MSNBC: Is Twilight Altering Teen Minds

MSNBC has an article up on Twilight and books in general affecting teenagers’ minds. We don’t do too much editorial around here, but today we’re going to.

Of course we have the old “Bella is a poor role model” rehashed again. Personally we love how they always forget that it’s Bella that goes to Italy to rescue Edward, and that Bella continuously tries to help in the ways any human can when dealing with supernaturally strong creatures (third wife blood trick). A human male would be just as powerless.  Once she’s a vampire with the superpowers she competes with the guys (and girls for that matter) just fine.

Here’s part of the MSNBC article:

Is Bella a good role model?
Attendees at the conference included experts in neuroscience, psychology, art, literature and music, as well as writers such as Meg Rosoff, author of “How I Live Now” and other teen titles.

While teens might be turning the pages of ” Twilight ” for the plot and romance, other takeaways from the books may be having a lasting impact, too.

The series follows Bella, a teenage girl who falls in love with a much older vampire named Edward. Some critics have argued that Bella’s passivity, and the story’s abstinence-until-marriage message, are anti-feminist.

“If you look very, very clearly at what kind of values the ‘Twilight’ books propagate, these are very conservative values that do not in any way endorse independent thinking or personal development or a woman’s position as an independent creature,” Nikolajeva said. “That’s quite depressing.”

One of our  favorite criticisms is when articles talk about Bella cooking and doing laundry while living with Charlie, but she did that and more while living with Renee. So, it’s antifeminist with Charlie, but not with Renee? How does that work exactly? Bella is essentially the adult in her relationship with her mother and her father doesn’t keep tabs on her. It’s more a statement grownups not acting like grownups, but again it does mirror what goes on in society. How many adult do we know that don’t exactly know what their kids are doing?

The book series has women like Jane, Alice, and Leah who is would be hard to categorize as anything but independent and strong willed. It’s clear in the books that Leah, Sam, and Emily have had sex outside of marriage. So the book is a hidden treatise on subservience and abstinence how exactly?

Now does Bella always stand up to Edward and Jacob as firmly as many would like? No. But at the same time, do all of us stand up to people effectively? No. So maybe what’s eating at certain people and at the same time is  why Bella is relatable to a lot of people is that as a whole most people are not uber good at standing up for themselves all the time. It’s a skill acquired over time. In our teens most of us aren’t really good at it, and a lot of us still aren’t great with it twenty years later.

So what are we saying? Maybe, just maybe, could folks put things in context and realize that things aren’t that black and white? Twilight is no more the best book ever written any more than it’s mind control going to warp an entire generation of girls. Taking lots of things out of context frankly makes the people doing that look stupid. The more sexualized vampire books/movies that are out there aren’t creating an undo influence either, and they too are wildly popular.

Some of the comments we liked on the MSNBC site we thought summed things up pretty well:

“No doubt, Noone can just have fun from a story any longer. We must analyze and pick it apart, conduct a study on it, discuss it, and then either applaud it or trash it. The majority of young people are stable, some are not. Some will carry out fantasy into their reality and potentially hurt others. Do we blame the story? no. I’m certainly going to discourage my daughters from having sex too early, but in the end, it’s their choice.”

” “Some critics have argued that Bella’s passivity, and the story’s abstinence-until-marriage message, are anti-feminist.”

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Seriously? Now only the female in the relationship is allowed to assert values? Why is it anti-feminist for the male to stand up for what he believes in? Does feminism mean he is allowed NO rights whatsoever? And it’s apparently against the laws of literature for the main female character to have a passive personality. God forbid someone show some realism!! It’s not as if passive people don’t exist. Also, this idiot obviously didn’t read the series as I didn’t find Bella passive at all, more thoughtful and introverted. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the books, but at least I paid attention when I read them.”

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(edited for clarity)This one we thought was hilarious, because it shows how you can ridiculously take anything wildly out of contest to suit your point of view. In a longer comment that proceeds the below information, the author actually agrees with our point of view and does the below to show how you can warp anything if it suits you.:

“Here look at it from the otherside for a minute the side of things only those of us truly comfortable with the “lifestyle” can openly speak about.

