OR: How Twilight and its plagiarized progeny reflect and perpetuate a hostile cultural climate toward women*
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Yes, I made this. That's
how enraged I am.** |
Earlier this week, I got an email from my homegirl Kris with the subject "Too good not to share." Now Kris has a special window into my head (enjoying the crazy view, Kris? Don't mind those midges buzzing around.) and usually knows that I'm going to find something just as funny, interesting, or enraging as she does, so I was pretty excited to check out what she was sharing. The email contained two links:
2. Jennifer Armintrout's chapter-by-chapter
recap of
50 Shades of Grey.
Now, I should start by saying I haven't read the whole book, let alone the whole trilogy. I had no interest in reading it, in spite of the fact that everywhere I go, people are completely devouring it (not literally, thank god, especially since so many are reading it on their Kindles). Some of these people were from the target demographic: adult women on the train, some of the women I work with, some of my friends' moms, wives, etc. But others were a surprise, like my colleague from the science department who is a middle-aged man reading it during his ridiculous daily commute between the Bronx and Queens. Regardless, I still didn't feel like reading it for my own reasons, mostly that I knew it was originally a Twilight fanfiction and I have a lot of problems with Twilight to begin with. (For a more detailed analysis and breakdown of my feelings on Twilight, check out my old
blog where you'll learn that I couldn't even finish it for many of the reasons I'm about to unpack. You'll also learn that I designed a blog with a font and background combination specifically designed to blind the reader, and that 3 years ago, I was in a way better mood and have since progressed into a full-on rageaholic, a la Ron Swanson in this picture.)
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| This pic will also serve as your daily Swanspiration. You're welcome. |
Also, I should tell you that I don't think I'm above either erotic or YA fiction for entertainment (or analysis, clearly). One book on my summer reading list is D.H. Lawrence's
The Rainbow, which is supposed to be pretty hot, and I have become as obsessed with Suzanne Collins'
The Hunger Games trilogy as any teen girl currently braiding her hair all cool and taking up archery for fun and profit. Lots of my girlfriends read bodice-rippers for fun, and I give my brain some candy with the Sookie Stackhouse novels and don't care who knows it. I also read all the Harry Potter books as an adult and still have dreams influenced by
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and
Coraline. So I mean it when I say I love me some well-written erotic fiction and some good YA literature. Hell, I don't even have a problem with fanfiction. I read a ton of that stuff in college, mostly Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic. I even wrote some goofy stuff with my buddy Morgan. My beef is not with the genres, rather how the genres are being used in these cases to characterize women and girls as passive, brainless creatures devoid of any sense of self or agency.
That said, I was definitely up for reading Armintrout's recaps, because it looked like (and turned out to be) a much better, followed-through version of what I attempted to do with Twilight on my old blog a couple of years ago. (Armintrout clearly has a stronger constitution for this stuff and a better ability to finish a project she starts. She's also a published romance novelist, so there's that as well.) It started out as a hilarious diversion, reading this blog. Armintrout is quick with the snark, and takes E.L. James to task for her incredibly poor sentence and paragraph structure and complete lack of characterization, and she does so with a razor wit and some very clever remarks. (What can I say? Jokes about subject-verb agreement just tickle me.) I love her writing style, and the images she chooses to accompany her text are awesome. I not only laughed, but screamed out loud several times reading the chapter-by-chapter breakdown and commentary. In her recaps, Armintrout naturally includes some extensive block quotes from the actual text, so the link above has a great deal of the original source material. And as the recaps of chapters go on, while still hilarious, they get more and more alarming in the text sampled and in Armintrout's own analysis, with which I largely agree.
It seems that the book that's captivating a nation of women, that's allegedly firing things up in the bedrooms of millions of housewives is really just a play-by-play of an abusive relationship between a sociopath and a stupidhead (sorry for the 6th grade name-calling, but I do love me some alliteration.) That women are embracing the character of Christian Grey as someone they'd not only wanna bed, but someone they'd want to wed, is as nauseating to me as the fact that to millions of teenage girls, Edward is like, totes the most awesome boyfriend, OMG. That either of these douchecanoes is being elevated to the status of the ultimate dream guy is really a huge problem for me.
