First, a disclaimer. I didn’t write this. I came across this brilliant post from the website, www.wired.com and it was so funny, I just had to repost it in my blog. The writer, John Scott Lewinski is so spot on that I kept on chuckling while reading and my office mates started throwing me funny looks like as if I’ve lost my mind.
So, what’s the Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learned from Twilight?
1. If a boy is aloof, stand-offish, ignores you or is just plain rude, it is because he is secretly in love with you — and you are the point of his existence.
2. Secrets are good — especially life-threatening ones.
3. It’s OK for a potential romantic interest to be dimwitted, violent and vengeful — as long as he has great abs.
4. If a boy tells you to stay away from him because he is dangerous and may even kill you, he must be the love of your life. You should stay with him since he will keep you safe forever.
5. If a boy leaves you, especially suddenly (while telling you he will never see you again), it is because he loves you so much he will suffer just to keep you safe.
6. When a boy leaves you, going into shock, losing all your friends and enduring night terrors are completely acceptable occurrences — as long as you keep your grades up.
7. It is extremely romantic to put yourself in dangerous situations in order to see your ex-boyfriend again. It’s even more romantic to remember the sound of his voice when he yelled at you.
8. Boys who leave you always come back.
9. Because they come back, you should hold out, waiting for them for months, even when completely acceptable and less-abusive alternative males present themselves.
10. Even though you have no intention of dating an alternative male who expresses interest in you, it is fine to string the young man along for months. Also, you should use him to fix things for you. Maybe he’ll even buy you something.
11. You should use said male to fix things because girls are incapable of anything mechanical or technical.
12. Lying to your parents is fine. Lying to your parents while you run away to save your suicidal boyfriend is an extremely good idea that shows your strength and maturity. Also, it is what you must do.
13. Car theft in the service of love is acceptable.
14. If the boy you are in love with causes you (even indirectly) to be so badly beaten you end up in the hospital, you should tell the doctors and your family that you “fell down the steps” because you are such a silly, clumsy girl. That false explanation always works well for abused women.
15. Men can be changed for the better if you sacrifice everything you are and devote yourself to their need for change.
16. Young women should make no effort to improve their social skills or emotional state. Instead, they should seek out potential mates that share their morose deficiencies and emotional illnesses.
17. Girls shouldn’t always read a book series just because everyone else has.
18. When writing a book series, it’s acceptable to lift seminal source material and bastardize it with tired, overwrought teenage angst.
19. When making or watching a major feature film, you should gleefully embrace the 20 minutes of plot it provides in between extended segments of vacant-eyed silence and self-indulgent, moaning banter.
20. Vampires — once among the great villains of literature and motion pictures — are no longer scary. In fact, they’re every bit as whiny, self-absorbed and impotent as any human being.
I own all 4 Twilight books and have been reading them even BEFORE this Twilight mania came to the picture. I’ve envisioned Edward and Bella and their relationship and thought about how whiny, pathetic and emotional Bella is–the so-called coolest person in Forks (due to her new kid status) reduced to a slobbering, love-struck female.
I was a fan of Vampire literature and was reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula even in high school, to continue on to Interview with a Vampire and the rest of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. In every story, there is mystery and an air of "nobility" to Lestat, to Dracula, to Louis, Marius and Armand. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight is simply a love story with a teen vampire. No more, no less.
Of course I realized that I am simply comparing two different things–the first, a myriad of vampire novels destined to be classics and the second, a nicely-written vampire love story intended for adolescents in the midst of hormonal rages. To compare the Twilight series to these novels is not only unfair, it is also stupid and unnecessary.