybe it's five Cullen siblings anyway, and it turns out it's because they're not siblings, they're a coven of vampires. So Edward is sitting next to her in class.

Speaker 2:

Wait wait, I know I'm sorry, wait. So I'm an immortal being, can do whatever I want, can walk in the daylight and I go to high school. I know.

Speaker 1:

So that is because, well, they're in Forks, washington, because of the cloud cover, like there's very few sunny days, so they can, so they don't. So the problem with the reason why vampires have to avoid the sun is because then people would know what they were, because they sparkle.

Speaker 2:

So I mean can't they just say like I went to a great place and it's glitter? I mean, I mean, I guess in the 15th century maybe you couldn't say that, but in the 20th and the 21st century, yeah, okay, okay, okay, okay, I'll follow.

Speaker 1:

So there in Forks Wash because it's always cloudy where it's always cloudy. So Bella has biology class with Edward. The minute she walks in he like reacts, like with disgust, like she stinks and like he's like leaning away from her and horrified. And then then he disappears from school the next day and is gone for like a couple of weeks. He's described as unbelievably gorgeous. All of the Cullens are because vampires are all unbelievably gorgeous. He comes back and impossibly saves her from a car that's about to like she's in the parking lot of the school and there's a car that loses control for some reason and he's all the way across the parking lot and he saves her, like because he has super human speed. So she starts investigating, comes to realize that he is a vampire. She, wait, wait wait.

Speaker 2:

So this, this covenant of vampires, lives in this town and goes to the high school for ever. Well, it takes this outsider to be like, hmm, something's weird about these people.

Speaker 1:

They move every few years. So so that's the thing. They go back to different high schools over and over and over again. That it makes no, it makes no logical sense. All right, and it's only so that Bella has a chance to meet this, this boy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because who's a hundred or two?

Speaker 1:

Oh, oh, oh, okay, okay, he's a hundred and four yeah. So she. And she figures it out, partially because with the help of a new friend named Jacob Black, who is a member of the Kileut tribe, which I believe is how I'm pronouncing it correctly, which is also problematic because Stephanie Meyer did not do any real research.

Speaker 2:

So is there in fact a nation by that name?

Speaker 1:

And in that area. So she did enough research to find that there was a nation, find that there was a nation by that name, but she didn't actually like research their culture or anything.

Speaker 2:

She was just like I'm gonna make this guy Native American.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's who the werewolves are Ew, ew, ew. And they're played by a white guy in the movies.

Speaker 2:

Oh gross, okay, Okay.

Speaker 1:

So Jacob Black, she also she also describes his skin as reddish brown in the book. It's not okay, okay, okay. So, turns out, every vampire gets some sort of special skill when they, when they, they turn, they have like a cutie mark.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like, it's like the vampire.

Speaker 1:

So Edwards cutie mark is that he can read minds, except for some reason he's not a vampire. For some reason he can't read Bella's mind. Also, she has the most delicious smelling blood he's ever smelled in his entire life.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so that's why he was leaning away, so that he wouldn't just like bite her right there.

Speaker 1:

So and you find out that I haven't read it, but the she, she ended up doing a gender swapped version where she told the first the story of the first one from Edwards point of view. And you find out, if you read that, that he was like, oh my God, I'm gonna like destroy her and kill everyone in this classroom. Sexy because of how, how, how good her blood smells. So he is attracted to her for reasons that she has no control over.

Speaker 2:

And also like involve consuming her yes, literally yes, and she's like well, she's a subjectification.

Speaker 1:

She is food, yes. So over four books there is back and forth like he cannot say away from her because he is like he loves her so deeply and she doesn't care. She doesn't care what happens to her, she doesn't care if he kills her, she doesn't care if she wants to be turned into a vampire by him and he will like try to get away from her for her own good and then can't help himself. Comes back, finally he, he says to her that he will turn her if they get married. So they get married when she's 18, because she's refuses to hit 20 before being turned into a vampire.

