Sorry if this has been previously written on.
So, I am not a fan of Twilight, nor am I a fan of the media "hype" surrounding it. I did read the first book and was grossed out by the sexualized violence/unhealthy relationships it depicted that have been commented on frequently on this site. But today, a friend pointed out this video to me and I had to comment:
In a nutshell, for those who can't watch to hear the full ridiculousness, around the 1 minute mark, Pattison discusses his interaction with a 7 year old fan who "passionately" requests him to bite her
Am I the only one who finds this so disturbing? Clearly, this girl is young enough that she may not be able to distinguish that actors who play characters are not those characters in real life, and yet she has already been taught that this imagery is not just acceptable, but romantic! The title of the video and the comments discussing how hysterically funny this is to most people was actually almost heartbreaking to me. It seems to me as though our society is replacing already damaging images surrounding romance with even worse, violent depictions. Seeing some of the next generation basing their 'ideal' partner off of Edward Cullen (possessive, aggressive, etc.) makes me sad.
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I agree completely. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what there is to be done about things like this.
Authors use a wide variety of tactics to help their readers identify the character they are "supposed" to identify with, and most of them have little to do with that character's actual behaviour. I'm afraid I haven't actually read Twilight, but I have read a number of other books and seen a number of other movies in which the protagonist is sexist, unscrupulous, unethical, etc. And, of course, such stories promote such behaviour.
To a seven year old kid, that is an extremely powerful message. The things I experienced as a young child have had a profound impact on me. Obviously, this girl is, exactly as you described it, basing her ideal partner on Edward Cullen.
Obviously, this is an extremely harmful form of social conditioning, but the only alternative I see is heavy censorship. It is extremely upsetting that people are learning that possessive and aggressive behaviour are attractive, but all we can do is pitch them an alternative. We can't suppress the idea that those are good characteristics, any more than we could suppress the idea that they are bad ones if we wanted to.
Thank you for you're response. And you are entirely right, I didn't articulate at all in the post what I think should be done about things.
I am not a fan of censorship at all either. What I am a fan of, though, is active processing with parents of (especially young) children. I don't pretend at all that my mom was the best mother, but this was indeed one area she excelled in.
My mom let me read/watch/listen to pretty wildly inappropriate things when I was young. There were minimal restrictions. And though she rarely if ever had the time to listen to/watch/read everything that my siblings and I were, she really did attempt to make time to process them with me. It might have been while in the car to school or on the bus somewhere, or while she was cooking dinner, or running errands, but she always seemed to find a way to process with me the stuff that may have been out of my level.
Obviously, as a working mother of 4 she didn't have time to do it for every single thing, but anything that I was so deeply entrenched in that she would have had to take me to meet an actor from, she would have certainly asked questions about to make sure I knew what was up. (Full disclosure, she passed away from breast cancer in April so I may just be being a bit nostalgic.)
I think there needs to be more analysis and processing available for these young girls. And obviously, some strong female heroines in the media wouldn't hurt either!
Thank you for you're response. And you are entirely right, I didn't articulate at all in the post what I think should be done about things.
I am not a fan of censorship at all either. What I am a fan of, though, is active processing with parents of (especially young) children. I don't pretend at all that my mom was the best mother, but this was indeed one area she excelled in.
My mom let me read/watch/listen to pretty wildly inappropriate things when I was young. There were minimal restrictions. And though she rarely if ever had the time to listen to/watch/read everything that my siblings and I were, she really did attempt to make time to process them with me. It might have been while in the car to school or on the bus somewhere, or while she was cooking dinner, or running errands, but she always seemed to find a way to process with me the stuff that may have been out of my level.
Obviously, as a working mother of 4 she didn't have time to do it for every single thing, but anything that I was so deeply entrenched in that she would have had to take me to meet an actor from, she would have certainly asked questions about to make sure I knew what was up. (Full disclosure, she passed away from breast cancer in April so I may just be being a bit nostalgic.)
I think there needs to be more analysis and processing available for these young girls. And obviously, some strong female heroines in the media wouldn't hurt either!
