On the Origin of Sparkles

About a week and a half ago, I became aware of the existence of a singular piece of Twilight criticism posted on the Badass Digest. As I am incapable of resisting an opportunity to get into a fierce debate about Twilight, its merits (or lack thereof), themes, literary significance (or lack thereof), and greater impact on society at large and for girls and women in particular, I zipped right on over to that corner of the Interwebs. I then discovered three things:

1) The review was written in the persona of the Incredible Hulk.

2) It was remarkably well-reasoned and considered, though quite long and lacking in definite articles.

3) I agreed with 85% of it. This is a staggeringly high percentage for Twilight criticism, topped only by my appreciation for the estimable Cleolinda Jones’ analysis of the whole Twilight hoopty-hoo.

However, because I am forever spoiling for a fight (even with people who are enormous, muscle-bound, green, and notably afflicted with anger-management issues), I promptly criticized the 15% of Film Crit Hulk’s post that I didn’t agree with. To my even greater surprise, Hulk responded back in a polite and considered fashion. I then happily spammed the Badass Digest post with my various thoughts on the subject for a week. After a while, I realized that a different venue would perhaps be more appropriate, particularly since I had a whole entire essay’s worth of thoughts on the subject and many of the nice people at Badass Digest had stated that they were thoroughly sick of Twilight. I can understand why; it’s a poorly written, highly problematic, and virtually inescapable book series with a host of social, sexual, and gender-related issues that has been turned into four unquestionably bad movies. It is also fascinating as hell if you happen to be a former British Lit major who focused on Gothic novels and the 19th century.

My biggest argument with Hulk is with his assertion that “[TWILIGHT] IS THE RESULT OF UNAWARE-SEEMING WOMAN DEALING WITH A LIFETIME OF MIXED MESSAGES. AND INSTEAD OF PROVIDING A FRAMEWORK FOR YOUNG GIRLS TO DEAL WITH THEM AS WELL, SHE CREATES A SYSTEM THAT DIRECTLY FEEDS INTO MIXED MESSAGING.”

Au contraire, mon ami vert. Stephenie Meyer provides a solid framework for young girls–and some older women–to deal with those mixed messages, and it is part of a long, well-established Western literary tradition going back at least 271 years. It’s just a framework with a whole slew of problems.

However, it’s still worth examining, which is the point of this Tumblr. The remaining entries will serve to identify and analyze a major theme in French, English, and American literature: namely, how novels help young women deal with the staggering contradictions inherent in trying to navigate sex, marriage, romance, and patriarchal English/American society as a female human being. Short version: fiction helps women either contextualize the contradictory expectations placed upon them by society or offers them an escape from those expectations into a particular sort of fantasy that allows them to function in the world. For the long version, scroll down.

The core framework (in the form of theme and protagonists) first emerges in Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s rendition of La Belle et la Bête, a European fairy tale first published in 1740 and better known today as Beauty and the Beast. Among other things, it is a not-terribly-subtle metaphor for May-December marriages, which were a staple of the 18th century upper class. It provides young women with a useful way to consider their upcoming nuptials to older, scary, and possibly icky men: yes, he may be grizzled and not-so-easy on the eyes, but give him time and get to know him. If you are kind and considerate to him, your generosity may transform him into a loving and doting husband, and you might just find him a lot more attractive.

A more cynical interpretation: You’re young and nubile; he’s old and rich; the two of you are stuck with each other. Surely you can find some way to work things out.

Takeaway for the Ladies: You can transform a beastly and frightening man into a loving husband by being kind, gentle, and affectionate to him. Dancing housewares are optional.

Hey, ladies! Are you being harassed by your boss? Does he read your letters? Hide in your closet and watch you undress for bed? Constantly try to feel you up and kiss you despite your frantic demands that he get the hell away from you? Kidnap you and tell your parents that you’re having an affair? Samuel Richardson has just the solution for you in Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. Unfortunately, it makes Twilight look downright rational by comparison.

Published in the same year as La Belle et la Bête (1740), Pamela’s answer to the very real societal problem of sexually aggressive upper-class men forcing themselves on their young female servants is to recommend that young women convince their attackers to marry them. Richardson’s suggestion does have certain practical benefits: namely, the young women in question go from lower-class servants to upper-class ladies with their virtue intact, which is a large improvement over being raped, knocked-up, and cast out into the streets as loose women.