Oh what's that, you say? It's only fiction, it's only a story, it's totally harmless? I'm clearly too prudish, stuck up, not cool? Here, meet my homegirl Valerie.
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| Stupid Miracle Max doesn't see the problem with these tired tropes. |
It's not harmless. To me, it works both ways. It's reflecting some piss-poor attitudes about women's sexuality in which they are supposed to be played, not act as a player. And in turn it's also perpetuating them, because both stories end up with the heroine snagging the alleged hero and supposedly solving all his problems and living happily ever after. Only by playing into this twisted tale and being a completely helpless, hopeless individual lacking in any self-esteem does she arrive at what the author thinks is a happy ending. Satisfaction is only achieved vicariously through healing the wounded hero (with her love! oooh!), becoming what he wants, and ultimately being possessed by him. I mean, really, what the hell.
On the Twilight level, Bella is one-dimensional and insipid. And maybe that's strategically done so that every kind of teenage girl can relate to her, but we have to rely on what other characters say about her to form an opinion because she doesn't really act. And everybody around her seems to think she's so awesome, and I really never saw her do anything so awesome to merit this. She mostly just sits around and bitches about the lack of literature in the library and how waahwaahwaaaah, she is too pale and skinny and how could anyone ever think she is pretty and oh my god shut up. (Oh man, just thinking about it irks me, and it's been years. Still, shut up Bella! God!) And all the boys are just nuts about her because, I don't know, I guess guys love a girl who complains about everything and thinks she's better than everyone around her? I know this book is supposed to be fantasy, but I have an easier time suspending my disbelief about the existence of vampires and werewolves than I do about this twit being so goddamn irresistible to everyone around her, because she doesn't actually like anyone or say or do anything in a friendly way.
And I have the same problem dealing with the characters Ana and Christian in 50 Shades. I mean, clearly they are Bella and Edward, except now their interactions include 100% more nudity and about 60% more leather. It's no secret that the book is allegedly about a BDSM relationship, but from what I've read of it, it's really more about a stalker who wants to control every aspect of a woman's life. Oh yeah, and this woman happens to also be a horrible, horrible person. Let's look at a few of the things he does:
- He tracks her cellphone to find her.
- He shows up at her job unannounced and buys a bunch of rope and duct tape (y'know, for the murderin'.)
- He buys her a laptop and blackberry so she can keep in constant contact with him
- He freaking shows up in Georgia uninvited while she's visiting her mother (He lives in Seattle, by the way. Or Portland. I don't know. Whatever. WEST COAST.) This is after she dramatically tells him she needs space. Way to not give her space, Douche.
Ana's just like Bella in that everyone around her talks about what a strong and amazing woman she is, but she shows none of these qualities in anything she does. All she ever does is complain about how much everyone around her sucks and how intriguing Christian is.*** Oh wait, she also flushes all the time and bites her lip a lot. (And now that I think about it, she doesn't even really like Christian all that much. She claims to love him, but she doesn't talk about him the way you'd talk about a guy you actually like. Y'know, what his interests are, whether he likes baseball or what kind of stuff he likes to do. Apart from spanking.) Her "foil" (if the novel had that much structure) is her friend Kate, whom Ana actually really seems to dislike. (She's fine with living off of Kate's wealth, though.) When Ana gets involved with Christian Grey, Kate also gets involved with Christian's brother Elliot. While Ana and Christian have this twisted Dom and sub thing going on CONSTANTLY (not just in the "Red Room of Pain," like, gimme a freaking break), Kate and Elliot actually seem to like each other and function as a normal couple. Of course Ana finds this all disgusting and whorish of Kate. Kate actually kisses Elliot in public, (gross, amirite?) invites him on vacation with her family (while Christian shows up uninvited to Georgia all "Hey whassup, I'm totally not here to murder you.") and while it is implied that Kate and Elliot are sleeping together, whatever kink they're into is their business, and you get the feeling that outside the bedroom, they do things that normal couples do. Like hit up the design exhibit at the MoMA, or go to Ikea, or whatever. The point is, they act like actual people who like each other. But the author uses Ana to completely disparage Kate at every given opportunity, so we the audience are supposed to be like, yeah, Kate sucks! It's so much better to have a raging psychopath stalking and manipulating every iota of your existence. Romance!
