Why do people hate Twilight? The movie director says it’s because the books and films are about women’s issues and are all told from a woman’s point of view. Can you say ‘Misogyny”? Oh, yeah.
The Breaking Dawn Blu-Ray DVD was released with a commentary track and movie director Bill Condon let fly his explanation for the love-to-hate-it phenomenon among critics: “This series is about things women care about and has a woman at the center,” he says. “So there are people who just stay outside of it and mock it.”
The review (Hat Tip, Deborah!) from Spokane’s local paper had this jewel as well:
[Condon’s revelations about his shot choices to highlight points of interest for women are] typical of the great divide between audiences and critics regarding “Twilight” movies. Even though “Breaking Dawn” earned the most scathing reviews of all the films in the franchise, it still grossed more than $700 million worldwide (“Twilight”-mania cuts across cultural and language barriers). Those numbers indicate there is obviously something at work in “Twilight” that goes far beyond Team Jacob and Team Edward mania. And a lot of men just don’t get it or are unwilling to put any effort into understanding it, opting instead to wonder how is it biologically possible for a vampire to impregnate a woman (news flash: vampires aren’t real!) or take more potshots at the hidden messages Meyer snuck into her books, subtexts that simply aren’t present in the movies.
Love it. Read the whole thing.
I don’t understand how people can hate such a brilliant film witch I love.every single part is detailed I want to meet the cast but I don’t no If I will be able too but I love twilight so anyway back to the point nobody should judge twilight in a bad way x
I have to say that I do take issue with the Twilight series, and am baffled that someone would respond, “I don’t understand how people can hate it.” I don’t dislike it just because it’s trendy to “diss” Twilight, I dislike it because it’s very, very bad. And frankly, as a man, I resent the director’s lazy accusation that we men only dislike “Twilight” because we either don’t get it or don’t try. Nice try, but those of us who’ve done our homework on this abominable story have ammo. Here’s what I mean:
Bella is a “Mary Sue” character. “Mary Sue” characters are girls in fiction who do not generate their own destinies, but rather exist to have events happen TO them. They demonstrate very little personal will or leadership, and instead become all-but-passive while other people steer ahead. Bella is a particularly troubling example because not only is she passive, but she’s passive in the midst of multiple unhealthy relationships with men–all of which are romanticized as “pure love” by Meyer. (I’m including Bella’s father, who Bella randomly and without explanation begins calling “Charlie” halfway through the first badly-written book).
Bella becomes obsessed with Edward, a man approaching 90 years old who becomes transfixed right back with this teenage girl. The cycle of abuse that ensues is remarkable! We have every classic sign of an unhealthy relationship: abandoning the girlfriend in strange territory at her peril, stalking, controlling who she can speak with and where she can go, jealousy disguised as love, constant promises that “I don’t/didn’t mean to hurt you, I just love you so much!”, suicidal threats to manipulate one another, and do I need to go on?
I do? Okay, here’s more. Jacob assaults Bella (seizing her to the point of bruising, forcing her to kiss him, and then laughing when she fails to fight him off IS assault, no exaggeration. Book critics actually refer to this as the “mouth rape scene”). Bella’s father, upon learning that Jacob has done this to his daughter, laughs about it and teases Jacob, “Good one!” What a male role model. When Edward abandons Bella, she becomes so pathologically obsessed that she engages in routine self-harm to manipulate him to return (this, by the way, is a classic symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder–a serious mental illness characterized by both idealizing and demonizing unhealthy romantic partners and caretakers). When Bella and Edward finally do have sex, Edward is so vicious that it leaves Bella bleeding and bruised. Of course, the novel presents this as evidence of how thoroughly passionate Edward is. The theme of “abusive injuries passed off as ‘love'” is so pervasive throughout Twilight that it’s disturbing, especially since millions of girls (and grown women) regard “Twilight” as a parable about true love at its purest. The story, after all, begins with an elderly man and a teen girl falling in love, and ends with Jacob, an adult male, “imprinting” on a newborn infant as his own intimate partner (the infant, it seems, continues Bella’s “Mary Sue” passivity, given that the infant does not have a choice of her own in the matter, and is simply acted upon by Jacob in a way that will condition the rest of her life).
So yeah, I have serious problems with Twilight. I have serious problems with a spineless, weak female character presented to girls as a role model, and three abusive men presented as paragons of manhood. I have problems with stalking, abuse, obsession, jealousy, dominance, and threats being romanticized as “love.” I have problems with the terrifying fact that teen girls can see all of this–every bit of it–and not even recognize a single problem in any of it! And what’s more, grieve that anyone would criticize their beloved Twilight! What is wrong that millions of fans can see abusive relationships play out right in front of them, and not respond in any other way than to swoon with passion and wish THEY could find men like that?