Twilight Sucks.

[notmike]

I figure I'll start off with a general discussion that everyone should be able to agree on. Twilight sucks. And now you should post reasons as to why Twilight sucks.

1. Sparkling Vampires is single handedly ruined the Vampire genre. Also describing the main character as "beautiful," gets old when its done every line.

[notdan]

The Twilight series has won:

• The New York Times Editor's Choice award.
  
• One of Publishers Weekly's "Best Children's Books of 2005"
  
• Publishers Weekly "Best Book of the Year"
  
• One of the American Library Association's "Top Ten Books for Young Adults" and "Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers"
  
• One of School Library Journal's "Best Books of 2005"
  
• Amazon.com's "Best Book of the Decade... So Far"
  

And it's spent over 91 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am terrified. Twilight was rejected from 14 different agents before finally published (in hardback, I might add--why release a book in hardback unless you want to charge more for no reason?). Then it exploded like striking oil.

I mean, look - The book has done well. Stephenie Meyer is making a lot of money, something most authors will never do. (She's a multimillionaire now.) But let me begin to scratch the surface of what bothers me about Twilight.

Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon. She does not smoke, drink, do drugs, or other things which I find fun. This would be all fine and dandy, except as anyone who's taken a Steve Wehmeyer course would know, Mormons and vampires are about as far apart from one another as two groups of people could possibly get.

Vampires: The quintessential sexy goth construct.
Stephanie Meyer: A Mormon.

I'm not sure how she's supposed to write honestly about the sin of lust and methamphetamine-like blood addictions and taboo sexual desire and-- Oh, right. She doesn't write about those things. Her vampires sparkle in the sunlight.

Seriously! She's perverting vampires into something that should be badass and awesome (think about it, vampires should be cool) and making them not cool. Dawson's Creek should stay away from Dracula. There is nothing childish about vampires, and Twilight was given an award for being a good children's book!

This is worse than the Harry Potter craze. I will compile a list of fantasy that you should read instead of this.

Also, I don't mean to be abrasive to the point of discouraging people to defend the series. I really do want to hear why people like it. My animosity is directed towards the literature, not the readers. I have no problem with people who are fans of Twilight.

[notdan]

For those who like Twilight, I propose this:

Read these vampire novels and compare them to Twilight. I hope you find them better overall than Twilight is (if you like Twilight and you like these more, then I've done you a service!) or, at the very least, compare the vampire mythos presented in these novels (which, you know, defined the genre) to Twilight and at least be aware of the total misalignment.

• Bram Stoker's Dracula: www.literature.org/authors/stoker-bram/dracula/
  
• 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
  
• Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice (Any of the vampire novels by her, really.)
  

Or, you could watch Vampire Hunter D. (Yeah, yeah, it's an anime, but it's good.)

If you want to read something which pastiches vampire novels, read Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. It's hilarious.

[latinrevenant]

Aside from the blatant pushing of empty, adolescent ideas of romance, cheesy story, and pictoral depiction—I think I would hold less hatred toward Twilight if the characters had nothing to do with vampires. Like the dude who isn't Dan said, vampires are supposed to be cool. Creatures of the night who, by their mere mention, strike fear in the bosoms of the common folk. Who hypnotize their pray with a few elegant words and a gaze that would take hold of the basic laws of physics and cause them to swoon in their stability if they were sentient. Similarly, I would probably hate Pokemon if they were called Warewolves, and seriously advertised as such.

. . . On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

[notdan]

I would definitely have less of a problem with Twilight if the "vampires" weren't called "vampires," because they aren't.

[aleksandr]

I mostly agree with everything here, except for the recommendation of Anne Rice.

It's true, interview isn't as bad as later things, but god damn I hate Anne Rice. I can't stand how she'll go on for ages on useless, inane descriptions.

Seriously, let the imagination do some work. We don't need three pages on somebody's hair, or their fingernails.

[enkindledpulsar]

It's kind of amateur, but I like In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater Rhodes.
Her vampires are terrifying and still sexy.
And the premise of some of her work is an author writing about and revealing vampires and their secrets so they come after her. She thinks she's making stuff up.
Weird to think about...maybe what you write is really out there and coming for you. How would that change your writing? Or would it?

