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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.
no subject
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*