Well, it's good to see that Mr. Pattinson is so charmingly bemused by this little girl... *HEAVY SARCASM*
There's a very heavy sense of "oh those crazy females, they so crazy!!!" throughout this entire interview.
am i the only one not seeing this? there are some things (like an interview with a flavor-of-the-month, mediocre actor) that don't really deserve to be taken this seriously or be given this much power.
The impression I got might be skewed by other interviews I've seen with the actor, but attitude he generally shows hasn't been that women are crazy, but that excessive fandom is crazy. Yes, most of his fans are women, but he never says he's bothered someone who just wants an autograph. It's the ones who seem on the verge of maenad frenzy that freak him out.
In this interview in particular, the problem seemed to be that such a young girl would express herself in such an impassioned way, and he hoped that she didn't realize what she was saying. Given the way it goes in the books (assuming they are the same as the standard modern vampire story), saying "I NEED you to bite me" is equivalent to saying "I NEED you to fuck me". I'd say it was slightly more troubling that he joked about almost feeling compelled to do as she asked because she was so fervent about it.
At least the actor also can't stand the character he plays. :-)
what is wrong with violent play in a safe, healthy, consenting sexual relationship with good communication and mutual respect? i fail to see why we should judge other people's sexual preferences and relationships this way or present violent play as uniformly bad.
uh... and a 7-year-old is able to understand the complexities of a safe, healthy, consenting sexual relationship how?
This is my problem with the Twilight series. When you're an adult, I could give two shits about what you masturbate to. But these pre-teen porn books are marketed towards girls in the formative years of their sexuality and they're getting a heavy dose of "man is always right" and "love is violent and jealous." This isn't a primer for BDSM where discussions of boundaries and trust are lain out as an absolute right for both partners: this is a primer for submitting in a patriarchal structure.
of course i'm not talking about the 7-year-old girl! but if the purpose of the thread is to make the "twilight" franchise more broadly applicable than the light weight paperback fiction than it is, then i think it merit's mention that this post puts a pejorative on alternative sexual preferences. that's all. i hope that this was a simple misunderstanding and not a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what i said.
No, I think you're misunderstanding the point of the post at all. The point is that this seven-year-old girl has been indoctrinated into incredibly harmful, patriarchal, potentially abusive representations of "love," and how these books, being as wildly popular as they are, have the potential to do real damage to an entire generation's formation of a healthy sexual identity.
The post has no point if you try to extract the 7-year-old girl from the discussion. Trying to talk about validity of BDSM roleplaying while ignoring the 7-year-old girl is nothing more than a willful derail.
also, presuming that there's anything sexual in the 7-year-old's seems odd. i just don't think this grocery-store-paperback turned film franchise has the deep lifelong impact that you seem sure that it does. i watched' rookie of the year' when i was a kid, tried to throw 100mph, couldn't, and never broke my arm to emulate that plot point. sometimes lightweight childhood fandom is just lightweight childhood fandom. i really would grant "twilight" with the power to alter a 7-year-old's sexual future.
Seven year olds have sexuality. They've recently discovered that kids masturbate in utero. What arouses a seven year old may seem odd and stupid, and usually the object itself the kid will outgrow, but this isn't about basic masturbation. Childhood is the process towards which we become adults, and the social and behavioral clues that this girl is picking up on are going to stick around in her personality long after she's figured out vampires don't exist IRL and she stops asking actors to bite her.
i totally appreciate your point, but i think it's potentially dangerous to elevate trash like the 'twilight' franchise to any position of power. anyone expecting anything more than this form a trashy teen romance is going to be disappointed every time. we'd be better off developing better taste in books and movies and not be so surprised every time some low-rent vampire romance has an unhealthy message. by giving it this much attention we're only augmenting it's impact.
also, where is that study about fetuses masturbating in utero? i have no reason to believe you would make that up, but i can't find it anywhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jx0dTYUO5E
In utero masturbation. There you have it.
