Let me very, very clear: I have never read or seen a twilight thing in my life. My wife and my sister have read them all, and did so in about 4 days each. With that said, I have two thoughts right now...
1) I used to love the name "Jack." I thought it was unique, in that I didn't know anyone named Jack and knew quite a few Jakes. I always figured I'd have a Jack if the name never got too popular.
Well, the name got popular. I met or heard of a lot of people in the past several years that have had a Jack or a Jackson for a baby. Like, a disproportionate number of people. Want to know why I think the name Jack has become so stinking popular? Titanic. Jack is the name of every girl's heartache in that movie, and all of the teenage girls that grew up watching that movie 20 times are simply in love with the name.
I don't think that girls are thinking "Well, it's time to name this baby. I sure do love Jack from the movie Titanic, so I'll name him Jack." I think that when girls are going through baby names and something similar to Jack comes up, it just registers extremely positively for them.
I decided to look into this. Here's what I found: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/top5names.html
It turns out that Jacob has become extremely popular in the past few years. What does that mean? I am going to pretend that it proves my point (Jacob = Jack, Jackson or Jake), but really I don't think it does.
How does this relate to Twilight? Isn't Jacob the name of that sexy werewolf in twilight? I am afraid that Jacob and Edward are going to become popular names in the future because of those stupid books. Is that interesting? I don't know. Have I been asking and answering a lot of questions lately? Yes, yes I have.
2) I believe that Twilight is porn for girls. I really do, and I don't mean that in a metaphorical way, or in a I'm-trying-to-prove-a-clever-point sort of way. I mean in a literal it's porn for girls sort of way. (Let me be very, very clear: I am not an expert on porn at any level. Again, I want to be very, very clear on this point.)
Porn, in general, is meant as a way to satisfy someone's desires without really satisfying them, right? For boys that boils down to attractive women and all the things that come along with that. It's pretty straight forward. Porn for girls is, of course, much more complex. Girls want to be understood (guys don't have this need): they want to be appreciated, they want commitment, they want to be prettier than their friends, and they want all sorts of other things that I haven't figured out yet. Filling these needs for a girl is tantamount to filling the visual needs for a boy -- it's girl porn.
I've been told that the author of the Twilight series (Stephanie Meyer?) goes to great pains to not describe the lead female (Bella?). Like, we know very little about her physical appearance except that she is plain. But for Edward and Jacob, the sexy immortals, every feature and facet is described in immaculate detail. The physical appearance of the lead character isn't of importance, she's meant to be a shell that the female reader can identify with. When a girl reads Twilight, it's intentionally made easy for the girl to believe she is the main character receiving all this attention. Bella is plain and boring and whiny, from what I have gathered, but is loved and worshiped by an immortal Calvin Klein model. I gather that there is nothing truly remarkable about this girl, but Edward spends all his immortal life fawning over her and promising forever. What's more, she's fought over by werewolves too? I don't claim that all of this fantasy backdrop is part of the girl-porn thing too, but I get that it's the thing right now.
Bella is understood by Edward, he chooses her over all of the other girls, she's appreciated, he talks to her about love and eternity and forever and love and stuff, and he fights for her. And remember, "Bella" is meant to be replaced by the female reader.
That's porn for girls. It's filling the needs of women and expressing what they desire in a fashion they can claim as their own, if they so choose. I don't think that Twilight is the first book to do this (I have a hunch that pretty much every seedy romance novel does), but I think it needs to be exposed. Exposed for what it is!!! Why?! Because I can't live up to those lofty standards, dang it!! Stop reading those books and watching those movies, ladies!!
(I probably can't convince you that I haven't read the books or watched the movies at this point, can I?)
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| I felt pretty weird searching for and adding this photo. Kind of queasy in my stomach actually... |
1) I used to love the name "Jack." I thought it was unique, in that I didn't know anyone named Jack and knew quite a few Jakes. I always figured I'd have a Jack if the name never got too popular.
Well, the name got popular. I met or heard of a lot of people in the past several years that have had a Jack or a Jackson for a baby. Like, a disproportionate number of people. Want to know why I think the name Jack has become so stinking popular? Titanic. Jack is the name of every girl's heartache in that movie, and all of the teenage girls that grew up watching that movie 20 times are simply in love with the name.
I don't think that girls are thinking "Well, it's time to name this baby. I sure do love Jack from the movie Titanic, so I'll name him Jack." I think that when girls are going through baby names and something similar to Jack comes up, it just registers extremely positively for them.
I decided to look into this. Here's what I found: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/top5names.html
It turns out that Jacob has become extremely popular in the past few years. What does that mean? I am going to pretend that it proves my point (Jacob = Jack, Jackson or Jake), but really I don't think it does.
How does this relate to Twilight? Isn't Jacob the name of that sexy werewolf in twilight? I am afraid that Jacob and Edward are going to become popular names in the future because of those stupid books. Is that interesting? I don't know. Have I been asking and answering a lot of questions lately? Yes, yes I have.
2) I believe that Twilight is porn for girls. I really do, and I don't mean that in a metaphorical way, or in a I'm-trying-to-prove-a-clever-point sort of way. I mean in a literal it's porn for girls sort of way. (Let me be very, very clear: I am not an expert on porn at any level. Again, I want to be very, very clear on this point.)
Porn, in general, is meant as a way to satisfy someone's desires without really satisfying them, right? For boys that boils down to attractive women and all the things that come along with that. It's pretty straight forward. Porn for girls is, of course, much more complex. Girls want to be understood (guys don't have this need): they want to be appreciated, they want commitment, they want to be prettier than their friends, and they want all sorts of other things that I haven't figured out yet. Filling these needs for a girl is tantamount to filling the visual needs for a boy -- it's girl porn.
I've been told that the author of the Twilight series (Stephanie Meyer?) goes to great pains to not describe the lead female (Bella?). Like, we know very little about her physical appearance except that she is plain. But for Edward and Jacob, the sexy immortals, every feature and facet is described in immaculate detail. The physical appearance of the lead character isn't of importance, she's meant to be a shell that the female reader can identify with. When a girl reads Twilight, it's intentionally made easy for the girl to believe she is the main character receiving all this attention. Bella is plain and boring and whiny, from what I have gathered, but is loved and worshiped by an immortal Calvin Klein model. I gather that there is nothing truly remarkable about this girl, but Edward spends all his immortal life fawning over her and promising forever. What's more, she's fought over by werewolves too? I don't claim that all of this fantasy backdrop is part of the girl-porn thing too, but I get that it's the thing right now.
Bella is understood by Edward, he chooses her over all of the other girls, she's appreciated, he talks to her about love and eternity and forever and love and stuff, and he fights for her. And remember, "Bella" is meant to be replaced by the female reader.
That's porn for girls. It's filling the needs of women and expressing what they desire in a fashion they can claim as their own, if they so choose. I don't think that Twilight is the first book to do this (I have a hunch that pretty much every seedy romance novel does), but I think it needs to be exposed. Exposed for what it is!!! Why?! Because I can't live up to those lofty standards, dang it!! Stop reading those books and watching those movies, ladies!!
(I probably can't convince you that I haven't read the books or watched the movies at this point, can I?)
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