Speaker 2:

Because she doesn't want to live a little lady. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of things she, she, does. Eventually they get married. They, while still vampire and human. They go on honeymoon. They have sex for the first time. She immediately gets pregnant, which you'd think like how does that work? Whatever so, but vampire human hybrids, apparently, are a rare thing that can happen. So he wants her to have an abortion. She says absolutely not. He ends up having to turn her because giving birth kills her. So he turns her to keep her alive.

Speaker 1:

And then she's this, you know magic, special snowflake, because every vampire takes like centuries to learn how to not just destroy humans. The Cullens are what they call them. They call themselves vegetarians because they only kill animals instead of humans. And so, like the first time, she goes out to hunt for for like a bear or something to drain, like there happens to be a hiker out there, and so she holds her nose and runs the other way and they're like how did that work? It took us hundreds of years not to kill people because she's a special snowflake, yes. So then she names the baby Renez and the baby the Renez may. Her mother's name is Renez. Her mother's name is Renez. Edward's adoptive mother's name is Esme. It's common in among Mormon like families to create like kind of weird name hybrids.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and so and so and Jacob, her affiliate friend, who is a werewolf and has been pining for her and has been in, for the most part a good friend, although he kind of oversteps some consent boundaries himself Immediately imprints on the infant Because werewolves have something called imprinting. Where that's it? You've met the, the, the person who is going to be the love of your life Doesn't happen to the other person, just happens to the werewolf. So he has imprinted upon Renez may and that is going to be his wife when she grows up. Now, growing up is because she's a hybrid. She grows faster than than a normal human, so she's wouldn't she grow slower since the round her age?

Speaker 1:

But I think Stephanie Meyer wanted to fast forward through the gross parts of of having the pedophilia.

Speaker 2:

Well, that too. There's so much wrong with this but I still haven't heard where 50 shades comes from.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, 50 shades was just I mean this does what's his name?

Speaker 2:

Edward. Does Edward like tell her what to do and stuff oh?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. And he watches her sleep Without her knowledge. He like sneaks into a room to watch her sleep before they're even dating, before they're.

Speaker 2:

Eww, yeah, and he's 104 and she's 17. Mm-hmm, like triple eww, mm-hmm, and he like tells her like what to eat and where to go. Okay, not quite that bad, but yes, so the one, and she's like oh of course, I love you so much, I'll do whatever you say.

Speaker 1:

No, like I believe that Meyer thinks that she's and I don't want to undercut this Meyer feels, because she has Bella like pushback verbally, I think, in her mind there is something there that's like that's the modern woman, like I don't know if she described herself as a feminist, but like there is something there that she doesn't just submit but she does, she just whines about it, basically. So now I want to say one thing really to make clear before we move on, because I'm going to be trashing this a lot. A lot of the backlash about Twilight has to do with the fact that it is entirely socially acceptable for us to hate on anything that teenage girls enjoy. Yeah, and I want to be clear that the idea of an epic romance is not inherently bad and there being some sort of epic romance that taps into the same emotional satisfaction that girls found in Twilight. You know that this is someone who would do anything for you and would sacrifice anything for you.

Speaker 1:

There is something very compelling about that, and that is not what the problem is. You know. That's not what's wrong with this book. The fact that Bella was written as a self insert is part of the reason why teenage girls latched onto it so much, and I think that if there were a better written, more thoughtful book that had the same kind of sense, that wasn't just this one woman's particular weird fantasy about being controlled, I think that that would be a lot healthier. But I don't want this to be about like teenage girls are stupid. I don't want to be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear the distinction and I think part of the thing that's just just here you talk about it is bothering me about it, is the unequal nature of the relationship. You cannot, I'm sorry. They're a 17 year old girl and 104 year old man. It's just not. It is not a meeting of partners, it is not a meeting of equals. And how can? I don't believe that there can be a true, deep, authentic love story. That's about romantic love that is not between equals, or at least close to equals. I can, I believe there could be authentic love between people of different ages, but once you add the romance piece of it, it becomes either just sort of sexual fantasy and use, you know, like, using by the authority figure of the of the younger.

