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megwritesAlso? Stephen King gets his snark on regarding Stephanie Meyer. So, Stephen King is secretly kind of bitchy. Who knew?
Although, I have to say, it makes me want to defend Meyer. Not because I think Twilight is all that great as a piece of literature. I think it's about as far from well-written as you can get before you start using LOLcats and internet acronyms.
But you know what? It strikes a chord with teenage girls because it taps into the things they're struggling with. Which yes, includes love and sex and sexuality and how dangerous sex can be and boys and independence and identity. And you know what? That doesn't deserve derision. The generation of kids growing up today, especially the target audience for Twilight, are living in a rather confusing world. If a book helps soothe the anxieties that are largely heaped upon them by the mistakes made by their parents' generation, that's a good thing.
They're being taught abstinence only in a world where ads for birth control air on the television daily and then they're watching Juno and seeing pop princesses get pregnant at 16. They're being told "wait 'til marriage", but over half their parents can't stay married, if they ever were in the first. For this generation? Divorce is no longer a trauma, but an inevitability, a fact of life. Girls are being told they have to be smart and strong and sexy in a way that boys never have to manage. They're being told that sex is dangerous and that sex sells, but nobody's talking about how love enters into the equation, and how to make relationships work. Fathers are abandoning their responsibilities at an alarming rate across the board, and family units are becoming rather unrecognizable when held up to the Mom, Dad, Two and a Half kids and a nice dog standard that society is still clinging to as some kind of ideal.
Books that help them deal with these big scary concepts (hell, I'm years past adolescence and I'm still intimidated by all this!) in life when they're thirteen and confused are not bad things. Books that help them think that maybe it's okay, and maybe even when society is messed up, when they live in a world of powerful contradiction and tumult, that there might be hope of building something of their own, something that they can count on are good. Even if they're sort of trashily written and the vampires sparkle.
You want to knock it because of the prose, the plot, the characters? Go right ahead.
You want to knock it because you feel like teenage girls and their feelings are some how unworthy of examination? Fuck you. I get the feeling that part of King's disgust stems not just from them being teenagers, but them being girls. I suspect that part of the reason he holds JK Rowling up as an example of good writing and puts Meyer down is because Rowling didn't get Girl Cooties all over her nice big books.
One wonders if Harry Potter had been a girl if King would be so quick to point to it.
And as for you, Mr. King, don't act like writing books about possessed canines or spooky old houses makes you a purveyor of Deathless Prose. You're the last person who should be getting on their High Literary Horse. Just sayin'.
ETA: Also? The idea that somehow, teenage girls are being warped into having the wrong notions about love, sex, and boys from Twilight is not paying attention. Trust me, they don't need a book to be messed up. A crazy society and a generation of bad to mediocre parents did that just fine.
Although, I have to say, it makes me want to defend Meyer. Not because I think Twilight is all that great as a piece of literature. I think it's about as far from well-written as you can get before you start using LOLcats and internet acronyms.
But you know what? It strikes a chord with teenage girls because it taps into the things they're struggling with. Which yes, includes love and sex and sexuality and how dangerous sex can be and boys and independence and identity. And you know what? That doesn't deserve derision. The generation of kids growing up today, especially the target audience for Twilight, are living in a rather confusing world. If a book helps soothe the anxieties that are largely heaped upon them by the mistakes made by their parents' generation, that's a good thing.
They're being taught abstinence only in a world where ads for birth control air on the television daily and then they're watching Juno and seeing pop princesses get pregnant at 16. They're being told "wait 'til marriage", but over half their parents can't stay married, if they ever were in the first. For this generation? Divorce is no longer a trauma, but an inevitability, a fact of life. Girls are being told they have to be smart and strong and sexy in a way that boys never have to manage. They're being told that sex is dangerous and that sex sells, but nobody's talking about how love enters into the equation, and how to make relationships work. Fathers are abandoning their responsibilities at an alarming rate across the board, and family units are becoming rather unrecognizable when held up to the Mom, Dad, Two and a Half kids and a nice dog standard that society is still clinging to as some kind of ideal.
