Let’s get something out of the way right here and now; yes, Twilight is terrible and there are a lot of jokes I could make about it, but those jokes are like shooting a barrel in a barrel. I don’t want to ponder its popularity or denounce it is being trash or get angry about how students won’t read the classics, but they’ll read trashy vampire romance novels. I was raised in a household where reading was important and it didn’t matter that I read comics all the time – the important thing was that I was reading.
Instead, I think we should pause to ponder an incredibly important question: where are the fundamentalist Christians on this one?
Follow me for a second.
In 1954, Fredric Werthem wrote Seduction of the Innocent and created a panic about comic books leading unsuspecting teens down the path of Satanism, homosexuality, and substance abuse. Thus, the Comics Code of Authority was created in order to protect teens from reading unwholesome comic books. The rules upheld by the Comics Code of Authority are numerous, but for our purposes, let’s note the rule of the undead being portrayed in comics. No vampires, werewolves, or zombies were allowed in comics or they would not be approved by the CCA and therefore couldn’t be sold. Of course, Marvel got around this by creating Morbius the “living” vampire and somehow with Werewolf “by Night” (the quotes being the parts that somehow made these characters less undead?) That’s neither here nor there, though. The point is that at one point in comics, vampires and the like were considered to be taboo, macabre, and unfit for print.
Of course, now we look back and scoff at such puritanical notions, but it isn’t as if this behavior was relegated to just comic books nor has it dissipated over time. Throughout the years, adults have picked a new “threat to youth” to rally behind. I can still recall a time when parents were worked up over Pokemon and the rumors spread that they may be somehow Satanist because they were monsters (fortunately, the Pokemon Civil Rights Act of 1996 put these fears to rest . . . wait . . . that didn’t happen? That was just in my head? Pikachu never preached, “Pika at last, Pika at last, Pika pika almighty, Pika at last?” Oh well).
Let’s also not forget the uproar that Harry Potter caused years ago where concerned parents demonized the series for promoting witchcraft and magic. These fears have waned over the years and no one seems to question it. Did fundamentalists suddenly read Harry Potter books to see what the fuss was about? Considering how much money the series has made, surely some of these people came to “the dark side.”
So, given that fundamentalists have protested paranormal fiction in the past and organized protests because fiction has offended their sensibilities, how is it that Twilight has somehow slipped under the radar? How is Harry Potter any more sinister than Edward Cullen? Harry Potter exemplifies the qualities of heroism while, deep down, Edward is a vampire that is actively seducing an underage girl.
There are numerous reasons for Twilight’s popularity and they are all tied intrinsically to the issue of sexuality which, I suppose, is ultimately why it has slipped under the radar of protesters compared to Harry Potter. The Twilight saga is perceived as somehow thrilling in it’s forbidden love and intriguing because of the intimacy of its writing. In short and to put it in a way that isn’t so academic – even though it is not necessarily explicit, Twilight is a dirty, filthy series and because these same fundamentals who protested Harry Potter are attracted to Twilight’s narrative, they will kindly overlook the perversions of a story about the undead luring underage teenagers to their beds.
Of course, I’m not suggesting a ban of Twilight or anything of the sort. Honestly, I’m not. My point is merely to call a spade a spade and if Harry Potter was enough to get fundamentalists angry, then Twilight should be too.
Yes, and there’s also the underage sex / impregnation business. Where are the Bible-thumpers on that?
Don’t forget Dungeons and Dragons! People still ask me if it’s “a foothold for the Enemy,” and I think that campaign started tapering off 15 years ago.
I think Twilight gets a pass because Stephanie Meyer has presented herself as super Godful, in the same way as CS Lewis is generally unfrowned upon. It’s sort of assumed that the fantasy they write is Christian allegory to a sufficient extent to stop you becoming a demonic warlock for tapping the vile suffusions of the imaginative spheres.
Katie – Of course! I feel bad for forgetting!
Patrick – I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything where Meyer presents herself as Christian nor do I see any allegorical content within her work. Do you have a link for any of that?
