fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1771 ]

[ SECRET POST #1771 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1771 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 157 secrets from Secret Submission Post #253.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 0 - omgiknowthem ], [ 0 - take it to comments ], [ 1 2 3 4 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My thought is, why are we only allowed to read and enjoy stories that portray healthy relationships? And where do we draw the line? I'm reading a delightful book to my 9 year old which has kids sneaking into a Museum and trying to steal a Mummy's finger. And in the end of the book they don't go to Juvie Hall for it.

It's not a relationship bible. It's consequence free fantasy.

There is a difference between unhealthy relationships that are portrayed exactly as they are and unhealthy relationships that are portrayed as healthy. Something like stealing, people know is wrong. With relationships, though, particularly in terms of Twilight, there are a lot of teenagers out there who think the things portrayed in Twilight are romantic and healthy. And the author agrees and says as much in interviews. Edward is a classic controlling boyfriend who does things that real life abusers do. Jacob doesn't take no for an answer, which is also something that happens in real life. And Bella has no motivation whatsoever outside of being with her man.

If the author acknowledged that what she is portraying isn't the way relationships should be in real life, I wouldn't be so bothered. But Meyers honestly believes that the stuff she writes is healthy. And that is scary.

I'm pretty sure that someone who was being genuinely stalked and abused would be able to tell that their relationship isn't as happy as Twilight. But fiction doesn't have to be realistic.

There are hundreds of books and resources that outline what bad relationships are and how to deal with them. People are allowed to enjoy fantasies. Even unrealistic ones. They are allowed to love their kinks, and Twilight hooks into a very common set.

The problem is that people who have experienced bad relationships will most likely seek out the books and resources you mentioned AFTER the bad relationship (assuming that they manage to wake up and realize that it was a bad relationship; some people get stuck in a circle of one disastrous relationship after the other and refuse to break out even when they have the nagging feeling that something isn't right).

Most of Twilight's fans are relatively young girls who likely are just starting to have more serious relationships, and they are still in at the age when they take most of their cues from their peers and the media.

This comment actually kind of reminds me of my coworker telling me that there are demons in the Harry Potter books.

Do you live under a fucking rock? Are you really "pretty sure" someone who is being genuinely abused would be able to tell that their relationship isn't as happy? You've obviously never been stalked and/or abused or known many people who have because honey, abuse does shitty things to people. The amount of people who stay in abusive relationships and don't think they are being abused even when their significant others are controlling them mentally, emotionally and physically to the point where their friends and family have to step in and call the cops is astounding. You are incredibly naive and delusional if you're going to paint all abuse victims like that.

And you are blaming Twilight for this?

No, I am blaming Twilight for promoting unhealthy relationships to vulnerable young girls who now think a guy climbing in their window to watch them sleep and all sorts of other creepy, controlling and abusive (http://www.fanpop.com/spots/critical-analysis-of-twilight/articles/21294/title/ways-edward-cullen-abusive) things are okay so long as he is pretty.

Oh, those ~vulnerable young girls~. However will they know what to do with themselves if fiction doesn't dictate it for them?

Do you get this het up about boys reading military sci-fi?

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 03:10 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 03:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 03:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 04:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 03:52 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

stunt-muppet.livejournal.com - 2011-11-09 04:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: O_o?

(Anonymous) - 2011-11-09 03:24 (UTC) - Expand

lol are you serious.

It's not that people shouldn't be able to read and enjoy stories about unhealthy relationships. Most of the fans do not see the relationship as unhealthy when it so clearly and horrifyingly is unhealthy. Extremely unhealthy, and that isn't based on opinion, it is truth/fact. You sound like a butthurt Twihard.

That's rather insultingly pearl clutching.

I actually don't like Twilight. I thought it was boring. But I think the Twilight haters are kind of ridiculous. You guys hate the book, that's fine. But fuck you guys are dicks about it.

Being a dick because you don't like the fact that other people are dicks? Makes perfect sense. People like you are so unbelievably stupid. The books promote unhealthy relationships and the fans don't see them as unhealthy at all when they are to an extreme. You can read books about murder but when you start thinking murder isn't bad, you have a problem.

It's a book about vampires.

I dare you to find ONE representation of a healthy relationship WITH A VAMPIRE. They don't exist because people don't write or read stories about vampires for a portrayal of a healthy relationship. It's escapist fantasy about living forever and possession and biting. Just think about why vampires are popular to begin with: biting on the neck TO KILL THEIR VICTIM is see as erotic. I actually don't like vampire fiction for all of these reasons but seriously singling out Twilight out of an entire genre is pretty ridiculous.

If you're going to play the "it's for young girls" angle, you realize that a lot of romance novel readers are in their teens, right? Like, they're not new to this kind of idea. The people who like this stuff really like this stuff, and blaming Twilight for starting a trend of girls searching for abusive relationships is as nonsensical as blaming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for turning boys to violence.

Most of the fans do not see the relationship as unhealthy when it so clearly and horrifyingly is unhealthy.

Or, you know, they see it as an escapist fantasy - desirable in the fictional world where everything goes right, but not in real life.

Shockingly, many people - even young women - are in fact capable of telling the difference between reality and fantasy, and it gets my back up that there's all this pearl-clutching "won't someone think of the young girls!" business surrounding Twilight. We don't think that boys will be led astray into crime and violence based on their reading material (or we talk about it a lot less, in the case of video games); why are girls so ~delicate~ and ~impressionable~?

Well, here's hoping Twilight isn't the only book impressionable girls/women will ever compare their relationships to. God forbid we don't do our civic duty to make sure they don't up being brainless automatons.

I can't even tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I was. XD

Re: O_o?

stunt-muppet.livejournal.com - 2011-11-09 03:06 (UTC) - Expand

We don't think that boys will be led astray into crime and violence based on their reading material (or we talk about it a lot less, in the case of video games); why are girls so ~delicate~ and ~impressionable~?

You're not in the vg fandoms are you? I hear/read all the freakin' time in the news, magazines, politicians, etc. about vg promoting violence among players. God forbid, they actually research the subject and find violence is down more among players than non-players.....or that vg have a teaching effect (improving reading, budgeting skills, etc.).

In the case of mainstream media, yes (I am in some vg fandoms, though not as much as I used to be), but in the case of fannish dialogue/fannish social justice, aaaaaall the attention goes to Twilight and how damaging it is to young girls. It's never the other way around.

There's nothing wrong with reading about unhealthy relationships if they're resented in a negative or neutral way. But a book about an abusive and controlling relationship, where that relationship is presented as the epitome of romance and love? That's...very wrong.

That is my kink.

Nice kink shaming.

I know, right?

All that stuff about how it's wrong to read about unhealthy relationships and you are sick for ever wanting to do so. I think I've really hit my kink-shaming stride here.

Pretty much. LOL. No seriously, this is a lot of people's kink right here. They know it's not realistic. They don't care, because they enjoy it for the same rediculous nonsensical reasons everyone else enjoys their kinks.

And my god is a popular kink. You can point blindfolded at the romance isle and chances are you'd be pointing to something with the I love you, therefore I'll kidnap you, stalk you, do all kinds of dubious things to get you. And all without a trace of of a PSA (ladies, do not do this at home!) in it.

Hmm, I do see what you mean. I guess what I was getting at is whether it was presented that way in the 'realistic' sense rather than the 'escapist' sense. Like you said people with this kink know it's not realistic. The problem with Twilight is that Meyers isn't presenting it as okay in just the realm of this escapist fantasy story, she's presenting it, and has talked about it, as if it's okay in reality . That this is what a romantic, loving relationship in real life would look like. And that will never stop being squicky.