Bella is a Masochistic, dominatrix who wanted the ability to fully exert control over her subs.

1) Bella manipulates Edward, constantly taunting him, teasing him, and tempting him.

2) Bella Clings to the fact that she is Klutz and constantly puts herself into sticky situations.

3) Upon discovering the truth she fully manipulates Edward and his family, and tempts him further causing him great emotional strain.

4) Bella gets on a strangers motorcycle, jumps off a cliff and runs away to Europe

5)Bella is constantly manipulating Edward and others in an attempt to be changed.

6) She continues to play two men off eachother while giving both the illusion they will get a peice

7) She knows the baby will result in her death and subsequently obtaining the power she so desires.

OMG I just got all that from the same book you did and NONE of it involved bella being a sub. But it did kind of alude to how much of a subby little B**** that Edward and Jacob were.

Bella while not a great role model for teenagers is a role model for strong minded women everywhere….”

There are billions of us that read the books, understand it’s escapist fantasy, enjoyed the romance, are living our lives, and rolling our eyes at the “We have to save the children mentality”. Teens are no more completely forsaking all and emulating Bella anymore than they are practicing witchcraft due to Herminone, preparing for a post apocalyptic world with Katniss. Adults aren’t changing into Bella any more than they are Sookie.

Just For Fun: What Twilight Spin-Off/Sequel Would You Want?

The rumors of a Bree Tanner movie in the works proved to be false; however, there’s lots of material and possibilities in the Twilight universe.

MTV has a poll up talking about some of those possibilities as far as movies go. Here’s what they came up with:

“Midnight Sun.” Even if it’s just as encouragement for Stephenie Meyer to finish the book.


“The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.” Bree deserves to have her story told!


The Volturi. Even after the events of “Breaking Dawn,” there’s probably more drama to tell.


Renesmee and Jacob. We want to see them have a romance in a non-creepy way.


Carlisle Cullen. His early days as a vampire could easily have their own film trilogy.

So which one would you like to see as a movie or as a book? Let us know in the comments.

Also vote over on MTV and see where you stand compared to other fans.

E! Meet Edward Cullen, The Pussy

This is one of those times where you just have to read the story to learn about the picture, no intro does it justice. Check out “Edward Cullen Is a Pussy” on E!.

White Twilight For the UK

We aren’t really sure what sparked the color change, but now we have a glimpse of what a limited edition of Twilight in the UK is going to look like:

It’s not the first time the Brits have done their own thing with the book covers. You can see the original UK covers of New Moon and Twilight below. By the time Eclipse rolled around they decided to go with the the US edition cover.

According to The Bookseller: “The four limited-edition titles: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, will be published by Atom on 14th October as £7.99 paperbacks, available only in the UK and Ireland, and Little, Brown’s territories including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. The white editions will not be available in the US.

The white titles will only be published between October and Christmas 2010, replacing the usual black jackets. The titles will have crimson-edged pages and crimson back covers, with text confined to the spines.”

There is no listing as of yet on Amazon UK, but generally speaking you can get UK published items sent to other parts of the world as long as you are willing to pay the shipping. EDITED: Search on Amazon UK for “Twilight Paperback, New Moon paperback” etc and you can preorder  http://wp.me/pZlGB-5bv Total cost for all four white version to USA is £39.91 which is roughly $63.00 at current conversion rates. That does not include shipping.

Indigo’s Teen Read Awards

!ndigo (one of the bigger book outlets in Canada) has just launched their very first  Teen Read Awards.

Twilight is up for Best All Time Fav

New Moon is up for Best Book to Flick.

Breaking Dawn is up for Best Lip Lock.

So go and cast your vote if you are a Canadian. There are some cool prizes.

Also, today for those of you wanting a paperback version, Breaking Dawn comes out in paperback in the USA.

NPR: Team Bella or Team Lisbeth

twilight-booksNPR examines the rising role of of the female protagonist driving megafranchises in print and on screen.