Speaker 1:

So the thing you know, as I said, like I mentioned this before we recorded, stephanie Meyer is not a good writer In general. I try not to express opinions like that because I am a writer, but she can cry into her millions of dollars and for one and for another, like she just objectively is not. However, her talent is her ability to immerse the reader in a way that just kind of transcends the bad writing. And, holy cow, if there was someone who was a even just competent writer who could do that.

Speaker 2:

And I don't want to. I mean, like like Dan Brown, like I feel that way about Dan.

Speaker 1:

Brown. Dan Brown is another one. He's very immersive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I like, while I'm reading the Dan Brown work, like I'm really enjoying it, even as I'm like what the hell is this? Yes, you know. Like, like there's an idiom. Or I'm like this is so cliche, why are you saying it this way? Like a really love.

Speaker 1:

There's a symbology. Why are you making things up? So, yes, yeah, that he's another one who's like that there. And I think, like page turner, books tend to be very immersive and anyone who is capable of the immersion, who also has a really good grasp on storytelling and language, like that, would just be like the book of all time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, like even my beloved Anne McCaffrey she's a great storyteller and then immersion is there and like when I read it now as an adult, like actually that great writer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So the the moment that took me out, where I was a 30 year old person reading it again and I was like that is not, okay, was and I cannot tell you which book it was in, because it's been so many years since I read it. But there's a point where Bella Bella has a pickup truck that her father got her, so she has his wheels, she can drive herself, and so she wants to go see Jacob because he's her friend. I can't remember like the plot details of this is before or after she learns he's a vampire or a werewolf. He doesn't know. When they first meet, he doesn't know what's going to happen to him or anything like that, because the tribe keeps it secrets. They don't know who's going to turn into anyway. But the vampires and the werewolves are like mortal enemies and so they like of course they are, and so, and then of course there's the love triangle as well.

Speaker 1:

So there, because Edward disapproves of her going to see Jacob, he disables her car. He like he just takes a wire out, something like that, and he, she goes to to to get in the car and he's like hey, you can. I disabled the engine and she's like what are you talking about Fix it? He's like, no, I'll do that before you have to go to school tomorrow, but no, you can't, you can't go to go to see Jacob. And she just kind of like and like stomps back into the house and was pissed off. And that was when I was like there is no universe in which that is okay.

Speaker 2:

Does she? Does this child have any female friends whatsoever? Like her mom is absent with their step the baseball playing stepfather, yeah, and her dad have a stepmother.

Speaker 1:

No, her dad single, her dad can't stand Edward. She has some, some friends, but that that's another part of the Mary Sue thing is like does it pass the backdale test?

Speaker 2:

Oh, God, no, not at all. So sorry footnote for those listening to backdale tests from Alison Beckdale Are there two female at least two female characters? Do they both have names? Do they talk to one another about something other than boys? Yeah, so it's a really low bar.

Speaker 1:

And it like honestly in four books there might be like she might talk to a teacher about an assignment, but like that would be the extent of it and there she talks to like some of the human high school friends about like a dance coming up, but I still count that as basically being about a man or a boy, right you know?

Speaker 2:

and do they even have names?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what they do. I mean, she's like you know she's got a friend named Angela, but like they don't matter, they don't matter. So I can remember our cousin came for Thanksgiving at our house in 2009, I think and she had seen the movie or something like that, and she was talking to me a little bit about, about Twilight. She's like it's a chastity parable, isn't it? I was like, oh yeah, it's a total chastity parable, because Edward's reaction to Bella is all about, like you know, bloodlust. Yeah, desire, and his ability to hold back is considered to be like a huge sacrifice on his part. Yeah, right, and noble, and noble.

