I suppose I'll break out the Sparklepire Adventures tag for this

[meganbmoore]

Rants about Rants about YA and girl cooties

I suppose it says something about the people talking about YA who I actually notice that I don't think I'd heard of John Green until I read this yesterday.  Looking him up on wikipedia, his books don't sound like my thing, based on the brief mentions in his profile.  They don't sound bad, mind you, just not like anything I'd be interested in reading.

Also, if you want to rant about how the romance in Twilight is creepy, or hate on Edward or Jacob, or talk about how the writing is kind of awful, be my guest.  I mean, at this point, to say that it's beating a dead horse would be to abuse a cliche, but I'm sure I'll do it if I ever get around to reading the last two books.  But no one ever seems interested in talking about how, accidentally or otherwise, Bella is one of the more honest and accurate portrayals of a teen girl in recent years, or how, despite  unfortunate external influences and messages, in the two books I've read, internally the world exists exclusively within the female gaze, and the male gaze doesn't exist.*  There's also the groundwork for a fascinating exploration into teen depression interwoven with a typical vampire/special girl romance, but it would take a more aware and nuanced writer than Meyer to really run with that.  I also tend to think that a lot of the popularity is a subconscious response to the fact that, in a lot of ways, it could be boiled down to "Woman wants something.  Man tells her she can't have it.  Man's pals jump in and tell her she can't have it unless he says she can.  Other man (and his pals) jumps in and tells her what she wants is dirtybadwrongnotinfunways.  Woman gets what she wants despite men and their pals saying she can't have it and shouldn't want it."  (Our personal opinions about what she wants are another matter.)

Back to working on the LibraryThing meme I go.



*I understand Jacob gets POV chapters in the last book, sadly, which I consider very unfortunate.

Comments

[owlectomy]

I think that's what reminded me so much of shoujo manga about Twilight -- this sense of really intense subjectivity focused on the POV of a girl very much in love. (With shoujo manga I seem better able to read the story without being massively judgmental, but that's another story.)

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, I get less judgmental about the romances in shoujo manga more often than not, too. I think a lot of it is the sheer crack.

[sasha_feather]

Agreed.

[chaila]

I also tend to think that a lot of the popularity is a subconscious response to the fact that, in a lot of ways, it could be boiled down to "Woman wants something. Man tells her she can't have it. Man's pals jump in and tell her she can't have it unless he says she can. Other man (and his pals) jumps in and tells her what she wants is dirtybadwrongnotinfunways. Woman gets what she wants despite men and their pals saying she can't have it and shouldn't want it."

This! There are a ton of things that I think are unfortunate about the series, and like you say, it has some terrible external messages. But internally, Bella gets everything she wants, much of which is stuff that the boys in her life do not want her to have ~for her own good. So yeah, I don't think there is much redeeming about the series, really, but my feelings on it as a phenomenon are somewhat complicated. I also have a lot of thoughts on how all post-Twilight heroines are billed by audiences who like it as, like, the anti-Bella; I'm thinking of Katniss in particular. Who does NOT get everything she wants, and in fact, pretty much gets terrible things at all times. I'm not sure I have a point, but it's kind of troubling that it isn't shameful to love the YA heroine kicked around by the world, but the one who gets everything she wanted is mockable?

[meganbmoore]

That last sentence sums up a lot of my feelings about reactions to heroines post-Bella and post-Katniss, and while I like Katniss, I...really dislike the attitudes of a lot of her fans.

It's like when REvolution aired and everyone assumed Charlie was supposed to be Katniss and they were hating on her for saying she'd lost everything because they' didn't think she'd suffered enough. In the first episode, her father dies in her arms, her brother is abducted, we learn that her mother went for supplies one day and never came back, she's almost raped and the first person outside of her community who she trusted betrayed her. A fair bit of cliche going on there, but just how much suffering is enough suffering for people, anyway?

I admit, I judge people anytime "anti-Bella" is used. (I also find it very disturbing how people dismiss the fact that Bella has and fights for her agency because her ultimate goal is to be a vampire and stay with her first real boyfriend forever. I mean, yeah, I wish she used her agency for something else, but don't knock her agency just because you don't like what she uses it for.)

[lady_ganesh]

Yeah, that kind of pisses me off. I'm sure Katniss is a great character (still haven't read the books) but she has little to no agency from page one, and as far as I can tell it only gets worse.

Bella, meanwhile, gets the husband she wants and superpowers.

[chaila]

I've read both series (and seen most of the movies too), and it is a bit more complicated? They're just very different premises. Katniss is in an oppressive story that forces her to wrench whatever agency she can away from people in authority, and I think that's a perfectly okay kind of story? But it does become a different kind of story than the fans hoping for a Katniss-led revolution wanted.

It's just aggravating that they have to get pitted against each other at all, really! It's like the whole thing where fandom often shows love for one female character by ripping down others, and a lot of Katniss fans unfortunately do do that. :/

[lady_ganesh]

I don't mean to bash her! It's just, IDK, no one narrative's going to do everything, you know?

YES.

[inkstone]

Oh man, you have no idea how much I've argued about the Bella vs Katniss debate and how really, when you get down to the bones of it, Bella has more agency than Katniss because Bella knows what she wants, goes after it and gets it whereas Katniss falls apart as the trilogy continues and becomes a pawn. And I realize that was likely the message Collins was going for -- the effect of war on children, the effect of war on soldiers -- it's unfortunate when people bounce around saying KATNISS IS THE BEST EVAR when, uh, sure, she's an action girl but she's an action girl who's pushed around by her environment and controlled by other people most of the time.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, while I had problems with HTG, I get what Collins was doing with Katniss as a character and I think she pulled it off and I think it's a good, if depressing, character arc. Unfortunately, most are just responding to Katniss as a badass girl who dealt with terrible things happening to her as best she could. Which should never be dismissed or undermined, but it's only a small part of what's going on there, and to dismiss or undermine other heroines for not being like her, imo, reveals a lot of internalized (and not internalized) misogyny that hasn't been explored, and wants to see itself as feminism.

[bookblather]

I think Twilight might also have gotten incredibly popular because it says to teenage girls that their desire and their awakening sexual drive is okay, that it's natural and normal to sexually desire somebody and to indulge that desire. It also says to whatever teenage boys are actually reading it that it's okay to be a virgin and/or to have sex only in a romantic, emotional relationship. It does have some really good messages buried in there under the creepy.

[meganbmoore]

I very much agree re: sexual awakening and virginity being ok. And good things hidden inside the creepy.