“If you look at the most successful pop franchises over the past 50 years — from James Bond to Star Wars to Harry Potter — one thing is obvious: They’re dominated by men. Which makes it all the more remarkable that right now there are two cultural juggernauts centering on women — the Twilight series, created by Stephenie Meyer, and Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, featuring The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Together the novels have sold tens of millions of copies, while the screen adaptations are raking in dollars by the hundreds of millions.

To be honest, neither Meyer nor Larsson is a great writer. But their legions of fans don’t care. That’s because Twilight and Millennium offer something readers often like better than literary merit — primal fantasies. And what’s interesting is that these two fantasies are almost diametrically opposed, not least in their image of women.”

See more on NPR

Twilight Saga on Challenged Book List

twilight-booksAccording to the AP, the Twilight books have landed on this years list of most challenged books from the American Library Association. Other books on the list include yearly repeats such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, and Huck Finn. Twilight in the number 5 position in regards to the number of challenges lobbied.

According to the AP:

“Meyer’s multimillion-selling “Twilight” series was ranked No. 5 on the annual report of “challenged books” released Wednesday by the American Library Association. Meyer’s stories of vampires and teen romance have been criticized for sexual content; a library association official also thinks that the “Twilight” series reflects general unease about supernatural stories.

“Vampire novels have been a target for years and the `Twilight’ books are so immensely popular that a lot of the concerns people have had about vampires are focused on her books,” says Barbara Jones, director of the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.”

The number of books (reported)in 2009 was 60, which is down from 513 in 2008. All totaled, 81 books were actually removed.

So What is Their Favorite Twilight Book

book-stackWe’re going to start digging through old videos and Tweets to get the answers, but if you can find the answer and link us let us know. We are keeping a master list of what is each actor’s favorite Twilight book.

Twilight

Ashley Greene
Elizabeth Reaser
Justin Chon
Edi Gathegi

New Moon

Kristen Stewart
Robert Pattinson

Eclipse

Peter Facinelli
Kellan Lutz
Taylor Lautner
Chaske Spencer
Tyson Houseman
Mike Welch
Jackson Rathbone

Breaking Dawn

Christian Serratos

***Note stars have changed their minds in some cases after rereads or just in general. So what we have done is gone with date coding and their most recent answer. For example, there are interviews of Chaske Spencer citing both New Moon and Eclipse. Peter has said “whichever one I’m rereading.” We have gone with the most recent answers.

Twilight Poised To Take China By Storm

We all know how we felt waiting for New Moon. Now imagine that you live in China, where the books have recently been translated, and now Twilight is set to open. They still have to wait for New Moon.

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See the full story and video on CCTV.

There is no doubt that Twilight is a world-wide phenomena. Just looking at our own Google Analytics we have had over 615 visitors from China from Beijing, Shanghi, Wuxi and other cities.

We even just heard in from Tahiti…that’s right… Tahiti! If four years ago someone had told us that people would be writing us from Tahiti and Abu Dahbi, I mean we would have asked them if they went off their meds.

Here’s what Natai from Tahiti had to say, “We were a little late, since the movie came out only yesterday, Wednesday 25th. But, on Saturday 21st, a New Moon Premier was organized, where they showed both movies of the Saga! It was great fun! It all started at 5:30, but we all met there around 1pm! I had ordered some T-shirts for us from cafepress. Here are some pictures, but there aren’t big enough…Even on the other side of the world, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on a small island, people love Stephenie Meyer, the Twilight Saga in books and movies!!!”

Meet The Man Who Signed Off On Twilight

Amanda Bell, the Twilight Examiner, has a great article that features former head of Warner Books, Larry Kirschbaum. Back when the contracts for Twilight were being drawn up, Little Brown was then owned by the Time Warner Book Group. Shortly after Twilight’s release in print, Little Brown was acquired by Hachette. Hachette still currently owns Little Brown.

The key place that you want to look in this video that details the ins and out of the publishing business is the 2:10 mark.