There’s an interesting roundtable organized by Brigid Alverson on fanboy sneering at fangirls in relation to the expectation that Twilight fans will be showing up at Con. Tom (who will never live down his admission that he doesn’t like manga) is ribbed, and I get his back and natter on in comments, as I am wont to do.
Update: Much more on Twilight and fanboys and fangirls here.
OK, but is it GENDER though? The major criticism I hear 'bout Twilight is that it's extremely dicey from a femenist POV. (It's awesome to stand by your abusive boyfriend and give birth to his demon babies that eat your womb.)
it's gender because it's about the gender of the *fans.*
many women were saying in the linked thread that they thought the books were bad news feministically, & that they'd probably steer teenage girls away from them if they could, but that the lack of respect for female twilight fans is obvious misogyny.
when i've been on feminist websites debating twilight, the twilight fans themselves won't defend it morally. they'll say it's fun, it's escapist, we don't take it so seriously & neither should you.
as far as i can see, it's *very* analogous to a male frank miller fan saying he can enjoy the work without really believing all women are prostitutes or rape is sexy, etc.
now, i am a overanalytical, oversensitive feminist myself, so i'm pretty sure i would hate even *trying* to read twilight or 300.
if someone came up to me & announced that either one was their favourite book, it would give me pause. but i hope i would keep my mind open & be respectful & give them a chance. (if they said their two favourite books were twilight & 300, well, i'd *really* love to talk to them!)
300 the book doesn't really have that stuff with prostitutes or rape, near as I can remember. I think that was extra bonus misogyny added for the movie, maybe? The book's mostly manly men doing manly things to each other. For what that's worth.
You got it, Miriam. As I pointed out in the comments to the linked thread, my daughter read all the Twilight books but she read them critically, admitting that the writing was bad and the characters were kind of annoying. Reading them was almost like a form of conversation for her. I think the girls are more critical than we realize (more evidence that they are being underestimated!).
But it's not like the genre stuff the guys go for is exactly promoting healthy lifestyles, either. What's sauce for the goose, etc.
Hey Brigid. I understand what you're saying with the girls reading critically bit…and of course, (or maybe not of course, but still) male comic readers read critically as well. Still and all though, I think it's maybe a bit too easy to say of a hugely popular phenomena like Twilight that what it has to say can be discounted, or has no effect. Just as an example, I think there are lots of women who know that the beauty standards in fashion magazines are ridiculous and stupid…but still, women (and not necessarily different women) have lots of body image issues in this country. Or, to flip it, lots of men who read comics know that the women presented in them are unrealistic and dumb…and yet there's still misogyny coming from somewhere.
I guess the point is that art works in lots of complicated and unexpected ways. I don't think censorship is a good idea in any but the most extreme cases myself — but, on the other hand, if I didn't think art could have an impact on people, or if I didn't feel it had an impact on me, I probably wouldn't write about it as much as I do.
I don't think young girls are dumber than anybody else, or more likely to be duped. But, at the same time, I'm a little skeptical of the claim that all the girls reading Twilight are reading it because they think the books are dumb (which is where I think your argument can end up if you follow it through vigorously.)