I think it's dangerous to dismiss the messaging that Twilight is hammering into young girls as just "oh, this book is trash, we should just hope that they develop better taste in books."
ok, when i said i "couldn't find it" i meant that i couldn't find an actual article. i work in a [women's health] research facility and have access to pubmed and other online databases but couldn't find this paper anywhere. i found it on youtube, but forgive me if i don't consider that to cross my "credible-enough-to-believe" threshold.
and i don't mean to dismiss the messaging, i just think it should be weighted appropriately. i watched plenty of heman as a a kid and have, to date, zero convictions on sword-related assault. and that show glorified the hell out of homoerotic violence. there are certainly elements of pop culture that can impact children so profoundly in their youth that it affects their mental/sexual health in adulthood. i just don't quite think this is one of them.
OK, again -- you're missing the point.
This little girl wanted the dude who plays edward to bite her.
"i watched plenty of heman as a a kid and have, to date, zero convictions on sword-related assault"
First of all, it's not as simple as monkey-see-monkey-do. Fine, you watched plenty of heman as a kid.
Were you obsessed with it? Was it, to you, the most perfect telling of human relationships?
Did you masturbate to it? (You don't need to answer that, or any of these.) Did you have prepubescent fantasies about running around killing people with swords? Do you currently have sexual fantasies regarding swords, cutting, pain, or homoerotic violence? Maybe even just a little? Then even though you never killed someone with a sword, heman had a hand in shaping your adult sexual identity.
And more importantly, the homoerotic sword violence in heman is something that society is not going to support. Patriarchal submissiveness of a woman by her boyfriend/husband is another matter. We can't get enough of that shit, so there's much less of a chance that a little girl who becomes obsessed with Twilight is going to have an adult correct the messaging she gets from it.
i won't answer every question, but i'll make three comments:
1. no, i'm not missing the point, i'm missing your point. and you're missing mine. condescension doesn't really help.
2. i completely reject the notion that heman had any perceivable impact on my sexuality. i think this is the root of where we disagree
3. in response to "And more importantly, the homoerotic sword violence in heman is something that society is not going to support." the marines?
It's hard to grasp your point when you keep moving the goalposts. Originally your point seemed to be that it wasn't fair to be mean to people who have BDSM tendencies in their own life, then when I pointed out that this wasn't about that, you started talking about how kids don't have sexuality. When I pointed out that they DO, and that there is a formative element to sexuality, you say that we shouldn't worry about kids running each other through with swords just because they watched heman, when the whole point isn't necessarily about action but rather internalizing.
Fine, if you never masturbated to heman, or had dark secret fantasies about heman as a child, it's not very likely that they did inform your adult sexual identity. If you actually remember what DID get your motor running as a child, you might want to look at how those themes and images impact you as an adult. Chances are, you didn't outgrow them nearly as well as you think you did. And if you don't remember what got your motor running as a child, that's fine, but you shouldn't just assume that your sexuality sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus.
if you're going to continue to be so absolutely patronizing while at the same time misrepresenting my arguments then there's really nowhere to go from here. and if you're going to continue with your self-appointed expert status on childhood sexuality i encourage you to do some research that extends beyond the search function on youtube.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3550126
Meizner, I. 1987. Sonographic observation of in utero fetal "masturbation". Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine 6:111.
Not exactly what I'd call recent. Sadly, I no longer have access to most scientific journals (the one thing I miss about college so far). I'm really curious what this article has to say though - if you check it out, would you care to paraphrase?
that's the article i found. it's over 20 years old (as you can tell) and there is no electronic version of the entire paper or even the abstract online. and masturbation appears in quotation marks in the title. if this is the extent to most people's access to the source that's being referenced, i feel justified in my skepticism. thanks for the link.
If you're interested, in the video I posted the presenter shows the ultrasound photo from the 1987 study; of course not being a physician I have to take her word for it.
I've read that these case reports have been reported elsewhere but I'm not sure if you're going to get anymore data than that. Here is a report for a female fetus (from an Italian study)
Giorgi, G and M Siccardi, "Ultasonic Observation of the Female Fetus' Sexual Behavior in Utero" letter in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1006. 1996.
I'm not sure that masturbation being in quotes means that it's not masturbation. For example the article below recommends when physicians talk about infantile masturbation with parents to use the term 'autostimulation' because of people's inherent discomfort with sexuality.
