Emotional Porn

So apparently the movie Twilight, based on the Stephanie Meyer teen-loves-vampire book, opens tonight. (Or tomorrow. At midnight, anyway, according to the news reports of the throngs already lining up in prom dresses -- ??? -- to go see it.)

I have to admit that I read the book. I knew nothing of the hype (easy to miss up here in farm country, where my only friends are the 5-and-under set) when my cute SIL loaned it to me. "I don't know what you'll think," she said. "I thought it was only okay, but plenty of women in my neighborhood are convinced it's The Best Book Ever; they totally have a testimony that Twilight is True." With that rousing endorsement, I took it home and began reading.

I guess it was a page-turner; I kept turning the pages. It only took me a few days to get through it -- which is impressive, considering how little time or mental energy I have for reading these days. But I finished the book with a feeling of profound irritation: First of all, I kept waiting for Edward's "family" to eat Bella, lol. Some of them (don't ask me to remember the names; it's been a while and nothing really stuck) glowered suspiciously at her from their seats in the high school cafeteria nearly the entire book, ultimately for no good reason. What a wasted set up. Secondly, the real danger, climax, and denouement.... Well, it was just lame. "Really? That's it?" I thought at the time. "That's all?" Yes, apparently that was all.

My primary irritation, however, stemmed from the frustration that real life just isn't like that. ("What," my brother asked, "you mean there aren't really vegetarian teenage vampires roaming the Northwest? I'm shocked!") No, perfect, brilliant, mysterious, gorgeously bright and sparkly boys do not fall for dull and unremarkable girls. It's the same irritation I feel after watching certain romantic comedies: You get all grinny and stupid as the credits roll -- awww, wasn't that sweet? -- and then the sugar high ends and you feel disgusted with yourself for having bought into such cheesy tripe.

I've had a difficult time articulating that sentiment for some reason, but I came across a term that describes it perfectly: Emotional porn. Twilight, romance novels in general (whether explicit or not), and a specific subset of chick flicks and RomComs exploit the universal desire for emotional connection, but in a way that is neither realistic nor healthy if one were to base or judge her own relationships on them. Just as visual porn can warp men's views of what real women are, should be, or behave like, emotional porn gives women a warped sense of how a good man should behave and of what it is to be in love ("love means being stalked by a controlling -- oh, I mean 'protective' -- boyfriend who watches you while you sleep! How romantic!").

Obviously I don't think most women are stupid enough to make such an overt connection from fiction to their real lives; they know it's just a fairy tale. But read / watch enough of it -- especially when you're young and impressionable (the books are supposedly geared toward teens, though I only know adult women who have read the series) -- and it seeps into your subconscious. Attitudes are subtly affected by the exposure, like it or not, and when the material is glorified the way Twilight has been (sorry, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Harper Lee, but Twilight is the BEST BOOK EVERRRRRR) you start to ignore the bad aftertaste and bask instead in the grinny sugar high. "Wow," you swoon. "I wish my husband was more like Edward."

Feel free to call me a Grinch, but I feel the same way about most fairy tales, too. Plenty of women miss out on what could be a more rich, full, and independent life because they're waiting for some white knight on a steed to come save them from their banal existence. Don't get me wrong, my daughters have all sorts of Disney Princess crap, but I really do try to minimize or alter what I consider these damaging cultural messages.

I haven't read any of the other books in the Twilight series; from what I've heard of how the plot develops, I think I'm glad. The last book, in particular, sounds really creepy! (But not in a good, spooky vampirey way, lol. More in an incestuous fundy way.) I have mixed feelings about the series' author, Stephanie Meyer. On the one hand, um, see above. On the other hand, though, she's one of my "tribe." She's a regular ol' Mormon girl, a BYU grad and a SAHM, who's done really well for herself. Yay for her! I don't begrudge her the success; I'm sure it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I just wish she hadn't made all her money in porn.


~RCH~