However, the mechanism by which this transformation is to take place remains murky. The titular character spends a good three-quarters of the book writing frantic letters to anyone who will listen (and a few people who won’t) about how horrible Mr. B is to her, and then suddenly decides that she’s madly in love with him after he proposes marriage to her. Ostensibly, she has transformed him from a lecherous douchebag into a decent man by the example of her virtue and steadfast resistance to his inappropriate advances.

Plenty of contemporary readers didn’t buy the sudden shift, either. Henry Fielding was completely unimpressed by Richardson’s Meyer-esque plot boomerang and published An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, which is 1) a hoot, 2) much shorter, 3) suggests the whole thing was a scam foisted by “Shamela” on poor unsuspecting Mr. B, and 4) entirely justifies slogging through Pamela.

Despite its logistical and character-related flaws, Pamela was a huge critical, popular, and literary success. Its impact on the novel as an art form is evident in its descendants: Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and even Flowers in the Attic (yes, really) owe much of their theme and structure to Richardson, and all epistolary novels share its strengths (direct narration, plausibility, immediate connection with characters) and weaknesses (the impracticality of writing down every conceivable event immediately after it has happened). However, its single biggest contribution to literature is its identification of marriage as the mechanism by which lower-class characters (particularly young women) can rise to the level of the upper class.

Takeaway for the Ladies: You can transform a sexually aggressive and totally inappropriate suitor into a kind and gentle husband by resisting his advances until he’s willing to marry you. If he isn’t willing to marry you… um… well, try reading Richardson’s Clarissa next. (I recommend the abridged version.)

Fortunately, Jane Austen is not half as unrealistic as Samuel Richardson. While she retains his core theme of “class improvement for women through marriage,” her novels reject the notion that a good, morally upright woman can transform a cad into a decent husband. Instead, as in Sense and Sensibility (published 1811), cads get kicked to the curb in favor of genuinely decent men.

However, Austen still aligns with the earlier Beauty and the Beast theme, as Marianne initially rejects Colonel Brandon in favor of the much younger, hotter, and douchier Willoughby. She isn’t interested in boring old Brandon until Willoughby tears her heart out and squishes it. (Not literally. Please, bad Austen monster-parody novel writers, don’t get any ideas. The world does not need The Temple of Sense, Sensibility, and Doom.) Once Marianne gets to know Brandon, she discovers that he is indeed the chivalrous, romantic ideal she imagined Willoughby to be. (He’s even fought a duel! What greater sensibility could one ask for?)

To this end, Ang Lee is a genius. Want to know why? He cast Alan Rickman, an actor previously known to most American audiences as the superlative bad guys Hans Gruber (Die Hard) and the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) as Colonel Brandon in his 1995 adaptation of Austen’s novel. Rickman is not exactly hard to look at–and I’d probably pay $10 just to listen to him recite the alphabet–but prior to this movie, his somewhat grizzled and lined 49-year-old self wasn’t at the top of anyone’s list for romantic leads. In other words, he was perfect for the role of a Beast being transformed into a prince by Kate Winslet’s Beauty.

Unf.

Takeaway for the Ladies: If you examine a quiet older man’s real personality, you might find that he’s actually the dashing suitor you’ve been dreaming of. Bonus points if he’s super-rich, gives you awesome and expensive presents (like pianofortes), and looks (and sounds) like Alan Rickman.

Sadly, extremely wealthy and considerate older men who looked and sounded like Alan Rickman were in short supply in England in the 19th century. What to do if you’re part of the 99% who aren’t members of the upper class and can’t find a guy to lift you up via marriage? Why, redefine the cultural understanding of love and relationships into a wholly unrealistic but fabulously appealing model of human interaction! In order to do this, you’ll need to disregard basic consideration for nearly everyone around you and chuck everything you know about how two people can share a life together without destroying themselves and everyone around them. However, that’s okay, because then you’ll be completely subsumed into your lover’s identity. There will be no distance between you. You’ll be able to say, as Cathy did, “Nelly, I am Heathcliff.”

Emily Bronte knew exactly zip about healthy and stable romantic relationships but practically everything about the iconic Byronic anti-hero, which was her primary intent in writing Wuthering Heights. The problem is that multiple generations of readers–including Stephenie Meyer herself–have interpreted her complicated interlocking novel about loss, repression, and stunted characters as one about thermonuclear passion. Meyer clearly paid attention during at least one English class, because Eclipse features Edward summing up WH as “The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others lives… It isn’t a love story, it’s a hate story.” From that hopeful beginning we unfortunately slide right back into the early 20th-century interpretation of WH as the Awesomest Love Story Ever and are subjected to a retread of its basic plot points (though none of its themes).