Speaker 1:

When I was reading it, there were all the other. Well, many of the other English teachers in the department where I worked had already read it. There was one there was a woman who's about my age. She said to me she's like, oh, you're going to go home and tell your husband you're not good enough for me anymore. I need an Edward, like. As I started reading, I was like what? And then I overheard another member of our department talking to, I think, that same person, the other members. She's like what I love about this is that there's no sexual activity until they get married and I'm like what, what, what? So it's a chastity parable. It's about the importance of saving yourself for marriage. The thing is it does not give the girls reading it any kind of blueprint. You know like, okay, let's take as a given that it's a good idea to teach teenagers to save themselves. I'm not sure it is actually.

Speaker 1:

I'm not taking that as a given? I'm not actually taking that as a given.

Speaker 2:

But let's just take that as a given All right, so I'm not saying that's a given.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's follow it for a minute. Let's start with that. Let's follow that thread. So you are telling girls you need to save yourselves for marriage for forever, and so what you give them is a story about how he keeps saying no, no, not till we're married. So you're not actually giving girls any kind of blueprint for how to handle it when you're feeling pressured, which feels to me like much more likely. And while I suspect that you know my co-worker and Stephanie Meyer herself would say, like well, we're teaching girls that they should wait for a guy who acts like this, like that still doesn't help in the moment. So I mean, like just even taking that as a given which I don't, I don't. But you know, even if that's what you're trying to do, even if you're trying to tell it's chastity parable, it is a lousy chastity parable because it does nothing to help girls handle if you really loved me, you would or any of the other types of pressure that young boys might put on them or anyone might put on them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, particularly like. I mean, I just I just recently read Untangle, which is about the adolescent development, the psychological development of adolescent girls, and one of the things that this psychologist talks about is that the pressure that girls receive and that because of the way that our society treats like intercourse, you know, like all the way, like that is the thing that's off limits. And so a lot of these girls end up doing things they don't want to do, that are not fun for them, they give them bad reputations, that are short of actual intervals, and so these girls end up like pressured into performing oral sex or doing other things that they don't want to be doing, they don't enjoy doing, but they don't have a way out of it because they haven't been taught that their bodies are their own and that their pleasure matters. They haven't been taught that whatsoever. And so, to your point, the, the, what is most likely is, given this model, is that they'll think they have an Edward who's like well, just go down on me until we get married, and how is that okay? That's not okay. Yeah, that is not okay.

Speaker 2:

And I'm not saying oral sex is not okay, but that particular like, like arrangement, yeah, like you go down on me because I needed it and then, like, you know, whatever, I don't care what happens. Yeah, I don't care if you have pleasure, yeah, yeah, it's it also like, if we dig even deeper into like what it is like. Yes, you're right about like this, what the damage of saving the masses, but also the idea that sexual intercourse is in and of itself pleasurable for women and that that is that like there's no. Like, like the old joke about how the men can't find the cathedral.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and like this is why like these kinds of stories are, why these over and over again, because this is written in the books are written in first person from Bella's point of view, over and over again. So when she realizes that he's a vampire and that he might kill her, her immediate reaction is like it doesn't matter, I need to be close to him. And over and over again, like he also, he tells her like he's got some self loathing because he used to murder people and she's like it doesn't matter, I have to be close to you. And so like that, is it what abused women say? Yes, and the the fact that she subsumes any of her own desires. Now the thing is that we also don't know what her desires are. She doesn't have any interest in going to college. She doesn't really have any hobbies. She like cooks for her dad because she feels like that's her duty.