Also, Kate enjoys her relationship. Ana seems to hate that Christian can provoke all sorts of physiological responses in her. Y'know, because it's wrong for women to actually enjoy anything involving sex. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh and this is Ana's first relationship because no man has ever interested her. Meanwhile, Christian's had partners in the double digits. I'm tired of this trope. You're tired of this trope. Your momma is tired of this trope.
E.L. James also completely disregards laws of physics and human physiology when describing intimate moments between them. I guess it makes sense in the original fanfic where Christian was Edward, and y'know, a vampire. But as Armintrout points out, humans have something called a refractory period. Look it up, James. (And I really don't need to hear from her fans about how their boyfriends are just like Christian because A. I don't wanna know him if he is, and B. You're lying.)
Also, I think E.L. James really undershot it when she decided that bondage was going to shock the hell out of everyone. I know this is supposed to be "mommy porn," and really, that description is misleading and kinda makes me want to vomit, but if she REALLY wanted to shock people, she'd make Christian Grey someone who could only get off by being covered in chum and then doing it in a tank full of sharks. Or maybe like that James Spader movie where they have to be in a car crash to achieve sexual congress. Then I'd think Grey was freaky. I mean, Criminal Minds and SVU have really desensitized people. Taboo just isn't as taboo as you think it is, James.
It was a second email that really inspired this essay. This morning, my homegirl Erika sent me this:
And that's what really brought it all home for me. Like I said earlier, I was really into Buffy back in college, and I'm currently very into True Blood. The difference is that vampires aren't exalted or confused with human men, let alone IDEAL human men. They're supernatural and dangerous. And not sparkly. Buffy was created in 1997, at the tail end of a decade that was really focused on young girls getting in touch with their inner badass. There was the Riot Grrrl movement, Bikini Kill, Hole, and yeah, I'm gonna say it, even the Spice Girls got on board with female empowerment. Bella, on the other hand, hit her peak about a decade later, after a serious backlash (yes, I broke out the Susan Faludi for this post) against female agency. Buffy was a flawed individual, but at the end of the day she was a 3 dimensional character who was active in her friendships and relationships and had no problem taking care of business on her own. (Sookie Stackhouse is also deeply flawed, but again, also a complicated character whom I'll save for another essay.) Buffy was supportive of her best friend, enjoyed quality time with her mom, and fell in love with a guy while being cautious about getting mixed up with him because of his romantic past and oh yeah, the fact that he was a vampire. She actually even killed her boyfriend once to save the world. Bella just whined a lot. In fact, from what I hear, that's pretty much the whole second book.
So we've really gone downhill when it comes to examples of strong women in popular culture and literature. A few years ago, the school librarian had a book discussion with the students with a focus question "Is Bella A Strong Woman" and I really had to grit my teeth and restrain myself (not in a 50 shades kind of way) from sticking my head in the library and yelling, "SHE'S NOT! END OF DISCUSSION!" because I liked that my students were reading something other than Chocolate Flava when I confiscated their books. But it's gone from bad to worse since then, because this isn't just about girls getting crappy ideas about relationships, it's about grown-ass women perpetuating them.
Sigh. I think I'll watch some Buffy on Netflix.
*Yes, this is an unwieldy title, but this is my blog, not The New Yorker. Plus, I was gonna call it "Spanker? I don't even know 'er!" Happy now?
** It was either make this image or go back to playing my two least favorite single apartment-dweller games: "How long can I ignore that laundry pile before it falls over and kills my cat?" and "What the hell is that smell and where is it coming from?" Hey, wait a minute...
***Armintrout actually discusses a whole lot of red flags in the book that point to classic hallmarks of an abusive relationship. It's actually not even funny.