Takeaway for the Ladies: Real passion is tumultuous, stormy, overwhelming, soul-destroying, and all-consuming. It’s also impossible to ever realize in this form, so it provides you with a handy idealization of an emotion made for–and arising from–fantasy. Frustrated because your dude isn’t a rugged embodiment of raw desire? Does he snore? Work a boring job? Occasionally fall asleep before boinking you silly? That’s okay; Emily Bronte has provided you with endless fantasy material.

In contrast, does he treat you like crap? Have anger-management issues? Refuse to treat other people–or you–like a human being? That’s okay; he’s just super-passionate. Go watch the Tom Hardy version of Wuthering Heights again.

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre takes the Beauty and the Beast theme present in Pamela and kicks it up several notches. Most notably, the Beauty no longer has to be, well, beautiful. Instead, she triumphs and perseveres through sheer strength of personality, which has the added benefit of making Jane Eyre an amazing example of character development. For contrast, we’re presented with the other Beauty who has already tried to Prince-ify this Beast and has failed miserably. In fact, she’s become Mrs. Beast herself: degenerate, insane, and dangerously sexual, and Mr. Rochester is indelibly stained by his association with her (as well as several other questionable ladies). Only Jane’s decency (hi, Samuel Richardson!) and fortitude can bring him back to a state of humanity and propriety. Oh, and the giant fortune she just inherited (hello, Jane Austen!) doesn’t hurt either.

Takeaway for the Ladies: It doesn’t matter if you’re poor, obscure, plain, or little. Your innate goodness, staunch moral fiber, and pure English* character can transform a jerk into a decent and caring man (once he’s been symbolically castrated as punishment for his sins, of course). You can change him. Bonus points if he’s involved with someone else who just isn’t right for him.

*Not English? Go read Wide Sargasso Sea. Skip the movie versions, though.

Fortunately, Anne Bronte was horrified by her sisters’ unrealistic depictions of love and romance and wrote her own clearheaded novel (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) about how trying to change people is a bad idea and illusions of titanic passion are just that. Unfortunately, “marry a nice younger guy who understands you and treats you like a decent human being, unlike your jerky ex” is not half as compelling a social meme. In addition, Charlotte did everything she could to prevent the novel from being widely published, as it contained scenes written from Anne’s experiences dealing with their brother Branwen drinking himself to death after trying to apply Charlotte and Emily’s definitions of love and sex to his own life.

I myself am Team Anne.

Takeaway for the Ladies: Avoid alcoholic dickbags.

Diligent students of English literature will note that Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is neither a romance nor a novel. (It’s a novella.) It is a Beast with no Beauty to transform him, and he ends up dead as a result. That hasn’t stopped nearly every movie adaptation from adding romantic or sexual elements not included in the story, including the could-have-been-awesome-but-dear-sweet-merciful-Lord-Julia-Roberts’-attempt-at-an-Irish-accent Mary Reilly. I’m including it here because it relates to two huge upcoming entries, and it provides a much-needed corrective to 2/3rds of the Bronte family output.

Takeaway for the Ladies: Seriously, avoid alcoholic dickbags. Don’t try to change people, either. They don’t always change for the better. Ask me how I know.

Hi, Hulk! Yes, you’re part of the Beauty and the Beast framework too–not only because Stan Lee swiped you wholesale from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but also because Betty does her best to keep you emotionally stable. You’re also in here because you influence the next entry tremendously… and you bear more than a little resemblance to a certain chagrined marble cupcake perfect angelic Adonis hair gel model. Between the random and inexplicable mood swings, the rock-hard abs, the self-loathing, the lack of choice about your current condition, your difficulties with getting too, er, excited, and your fondness for brunettes, you’ve got a little ‘splaining to do about why you hate that Edward guy so much.

Takeaway for the Ladies (mostly derived from the 2008 movie): If you must change a guy, don’t let your dad use gamma radiation to do it. You have a responsibility to keep your man cool, collected, and flesh-toned; do whatever you can to help him keep his emotions under control. Be understanding–he never wanted to be this way, but his rage is a part of who he is.

Side note: I haven’t read any of the comics. The highlight of my life when I was four was being allowed to stay up late to watch The Incredible Hulk TV show. My memories of the show mostly involve Lou Ferrigno Hulking out in epic fashion; I suspect re-watching at this point might destroy some fond if hazy memories.