Books that help them deal with these big scary concepts (hell, I'm years past adolescence and I'm still intimidated by all this!) in life when they're thirteen and confused are not bad things. Books that help them think that maybe it's okay, and maybe even when society is messed up, when they live in a world of powerful contradiction and tumult, that there might be hope of building something of their own, something that they can count on are good. Even if they're sort of trashily written and the vampires sparkle.
You want to knock it because of the prose, the plot, the characters? Go right ahead.
You want to knock it because you feel like teenage girls and their feelings are some how unworthy of examination? Fuck you. I get the feeling that part of King's disgust stems not just from them being teenagers, but them being girls. I suspect that part of the reason he holds JK Rowling up as an example of good writing and puts Meyer down is because Rowling didn't get Girl Cooties all over her nice big books.
One wonders if Harry Potter had been a girl if King would be so quick to point to it.
And as for you, Mr. King, don't act like writing books about possessed canines or spooky old houses makes you a purveyor of Deathless Prose. You're the last person who should be getting on their High Literary Horse. Just sayin'.
ETA: Also? The idea that somehow, teenage girls are being warped into having the wrong notions about love, sex, and boys from Twilight is not paying attention. Trust me, they don't need a book to be messed up. A crazy society and a generation of bad to mediocre parents did that just fine.
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Date: 2009-02-05 04:52 pm (UTC)In several short stories and books including Salem's Lot and Word Processor of the Gods, he has overweight female characters that are pretty much the inverse of Mary Sues. I mean that they can't do anything right. Always bitching, whining, complaining, and totally incapable of dealing with anything.
The only time I've seen a chick who was good, brave, and in control of herself was in The Gingerbread Girl - and she was starving herself and overexercising because she could not cope with the death of her child.
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Date: 2009-02-05 06:23 pm (UTC)Yeah. I have noticed that Stephen King isn't exactly winning any Feminist Ally of the Year awards, either. And I'm kind of willing to forgive him that, because if you read about his past, it's clear he has Mommy Issues.
But still. It's remarks like these that piss me off. Because I don't think that because you're a girl, your emotions should be taken less seriously than if you're a boy - but that seems to be the case. I think Harry Potter was, at moments, just as badly written and fucked up as Twilight, and Harry Potter is every bit the Mary Sue that Bella Swann is - but Harry Potter is a boy wizard, so apparently that makes it all right.
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Date: 2009-02-05 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 08:10 pm (UTC)INORITE?! That's one thing I really resented JK Rowling for. Kids who get mistreated that badly in their childhood do not usually end up as well adjusted boy wizards. They end up weird, and strange, and unable to deal with people and having a lot of problems socially, emotionally, and mentally. They end up with substance abuse issues and a hard time making/keeping friends and relationships. They end up acting out in school because they've been so horribly taken care of.
Also? It sort of made it okay for the Dursleys to do what they did to Harry when she wrote it like that. As though because he ended up going to Hogwarts, the abuse and neglect were all water under the bridge.
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Date: 2009-02-05 06:51 pm (UTC)Nope, they don't. However, a book can certainly reinforce the notions. Especially if it's being presented as such a lovely alternative-- he's rich and he'll take care of me of only I subjugate my entire being and personality. Not that Bella had much independent personality to begin with, but from the moment she met Edward her personality became All About Him. And when he was gone, when she could have used the time to grow, she instead went into a "catatonic" or non-growth state. It's a crap message, one way or the other.
As far as King goes, I've never read his horror because I don't have the stomach for any kind of horror, but I do enjoy his short stories a great deal. I guess from that standpoint, I hadn't read enough of him to pick up on any possible anti-female bias. I just figured that he wrote primarily male characters the way most female writers write primarily women characters.
You want to knock it because you feel like teenage girls and their feelings are some how unworthy of examination?
How'd you pick that up? What I got from what he said wasn't so much that teenage girls weren't worthy of examination, but that the readers of books such as the Twilight were looking for something safe and that they weren't ready for a real adult romance. I guess I was so thrilled that he wasn't trashing the romance genre that i didn't give a whole lot of thought beyond that. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
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Date: 2009-02-05 09:38 pm (UTC)Not that I don't think that girls *aren't* getting that message from society, but I don't they're getting it from Twilight. MOST teenage girls have probably realize that this is not at all how reality works and that it would be a bad idea. And that's the point. They want an escape, not a how-to guide.