[notdan]

If I were convinced that some of the things I wrote about actually would come and get me, I would probably have to be locked away in a white-padded room complete with straight jacket.

[atari]

What do I think about Twilight?
Well, I already had this discussion with. . . uh, with Mr. I-Don't-Know-His-Name, so I'll be brief:

My thoughts on Twilight: Meh, it's alright.

I wish I had the capacity for hating things not worth hating like you guys. More power to you.

[The Mariner]

Nov 18, 2009 12:13:38 GMT -5 latinrevenant said:

Aside from the blatant pushing of empty, adolescent ideas of romance, cheesy story, and pictoral depiction—I think I would hold less hatred toward Twilight if the characters had nothing to do with vampires. Like the dude who isn't Dan said, vampires are supposed to be cool. Creatures of the night who, by their mere mention, strike fear in the bosoms of the common folk. Who hypnotize their pray with a few elegant words and a gaze that would take hold of the basic laws of physics and cause them to swoon in their stability if they were sentient. Similarly, I would probably hate Pokemon if they were called Warewolves, and seriously advertised as such.
. . . On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

I feel like the sad fact of the matter is that Meyer found a niche audience, and she went with it. She took a tired old genre, dusted it off (to put it politely), and stuck on some pretty-looking fellas with fangs. Maybe she really loves writing this stuff, and if that's the case, then hats off to her for backing her passion against such overwhelming negativity. But in all honestly, it just looks like she's pandering as hard as possible to her audience. As the Jonas Brothers have so clearly demonstrated, there's a lot of money to be made in 14-year-old girls.

[notdan]

Part of me is so overwhelmingly sad because the "niche audience" is apparently huge. I know a lot of college aged girls (and boys) who are fans. Whatever that niche is (part of me believes it's very similar to the niche Harry Potter occupies) it has a lot of disposable income:

Some of the sites I've looked at estimate that so far Twilight has grossed over $100 million, $70 million of that alone on opening weekend. (www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/11/23/new-twilight-movie-dominates-weekend-box-office/)

The Numbers put it just over $153 million (www.the-numbers.com/), still about $10 million a day.

My question is: How do I tap into this audience and make absurd fuck-tons of cash money?

Hell, even 2012 has grossed over $110 million. (If, for some reason, you had an inclination to see that movie too, read some reviews, they may discourage you.)

[notmike]

Okay, so firstly, I saw 2012. Not in a movie theater or anything, because I wasn't willing to pay money to see it. However, I got to say, it wasn't excellent, but it also wasn't bad. Secondly, I don't really have another point except for I don't hate Twilight because it's absurdly popular, I hate it because she is a god awful writer, who shoved a stake through the vampire genre. A giant sparkling barbed stake that will take a long time to remove.

[notdan]

Did 2012 try to have a plot? I would watch it if it were a shameless exercise in destruction and special effects, maybe. I can't imagine any plot in that film being good.

[notmike]

Plot...in the like the most liberal sense of the word, yes. Shameless exercise in destruction and special effects, check.

[Patient Penelope]

*Sigh* This again?

Yes, the quality of Stephenie Meyer's writing is horrendous. Yes, the way she portrays love is juvenile and over the top. Yes, she doesn't write traditionally about vampires and perhaps what her characters are should not be given that name.

But I'd like to quote acclaimed Young Adult Fiction author John Green. He discusses Twilight in a Youtube video, which I will link to, and spends most of the video detailing what he doesn't like about it. I agree with what he says is wrong with the series, particularly the stuff about the heroine being completley helpless without a man to take care of her. But what he says at the end sums up the way I feel about the series: "It's fun, it distracts me from the pain and brokenness of the world, and it argues that true love will triumph in the end which may or may not be true. But if it's a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have."

Naive? Maybe. But the reason I don't have any gripes with it is because it's a mindless escape from reality that I like to run away to every now and then. Not to mention the fact that, as someone interested in Meyer's target audience, I want to understand what makes them tick. The difference is that my writing will be elevated and powerful and of significantly better quality than hers.

And, lastly, don't be bitter that she's making millions off of her creative work. She enjoys writing about this stuff, whether you like it/agree with it or not. If you get joy out of something, I say go for it.

Now that I've already ruined my reputation on this board and it's only my third post, I think I'll be going now.


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