With regard to infants this article can be downloaded in full if you search for it:
Journal of Pediatric Neurology 2003;1(1):43-45
Infantile masturbation mimics paroxysmal disorders. Again it is a case report. But their conclusion is a warning about the dangers of being too skeptical of the nature of sexuality in infants and children.
"Infantile
masturbation mimics common pediatric
problems, and, if unrecognized, may lead to
considerable parental anxiety, unnecessary
investigations and inappropriate and potentially harmful therapy."
So I think there is plenty of evidence to support Mighty Ponygirl's original assertions. Photos of in utero masturbation are going to subjective case reports, but I can't see anywhere where it's been refuted. Do you?
where is that study about fetuses masturbating in utero?
Mary Roach, author of a book called Bonk, cites the research. She discusses it in her TED presentation called '10 things you didn't know about orgasm'
here .
thanks, but i was looking for a little more than that youtube clip. not to question mary roach, but there's plenty of 'information' on youtube that i don't consider to be citable in an argument.
Right. I don't have the actual study but you've got title and an author with which to dig deeper. But it almost sounds like you doubt the caliber of the scientists that speak each year at TED because TED chose to make their talks available on Youtube?
You can find the same talks on their webpage. You can also download the TED video podcast on Itunes (that is if you trust Apple, Inc).
no reason to be a jerk about it, and it's amazing that you find this anti-TED, but you can find videos of bigfoot on youtube. if you're questioning my skepticism of uncited information on the internet... you can continue to question that, because there's plenty of misinformation out there. you'd do well to become more skeptical yourself. i didn't know that being hyperdefensive was a prerequisite for posting comments on this board.
I didn't mean to be a jerk and I don't find your comment anti-TED. I honestly don't understand why you choose to discriminate against content posted by a reputable organization based upon the hosting service they used for their videos.
Youtube is no different than services like Wordpress, Moveable type, Typepad, google videos, etc. All of these services allow anybody to create and post whatever content they want. Lord knows there's plenty of crazy shit out there, too.
But this fact shouldn't have bearing on the content so long as it's a reputable person or organization posting it. This blog for example should not be judged based on the fact that it is hosted on Moveable Type.
Skepticism should be reserved for the actual content of what's being presented. It's wrong to discredit something because of the hosting service being used.
sorry, i didn't mean to go off, maybe i was primed for disagreement on this thread...
i just meant to say that youtube, google, wordpress, wikipedia, whathaveyou, are all perfectly good sources of large amounts of non-scientific information. when a scientific study is cited, i think that's important to be able to find the primary scientific literature that's being referenced. which i can't find. being skeptical of "scientific studies" without links to the primary literature is very important. no matter who the source is. jerome corsi cites scientific studies all the time. to some people he has legitimacy, but when you try to find his sources he gets debunked. i'm not acusing TED of anything, but it's really important not to just accept something on youtube (or wordpress or google or whatever) as being true without checking the validity/existence of the primary source.
the story now on the community main page about the american life league's campaign against the pill is a perfect example of why it's important to check the legitimacy as well as the true intention of a scientific journal article.
I'm not at all saying violently play is bad or judging it at all. What I am saying is that a 7 year old should not think that is the standard requirement for romance. If she grows up and recognizes she is into it, that's awesome. But what it seems to me from seeing lots of girls who are caught in this "Twilight hype" is that they think a relationship without any violence/fear of violence/threat of violence is inadequate.
does anyone know why my comments (one on this thread, two on another) often don't show up, even after i've gotten to the "confirmed" screen?
I have read all four of the Twilight books, and in all seriousness can someone please point out to me where in the book romance and love are depicted as violence-based? Also, how is it "a primer for submitting in a patriarchal structure. "
I've only made it about three-quarters through the first one (two words: vampire. baseball.) and while I'm not sure about outright violence, Edward is very controlling. He repeatedly picks up or carries Bella while she's shouting at him not to and it's not like she has much of a choice, seeing as he is infinitely stronger than she is. He basically stalks her (watching her sleep at night without her knowledge, listening in on her friends' minds to hear what she's saying to them, following her and her friends when they go to ... wherever they go, the place where they have that Godawful "do I dazzle you?" scene).
