My first reaction was to look around me, and check my apartment for hidden cameras, a part of me knowing that this was some kind of Truman Show style set up. When I couldn't find any, and I once more sat down at the computer, the reality began to sink in. 7500 people did actually believe that Twilight was the best book ever written. My stomach made an uncomfortable movement. I realised simultaneously both that, contrary to my presumption that I had absolutely zero faith in the human race, I had actually retained some, and that had just lost it. All of it. And I don't know if it will ever return.
Once this had passed, it gave way to frustration. I am aware of Twilight's fandom, but I had never thought that people actually consider it good. I thought that it's basically like McDonald's: thousands of people get some sick pleasure from it, but they know deep down that it is rotting their insides. Apparently, I was horribly mistaken. Although I have never actually read this book-shaped piece of excrement, I feel I am perfectly justified in condemning it so vehemently. Here's why. Despite the advice of friends, I sat through the first three films of my own accord, and I've read a few pages of the book, enough to come to the conclusion that it is artistically, stylistically, theoretically bad. As I looked at that image sat at the number 1 spot, I began to get angry. Why such an impassioned reaction? Well...
I believe writers have a duty to make a difference, to write about things which will change the way people think. I like Virginia Woolf. I like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I like Thomas Hardy and Leo Tolstoy. Why? Because they all had progressive attitudes towards the plight of women and feminism. They used their writing to promote much-needed change at a time when women faces objectification and inequality as a part of daily existence. In the 1800s women couldn't work, at least not in the way men worked. Marriage was often the only available option to them: Women couldn't inherit, and when they were married any money they had was instantly transferred to their husbands. Essentially, they needed a man to be a part of society, and once they were married, they were property.
So it makes me writhe in my skin to think that now, in the 21st Century, now that we have achieved what those writers wished for, what the Suffragettes fought for, what the women at the Ford manufacturing plant went on strike for, is being pissed all over by some backwards mormon moron with a major case of penis-envy. And the worst part of it is that Stephanie Meyer has made a difference. Somehow, this sexually repressed cretin has thousands of young girls wanting nothing more than an abusing boyfriend to serve. Not exactly what I had in mind.
Indeed, I said I haven't read Twilight, because the idea that such an anachronistic emblem of regression even achieved publication is nauseating, and I would like nothing more than to see Stephanie Meyer and her atavistic omnibus thrown into a time machine and shipped back to the 1800s where they belong. Or lynched.
I guess the most frustrating part about this craze is the debate (or lack of) surrounding it. Ask a person why they don't like Twilight, and they can give you a list of reasons. Ask a person why they do like Twilight and you can hope for a response along the lines of "It's just amazing" or "Because Edward is sexy". It's all good to open up a discussion about something, but when the people on the opposing side have only a handful of braincells between them and feel the need to giggle and cover their mouths like coquettish invalids every few seconds, it loses much of its appeal.
