The Twilight Factor

Goofing around on MSN one day, and tormenting SmarterChild (the robot that supposed to help with homework and what not, but seriously lacks the ability), I ended up getting it to do a search of the Twilight movie for me. I wanted reviews. I had seen the movie and loved it, I thought it was very well done, but I had been told that critics were giving it a bad rep. As a writer and a viewer, I wanted to know where they were coming from in a society hung up on the vampire romance thriller.
I found the reviews, and as always the negative critics lacked extensive factual evidence that the movie was bad, but I found a few very good positive reviews as well. All coming from Twilight Mothers (better known as TwiMoms).
After browsing through reviews, I came to a link to this article: Does ‘Twilight’ Suck the Brains out of Teens? Just by the title, the article grabbed my immediate attention as a Twilighter and a fan-girl like all good article titles should.

The result of this article caused me to do one thing. Write this. Now you’re caught up.
But before I start my rant, I want to point out that right out of the first few paragraphs of the article, it pretty much dissed all Twilighters, complaining how we will wait in line for a stupid book that’s cheap and dissatisfying. Now I can see saying you don’t like the novel, as bias as that is in an article, but don’t complain about the passion of those who do like the novels have for the book!

I’m not gonna make my point quoting the article. I’m just going to say what I keep telling people and no one ever listens.

STOP TEARING APART THE BOOK SO YOU CAN CONVINCE PEOPLE THAT IT’S BAD WHEN YOU KNOW IT’S NOT. YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE IT. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S BAD.

I mean come on people! It’s alright to have an opinion. Hell, to me I don’t really care if you don’t like Twilight. That’s fine by me. Just don’t degrade it and insult it just because of your dislike! There are people out there who really like the book!
Personally, after the fourth or fifth book, I couldn’t stand Harry Potter anymore! I didn’t even finish the last one! But I’m not going to go around saying it was a bad book or pick away at it and push all the details out to concerned mothers that it’s going to ruin their child’s life! Harry Potter wasn’t like that and neither is Twilight. I just personally didn’t like HP.
And to all you Twilighters out there, stop hacking the heads off those who don’t like the books! They’re entitled to there opinion too! Respect the fact that they dislike it, and find a novel you both like to talk about instead.

Being a Twilighter, this is the biggest problem I find. People who dislike the novel are afraid to even say something because those who feel passionately about the books will cut them down for it! Not everyone likes vampires, werewolves, romance or even just fiction in general!

But the point I really want to argue is that against Twi-Haters who go out and intentionally tell people negative comments against the plot to try and convince them the book is bad and could harm someone. You know who you are. Stop it.

There are seriously parents in this world who don’t want their kids reading Twilight because they think that their kids will get ideas about sex, suicide, harassing relationships, and cause them to change to try and fit in. All ideas they got from Twi-Haters. And now there are kids in this world who are reading other books, my example being the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, that will teach them worse life lessons than they’ll learn in Twilight! In my personal opinion, which I am entitled to, Twilight will teach young adults many more valuable lessons about healthy relationships than The Sisterhood books will, most of the vampires in Twilight have been together longer than most people live to see! They know the difference between right and wrong!

I mean, the book is targeted at “young adults” for a reason! If a “young adult” can’t understand the concept that they shouldn’t be doing things they read about in books, then I think we might have an issue then. I know of ten year olds who read Twilight in school! If a ten year old can understand abstinence, healthy relationships, and to be themselves, than I should hope a “young adult” can!

But in the end it doesn’t really matter what the book is teaching, although, as a writer, I know almost no author wants some kid getting into a bad situation because of their story. What really matters is that books are a means of entertainment. But they’re better than TV, radio, movies. They teach literary skills, things you use for the rest of your life! From my personally adventures, Twilight taught me the word masochistic.
But books do more. They can take you into another world, their an escape, a refuge from the harsh reality we live in today that degrades women and pushes the bar far to high for most men. We read for characters we can relate to, and experience fantastical tales that don’t normally occur in reality. They cause us to dream, push our imaginations further, manipulating our favourite characters and sometimes writing fan fiction! We create new possibilities, guess plots and twists and turns.
We apply situations we read in books to everyday life, they help us make better decisions without getting hurt, remembering how one bad decision a character made didn’t work out, and allow us to make the better decision where it really matters!
So next time, before you degrade a book, please remember that there are people out there who really do like the book. But most importantly, remember what a book is really about. It could change your life.

People die, and memories fade, but words last forever. They have that power. Use them wisely.

Sweet Dreams!
~Dreamweaver38