Speaker 1:

She talks about liking to read and Stephanie Meyer does this thing where she has, like she shoe horns in a classic work of literature like Romeo and Juliet or was the other one she did, I don't remember as a like metaphor within it and that's what Bella's reading in school. You never see her like thinking about what she's reading for pleasure, or reading for pleasure or anything like that, so like part of it is like you know, she gives up all of like her life for this, but there is no life to give up because there is no internal life that she has, other than thinking like, oh, I'm so clumsy and nobody likes me, so, turnip. I also want to touch on and because I don't want this to, because I could go for hours this is a rich text, tracy, but I would like to touch on the belief system that Stephanie Meyer is adhering to that I can't tell if she knows or not that she's written it into this book. So Stephanie Meyer, to me, is very clearly deeply terrified of death and I'm basing that partially on Twilight and then partially on. She has a standalone book called the Host, which I think we should do another, because I've got a whole other hour on that. The Host, I think more than Twilight, makes it clear, because the Host actually would have been a good book if she'd let the protagonist die at the end. If she'd let the protagonist die at the end, that would have actually been a very satisfying book. It would have been great. But her deep fear that I see of death would not let her do that to her protagonist With Twilight.

Speaker 1:

There's some stuff. I was not aware of this when I read it. I'm still not super clear on details because I don't really know a whole heck of a lot about Church of Latter-day Saints or Mormonism I think it's not OK to call it Mormonism anymore, but anyway. But some of the things that they talk about is that if you are a Mormon, if you are sealed in the temple with another Mormon when you die, you basically live forever with your family in a new university you create or something like that. To me it's pretty clear that the vampires are Mormons. There's also from the Host.

Speaker 1:

It's clear to me that there's some ambivalence that Stephanie Meyer has. Again, I feel weird about doing this. It's like what a rule. I don't have any standing to be digging around in her psyche, but this is just what I can read. As a complete stranger, she sees a lot of good coming from Mormonism and this creation of this family. Again, in the Host there's aspects of it.

Speaker 1:

But she also seems to be very conflicted about the violence that comes from it as well, the complete overtaking of a personality For her. Having Bella go from human to Mormon and then have a baby seems to me her way of finding some meaning and beauty in something that has been abusive to her. Just based on the little I know about, not that I want to say all Church of Latter-day Saints is abusive, but there are very abusive beliefs built into it, like that men are the ones who get I don't remember exactly what it was but they at age 12, they become something and then they can perform miracles. But that doesn't happen to the girls. Girls are not expected to get an education. They're expected to marry young, have kids quickly, have lots of kids. So that's kind of an inherently abusive system. So it is interesting to me that there is so much within this, so much conservative and heteronormative expectations based on who Bella is expected to be and what she considers romantic, and I think that that speaks very much to someone who grew up in a very controlling kind of religion. Again, I don't want to overstate my opinion of any particular religion, but just based on the fact that only some people can go on the temple and only some people are sealed and all of that, and if you leave the religion there is some pretty serious repercussions, that to me sounds pretty controlling.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that gets me about this book and the reason why I'm bothered by it is that I feel like she's written a handbook for abusers, so like if someone reads this. And actually this happened when I was teaching I had one of free reading. You know, kids can pick any book they wanted to read and one of the boys in my class and for a nice reason, like he was like I want to know what all the girls are excited about, and so he read Twilight and he was one of my kids who was like really charming, really good looking, really like he. I can't remember if he had a girlfriend or if he dated a bunch of different girls, but like girls were always interested in him and I remember thinking, like this is a little worrisome that he's going to read this, like he was a very good kid, like I don't think he was going to do anything wrong intentionally, but at the same time this is like a handbook for, like you know how to control, how to gaslight, how to to to abuse, how to neg, like, because that's the other thing.

Speaker 1:

Edward is constantly being like, oh, you know, you are such a disaster, things like that to her, because he's always having to rescue her. So I worry about the long term repercussions of those books on an entire generation of young girls. And I also wonder about, like my colleagues, who are like, oh my God, it's so romantic. And I'm like I, when, when that first happens, when I, you know, when I was teaching, my thought was like, okay, they're reacting to how immersive it is and there was something magical about being a teenager.