As for submitting to the patriarchy ... I really can't articulate it, but I know a number of places have done really good analysis of Twilight from a feminist perspective. (The article in Bitch (here) was good, and I'm sure there are a thousand more out there.) The short version, as I understand it, is that Edward's controlling nature and demeaning treatment of Bella is not only accepted but elevated to an idealized, romantic relationship. While I'm sure anyone on this site can see through that BS (when Bella says to stop touching her, she means stop touching her (no matter what context) and Edward needs to, you know, stop), younger readers might fall for it.* (As evidenced by this girl.)
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*I hate to pull the "younger readers" card, because I was a young reader and I read all sorts of crazily age inappropriate stuff when I was little, but as we can see from this vid and other stuff (e.g., "Edward Cullen has ruined me for real men.") some people apparently buy it.
Casey -- the discussions were popular a while back, but here's a good review of the mormon patriarchal crap in Twilight...
SMeyers is a total cock block, and I'll tell you something else: the fact that it is always EDWARD (the righteous white male priesthood holder) that controls the situation is so steeped in the church, I can't even begin. The male needs to be in charge and set the tone, because ladies are either unable to be turned on because of how holy they are, or need the strong, but firm and loving hand of their priesthood holder to guide them.While I don't know anything about the Mormon church, I did read all of the Twilight books and thought they were the most anti-feminist books I've read in a long time. I didn't purchase the books, and read them only because of the cultural phenomenon they have become.
While there is the argument that we shouldn't "elevate" this "grocery store trash" to any level, the problem is that this is a cultural phenomenon. If you are part of any social media, this is what pre-teen/high school girls are reading and some are LOVING. It's a complete marketing blitz and it's all based on patriarchy:
Bella is nothing without a man in her life, literally. After Edward leaves her she basically becomes a recluse, until she finds another boy to take up her time (Jacob).
Violence? How about when Jacob forces himself onto Bella, where she says "No" but he does it anyway, and then she kisses him back? What does that teach young women who are reading this? If you say no, it probably won't mean anything, so just enjoy it.
this is so bogus. you read all four of the 'twilight' books only because they were a cultural phenomenon? no. you read them because you wanted to. you know what's a huge cultural phenomenon right now? THE MORMON CHURCH. believe it or not, edward cullen didn't have ANYTHING do to with the passage of PROP 8. the mormon church did. and you didn't read anything about them, you read about vampire romance. do you know why this is a huge cultural phenomenon? because people are reading the books. like you read the books. i really don't care if you purchased the books or not, by reading them and investing time and thought in them, you helped perpetuate and augment the mania. do you know what would happen if people didn't read the books? this wouldn't be a phenomenon. so please don't help support something and then turn right around and call it out for being evil. i have no problem with 'twilight' and certainly don't think that it has the impact that everyone here seems to think it does, but if you DO think it's evil, don't help it out. and if you are going to do research, do it on something infinitely more relevant and evil... like the mormon church.
actually, if she is in a teaching job, or mentoring girls, or even wanted to have legitimate fact based arguements as to why this sort of book shouldn't be read by young children without some sort of discussion afterwards, that makes perfect sense to me.
So is nobody allowed to criticize any book, ever? Or should we criticize only the books we haven't read yet? Is reading four whole books such a burden to some people that they can't imagine a feminist doing so just to learn a little bit about teen girl culture? When did caring become a finite, non-renewable resource that if used for one purpose, cannot be used for another? If thinking about and spending time on something is supporting it, wouldn't researching the Mormon church be supporting it, too? My world, it is upside-down!
but then bella punches him in the face...
I do not think in any way that these books are feminist, but Bella is outspoken and tells edward what she wants. Didn't we used to complain about women not getting a say in what they want from a relationship (like sex)? This is the first book I have read where a guy was depicted as refusing sex; not to say that that's the best thing, but it's not what usually happens in books for teens.
Essentially, I agree with what most people are saying, I just wanted to bring up some points I thought about while reading the series. I hope eventually there will be a romantic story told that will place value on the character of its protagonists over the "hotness" factor.