In slight defense of the book, Edward isn't really independent of Bella, either. They're co-dependently pathetic.
I just figured that he wrote primarily male characters the way most female writers write primarily women characters.
It's more about the way he writes female when he does pen them rather than just their absence. I chalk it up to that being his generation.
What I got from what he said wasn't so much that teenage girls weren't worthy of examination, but that the readers of books such as the Twilight were looking for something safe and that they weren't ready for a real adult romance.
Part of it was the tone of the piece. Okay, Meyer isn't going to win the Nobel for Literature, for him to publicly say that sort of thing is unprofessional. I read through that lens of being mad at King for starting a slapfight.
Mostly? The phrase "real, adult romance" got me. I have no objection to the word "adult". Relationships you have as a kid ARE different from those you have as an adult.
But I remember being a kid, and nothing about me was less real, including my romantic relationships and fantasies. Maybe less sophisticated (almost certainly so), but it was real. I can't help thinking of the girls who might read that and get the message that their romantic relationships/fantasies aren't good enough for Big Important People.
"Real" is a dangerous, hurtful word in some contexts AND sneaky way of keeping romance in it's place. Saying certain romances aren't real sends the message to writers that they'd better not touch certain topics or write in a certain way or stray off the script.
Which hinders one of the greatest strengths of the romance: it's versatility. With other genres, like SF/F and Horror, there are certain elements you have to have in order to qualify.
With a romance be in the past, present, future. You can be epic, tragic, humorous, dark, light. You can be fast, slow, long, short. And even young or old. You can do all that or none of it. It's a limitless genre. Dividing it up into "real" or "not real" takes away from that.
I also resent anyone, especially someone who must know he clout, thinking he's got the authority to decide what is and isn't real at all. Fuck him if he thinks he's got any place saying what is and isn't a "real" romance.
I started loving romance novels as a kid. They comforted and excited me all at at a point in my life when I was curious, confused, eager, and unsure. I didn't take a template for life from them, but they did help me bounce ideas off the inside of my head, find out what hit the happy spot and what didn't without having to constantly experiment in real life, which frankly, was neither possible nor advisable for me at that age.
Those novels helped me figure out what I did and didn't like and what sort of person I wanted to seek out in life.
Not because I wanted those exact same relationships. But the books helped me realize, "Oh, I like smart guys" and "I don't really care for Alpha Males".
Twilight is like that. Each girl will have a different reason for liking the relationship (and to the credit of teen readers everywhere, not all of them even like Bella or Edward, some like the supporting cast best).
In reading it some girls will discover they want to be taken care of (which isn't bad if done in moderation). Some will discover they love bad boys. Some will discover they love quiet, strong types. Not because the book describes an ideal, healthy relationship, but because it evokes fantasy, and inward fantasy is just self-reflection when you aren't paying attention. Figuring out who you are and what you want in life is important. And healthy. And good.
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Date: 2009-02-05 10:05 pm (UTC)In slight defense of the book, Edward isn't really independent of Bella, either. They're co-dependently pathetic.
*SNORT*
True 'nuff.
Mostly? The phrase "real, adult romance" got me. I have no objection to the word "adult". Relationships you have as a kid ARE different from those you have as an adult.
**
Fuck him if he thinks he's got any place saying what is and isn't a "real" romance.
See, I think we read a different tone into this statement and it could be that we both have good valid points. I actually read this as not slapping at the legitimacy of a teen romance or love or saying that it wasn't a "real" romance, but rather that the Twilight series presented a "safe" interpretation of all those insanely intense emotions-- that the readers who are so into it, aren't ready for a more realistic interpretation of an adult relationship. I guess I put the emphasis more on the term "adult" than on the word "real."
Like I said, it'll be interesting to see what the entirety of the interview reads like.
Oh, and I never thought King was secretly bitchy-- I always thought he was pretty open about it. *g*