Speaker 1:

Again, you know, there was something a little bit I mean, magical is the only word I can use to describe it Like you know, because it was the good parts of being a teenager. Like you felt the angst but you got the release because he chose you and both he's chose you Like. So there was something about that. But then to be able to close the book and still say like you're gonna think your husband's not good enough for you because you deserve an Edward, no, I do not want a man who knows what's best for me. I do not want a man who decides that he can disable my car so I can't go somewhere that he disapproves of and I suspect no, sorry.

Speaker 2:

No, go ahead, Go ahead. Well, I'm just thinking that, having not read it, so I only have what you've just shared, but that sort of romanticized like he just lusts after me and is so noble that he's controlling himself. It's more that I would think, although James Yael James, that's her name, right who wrote? You know it was the control that she was, you know, getting hot over.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that I mean. So there's a point where Bella goes into I think Seattle I don't remember, but relatively big city if it's not Seattle to go to a bookstore to get something more about vampire lore and she parks in an area of town that apparently turns out to be dangerous and she's being menaced and Edward comes and rescues her. She had no idea he was there. He followed her to make sure she was okay.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's creepy.

Speaker 1:

And that's the sort of thing that I don't understand, why it seems to be such a common fantasy of like oh, he'll swoop in and rescue me and like why, why do you want that? What is exciting about that?

Speaker 2:

I don't get it, also as a resident of Baltimore. He parks in a bed sort of town and was being menaced Give me a friggin' break. You know? That's just straight up. White rakes.

Speaker 1:

To be fair, it was white guys who were menacing her, but it was another one of those like oh, she's pretty kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

She can handle it. I mean, I don't know. So that's such. A more interesting story to me is the 17-year-old, which is maybe why Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which maybe we'll get to one day. It's the concept, and like I'm not even talking about, but the concept that Joss Whedon was like yeah, I want the cheerleader who actually takes care of her own self, you know.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's you never like. The most interesting thing that Bella ever does is in the second book, Edward tells her he's leaving her forever because she's in too much danger, and actually the way that Meijer writes it is like that happens in the first chapter. And then and it's like September. Here's the thing that I wish I didn't know Bella shares a birthday with my youngest son and I will never not know that Anyway.

Speaker 1:

So it's right after her birthday he leaves forever, and so and it's a September birthday, and so the next page is October, and the next page is November, and the next page is January and the next page is February and it's basically showing that she shut down, she is just going through the motions, not really living, and in February, I think it is, her father finally says this is enough. So she discovers that when she is in danger she hallucinates Edward's voice. So she starts riding motorcycles and like that's the most interesting thing about her is she learns how to ride motorcycles. And she has. She has Jacob, because he works on motorcycles and cars and stuff like that, and he has a motorcycle and she has some teacher how to ride and like it is the most interesting thing about her, but she's only doing it, so she can hear his voice.

Speaker 2:

So she can hear his voice that is messed up, and so all right.

Speaker 1:

I like. As I said, this is a rich text.

Speaker 2:

There is so much We've been talking for a long time now, so we have had some seriously deep thoughts about some seriously stupid shit. So I want to like synthesize, maybe All right. So Twilight, now I know, chastity Parable messed up. Vision of romance and gender dynamics messed up.

Speaker 1:

And very classic Mary Sue insertion in the worst kind of way, but not because teenage girls like it, not because teenage girls like it, and there is something that teenage girls need like an emotional need that we need to do be better about feeling as a society and as creators, to find a way to help them feel seen and loved, and recognize and let's yeah, so let's teach them to take care of themselves and stand up for themselves and find romantic partners who are partners.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and who are impressed by them and not just think they're hot and wonder what they're thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, all right, so that was fun. So next time I'm looking forward to, I'm hoping to tell you my deep thoughts about Muppets from Space.

Speaker 1:

Oh yes, oh, I'm excited. All right See you next time.

Speaker 2:

See you next time, tracy. Thanks for listening. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetekcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Deep Thoughts is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. You can help keep us overthinking. Support us through our Patreon with a link in the show notes. Leave a positive review so others can find us and share the show with your people. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?