The Ang Lee Hulk movie is, ironically, one of the few I genuinely hate. Between the terrible script, the wooden acting, and Hulk poodles, I very nearly walked out of the theater. I only stayed because my ride almost definitely would have ditched me and I didn’t want to walk eight miles home. I have seen objectively worse movies, but none that have made me that frustrated and angry, and none that have stayed with me for as many years as being completely horrible viewing experiences. Seriously. I hate it that much. I almost wrote off Ang Lee entirely at that point–and Ride with the Devil and Sense and Sensibility are two of my favorite movies of all time. Fortunately, he then made Brokeback Mountain and I forgave him for absolutely everything, even Jennifer Connelly’s mystifyingly awful performance in Hulk.

Louis Letierrer’s The Incredible Hulk movie (2008) had pretty much everything I required in a Hulk movie: Lou Ferrigno, cool special effects, decent acting, and some interesting analysis of the nature of rage and emotion for men in society. That it did not have much more does not concern me overmuch.

The Incredible Hulk TV series indirectly led to a show that can be best described as the proto-Twilight: Beauty and the Beast. It was one of the weirder shows on TV in the ‘80s, and I thought it was the most romantic and wonderful thing that had ever been created. In my defense, I was eleven at the time.

Vincent had many of the same anger-management issues as Bruce Banner/the Hulk and tended to Kitty!Hulk out at least once per episode. Like Twilight, it was a widely-mocked property aimed squarely at women, many of whom hoovered it up with great enthusiasm; also like Twilight, it focused on the impossibility of lovers ever having sex but instead existing in a constant state of erotic and romantic tension; like Twilight, it went spectacularly off the rails Breaking Dawn-style when the main characters finally did have sex and a baby in the third season; unlike Twilight, it featured some stellar acting (even under a ton of latex) from Ron Perlman, Linda Hamilton, Armin Shimerman, and Roy Dotrice and some decent writing (some of which was by George R. R. Martin*).

Takeaway for the Ladies: The ideal man is gentle, considerate, loving, romantic, and wants you for your mind, not your body. He can also tear through a garage door to rescue you if need be. Bonus points if he sounds like Ron Perlman.

* which may support your vomiting-id theory, Hulk

Remember that cliché about Pamela being Jane Eyre’s mother and Rebecca’s grandmother? Well, we have now established that Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde begat the Hulk, the Hulk begat Vincent, and Vincent begat Edward Cullen.

Congrats, Hulk! You’re a grandpa!

Mainstream adult romance novels, which are the occasionally-derided literary descendants of Richardson, Austen, and the Brontes, the first cousins of paranormal romances such as Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, and the dismayed older aunts of YA paranormal romances like Twilight, also fit into the framework. Very broadly speaking, they provide a fantasy respite for women who need some much-deserved escapism* from work, family obligations, and the general stresses of being female in a world that simultaneously tells them that love and sex are the most important things ever and that they are simpering fools for taking either seriously.

They tend to fall into two categories of fantasy:

1) One in which the heroine has superlative physical (and sometimes mental or emotional) qualities (impossibly beautiful, amazingly brilliant, incredibly successful, etc.) and attracts a hero with same. In theory, the reader identifies with the heroine, unrealistic though she might be.

2) One in which the heroine does not seem to be particularly unusual but has some special quality that only the hero can recognize or appreciate. She might have fine eyes (hello, Mr. Darcy!), be a beacon of morality (hi, Pamela and Jane!), or just be a uniquely compatible character with qualities that mesh ideally with his. The reader identifies with the heroine and also appreciates the more (theoretically) realistic elements of the plot, as they reflect more about the reality of love and relationships (again, in theory) than the first type of fantasy.

Twilight is often derided as “just” a romance novel, which is neither fair to mainstream romances (many of which are much better-written and most of which are more honest about love, sex, and relationships) nor an accurate description. It literalizes the trope found in the second category above in a very specific paranormal fashion: the thing about Bella that Edward (and only Edward) finds appealing is the scent of her blood. More on this in the next installment.

Takeaway for the Ladies: You, Ravenella Pureheart, are the most beautiful and fabulous woman who has ever lived, and only I, Sir Dominic McManlyHands, can properly appreciate you and give you the excellent loving that you deserve.

* This should not be taken as a slam at either romance novels or their readers. Escapism is a mighty fine thing if done well, and many romance novels do it better than almost any other art form out there. Plenty of people escape into professional sport broadcasts, other genres of written fiction, movies, music, or pointless obsessing over cultural memes as a way of dealing with the rigors of life or just plain for entertainment. They’re no better or worse than romance novel fans; they just get better press.

And finally, my main point: Twilight fits neatly into the cultural framework first provided by Beauty and the Beast 271 years ago and reworked by various authors in the interim to address a central problem in young women’s lives: how to deal with conflicting cultural expectations, especially in reference to love, sex, and marriage.