I should also mention that sexy vampire doctor forming his little cabal vampire family, pairing them up and passing them off as teens is more than a little creepy.
Maybe ‘magic’ and a ideology built around it is more threatening to the religious extremist than some old guy banging underage girls.
My comment was based on the public perception of Meyer which I’ve absorbed by pop-cultural osmosis. Her Mormonism is something which gets mentioned a lot and it’s not something she’s shy about, as I recall she’s pretty up front that her moral code is derived from her religion.
“Meyer, a Mormon, acknowledges that her faith has influenced her work. In particular, she says that her characters “tend to think more about where they came from, and where they are going, than might be typical.”[44] Meyer also steers her work from subjects such as sex, despite the romantic nature of the novels. Meyer says that she does not consciously intend her novels to be Mormon-influenced, or to promote the virtues of sexual abstinence and spiritual purity, but admits that her writing is shaped by her values,”
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenie_Meyer
I don’t mean to suggest that Meyer is writing religious or allegorical fiction but perhaps her persona as a woman of faith makes critics give her more benefit of the doubt. What do you think? Perhaps this is a part of why they’ve eased up on JoRo as well given the Christian themes that become more apparent as the HP series has progressed.
And here’s a moderately interesting article on possible LDS influences/parallels in Twilight – http://oregonfaithreport.com/2010/06/mormon-images-abound-in-twilight/
PS Yes, Mormonism is not Christianity, exactly, but I think the perception is that the big enemy of any religion in the modern Western world is secularism rather than competing religions
Her characters are moral degenerates at best. She gives lip service to her faith then writes about what interests and thrills her.
I doubt if JK Rowling had come out with as a ‘woman of faith’, her work would have been treated any better.
JK Rowling, Tolkien, D&D. They created a non-christian world that seemed ‘real’. One that people could project themselves into.
Honestly, fundamentalists are an odd and seemingly contradictory lot. Sure, it would seem that authors like C.S. Lewis get a pass, but we have to keep in mind two things. First, C.S. Lewis was a Christian apologist in his nonfiction, and Christian imagery dominates his fiction (and yes, he does include mythical creatures from other religions, but those creatures are in submission to the Christ-figure Aslan, which fits Lewis’ view of the True Myth), and second, the die-hard fundamentalists are equally critical of Lewis. Seriously, there are varying levels of fundamentalism. The die-hards would lump Narnia and Tolkien in with D&D and Harry Potter despite Narnia and LotR having varying levels of Christian imagery.
In the case of Twilight, I think we have two things happening. First (and as superficial and silly as it seems), The Bible has very little to say about vampires. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Twilight “gets a pass” because the fundamentalists truly see it as beneath their concern. Everyone knows vampires aren’t real because they don’t appear in the Bible and God is silent on their existence. But magic IS mentioned in The Bible, and God is definitely against it, so there is this felt need to stand against it. Does that mean fundamentalists read Twilight? Not necessarily. They would most-likely scoff at it and roll their eyes, but to them the “evil” of the books would seem self-evident. They would think their children were above that sort of thing.
Second, Twilight is the mainstream expression of the vampire romance genre. Being mainstream, it largely jettisons the explicit material. Sure, there may be subtext, but subtext can be ignored or missed. The books, therefore, could be seen as clean from a content perspective. Thus, we have the pretext of “wholesome” romance. Don’t forget that the Amish romance genre is HUGE in Christian circles. Amish romance provides a Christian world-view to an otherwise trashy genre. Similarly, Twilight takes a sexually explicit genre and “cleans it up” so that the content is safe. Yes, we all know that Edward Cullen is a stalker, but you can read Twilight with half a brain (and I don’t mean that insultingly, I just mean you don’t have to go too deep into the text) and only get what you want: clean romance. I think it is quite telling that a Christian author, someone who has written her share of romance for the Christian market, has written and published a novel called “Plain Fear: Forsaken”, which merges both vampire romance and Amish romance. In a way, the very existence of this book draws the parallels for us.