Twilight and Tween Girls

A friend asked me what I thought about tween- and teen- aged girls reading Twilight yesterday, and I’ve been mulling that over ever since. Now, I’m neither a parent nor a teacher (or a teenage girl, for that matter), but not knowing what I’m talking about has never stopped me from pontificating before, so here are my official thoughts on the moral ramifications of Twilight.

Spoilers abound hereafter, so if you haven’t read the books and want to be surprised, this isn’t a good article for you.

One of the reasons Twilight is so popular with the adult set is that it is rather clean. The language is tame; I don’t think a character even says “oh my God,” which is a reflection of Stephanie Myer’s faith. The suspense isn’t particularly terrifying, and the violence, while present, isn’t particular gruesome, except for one scene in the fourth book, where Bella (the heroine), pregnant with Edward’s (the hero and vampire) child, has to have an emergence C-Section, and Edward, due to the special nature of the birth, has to use his teeth to cut through her womb. This whole scene is just… yeah. The way that the book deals with sex is also rather chaste. Bella and Edward do not consummate their relationship until after they have been properly married, despite Bella’s protests.

So, when someone says that there’s nothing bad in Twilight, they’re right… sort of. While there is nothing explicit in the material, the subtext is, frankly, horrifying.

Edward is the ultimate Byronic hero: self loathing and self destructive, but beautiful, poetic, and romantic. He is the epitome of Troubled but Cute and the Rebel with a Heart of Gold.

His actions over the course of the first story are honestly frightening. In my favorite example, he actually breaks into Bella’s room to watch her sleep - without her knowledge, and before they are even in a relationship. He is controlling, manipulative, and dismissive towards Bella. He wavers back and forth between being openly hostile towards her, ignoring her, and professing his undying love for her.

And as I keep repeating, these things are not romantic, they are warning signs. I’ve known a lot of guys like Edward in real life, and these situations never end well.

The thing is, Twilight is a fantasy. We know that Edward is the good guy, we know that he and Bella are supposed to end up together. We know that he will never hurt her, and we know that they will end up happily ever after.

The problem occurs when this fantasy meets up with reality. In reality, when a guy is a jerk to you one moment, and professing his undying love the next, it isn’t because he’s trying to protect you from his own dark nature, it’s because he’s a jerk. In reality, when a guy is manipulative and controlling, it isn’t because he is trying to save you from an immortal blood-drinker who has sworn your destruction, it’s because he thinks of you as his property. In reality, when a guy breaks into your home to watch you sleep, it’s because he’s not right in the head. In reality, when a young girl throws herself physically at the Troubled Loner, he is not going to gently rebuff her offer in an attempt to maintain her virtue.

So, I think Twilight has the potential to set young girls up for disappointment, and possibly even trouble. So, should you let your young girls read them?

Well, here’s the thing.

Our Senior Pastor gave a talk on alcohol the other morning, and one of the things he referred to was prohibition. The US Government spent millions of dollars and countless man-hours trying to fight something that the people were going to do anyway. Furthermore, labeling something “forbidden” only serves to make it more appealing; if you tell your girls that they can’t read Twilight, it’s going to make them want to read it even more.

And while the thought of girls sneaking out behind the school to read a trashy paranormal romance kind of makes me giggle, I also think it’s sort of unnecessary. I’m not a real advocate of shielding people from the truth. Sooner or later, they are going to be exposed to something that you don’t like and that you can’t control. I think Twilight falls into that category. It isn’t so destructive that you need to seek out every copy and burn it, but it does have the potential to be destructive enough that you need to be able to discuss it intelligently.

So that’s my advice. If your girl wants to read Twilight, let her… but read it yourself, too, and be prepared to discuss the difference between fantasy and reality.