Hulk is correct that Twilight is largely about infatuation. Many readers have discovered that reading the first book, for all of its abysmal qualities, produces the exact sensation of being 15 and madly in love–or at least thinking that one is in love. (No less an authority on the subject than NYT film reviewer A. O. Scott describes the movies as “embrac[ing] the sensuous pleasure of sublimation with the kind of fervor you usually find only in old Hollywood or present-day Bollywood entertainments,” which is both ridiculously overheated and right on point.)

However, the framework in Twilight absorbs all of the previous takeaways (you can transform an angry, violent guy into a tender lover if you just try hard enough or understand him well enough) and gives it an extra angle relevant to desire rather than infatuation. Meyer’s twist is at once revelatory and constricting: Edward wants Bella because she possesses an innate and permanent quality. She will always be infinitely desirable because of the way she smells to him, regardless of whether she gains a hundred pounds or isn’t as hot as she was when she was 17 or has a dramatic personality change. He will always want to drink her blood, regardless of whatever other conditions exist. It’s raw, basic desire sans any bullcrap about personality or beauty present in traditional romance novels.

It’s also a blunt refutation of everything that women have been told by advertisers and society at large for decades now. Want a man? Want to keep him? You’d better stay thin/stay young-looking/keep that house clean/keep a good job/be a good cook/be a good mother/be effortlessly perfect/be both Madonna and whore/be monogamous and married/be infinitely sexually available/buy that floor cleaner/avoid those STDs/be perfectly made-up/never have a hair out of place/always be dressed to please someone else. Meyer’s redefinition of the romance novel trope of sexual and romantic desire throws all of that out the window. It’s a wholesale denial of the commodification of female sexuality that has been part and parcel of our society for what seems like time immemorial. (One almost wonders if Meyer ever read Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth*.)

Bella is desirable to Edward solely because something about her makes him want her. It’s not her clothes, her car, her job, her physical appearance, or anything else that could be packaged and sold (ironically, given how much merchandise the franchise has moved). However, if Meyer provides more characterization, she risks destroying her central trope. If Bella is, say, a brown belt in aikido who plans on going to the University of Washington to study computer engineering, the focus shifts from Bella-as-pure-object-of-desire to Bella-as-interesting person-with-goals-and-plans. If Edward wants her because she has external qualities, the framework disappears. Twilight becomes just another mainstream romance novel, and Hulk is spared ever knowing about it. In other words, the lack of characterization is a feature, not a bug.

In short, this is what Twilight tells girls and women, at least in part: There is something about you that is maddeningly desirable to somebody out there. It will short-circuit his brain; he will not be able to control himself because he wants you so incredibly badly. It will take every fiber of his being not to ravish you and destroy you simply because he desires you that intensely. However, because you are so desirable, he will change for you. He will transform himself from the Beast into the Prince without any effort from you, because you are just that amazing. This quality is not something that you can buy or something having to do with your external appearance or even your personality, your mind, or your moral fiber. It does not have anything to do with how much money you have, what social class you belong to, or where you come from. (Sorry, Richardson/Austen/Brontes/etc.) It is not sex appeal, exactly, but it will allow you to figure out sex at your own speed on your own terms–mostly–and will keep you from being pressured in any way until you figure it out.

Alas, this someone does not exist, except between the pages of four really badly written books and in four (soon to be five) middling-to-awful movies with varying degrees of understanding of this theme. But, like Wuthering Heights, that’s okay. The fantasy is still out there to help you deal with a society that tells you that you are worthless unless you buy mascara/floor cleaner/the next Twilight knockoff/a new pair of jeans that will make your butt look amazing/plastic surgery/a new car/a new house/a tropical vacation to some island off the coast of Brazil.

Yes, this fantasy is disturbing as hell and incredibly dangerous. Which is worse, though: the fantasy or the society that requires it? Why did Samuel Richardson need to publish an epistolary novel to tell upper-class men that they should stop harassing their maids as underlings and marry them as equals instead? Why do readers continue to believe that an absolute jackass named Heathcliff is a romantic ideal? Why did Charlotte Bronte need to publish a novel about feminine resolve and virtue changing the very nature of an attempted bigamist who locked his wife in an attic? Why do truckloads of girls and women in the early 21st century gravitate to a story about an uptight repressed virgin of a sparkly vampire who can barely kiss his girlfriend without exploding? We need these stories, and not just because some of them have provided some of the most phenomenal fiction of the past 240 years.

We should start asking why we live in societies that require us to compartmentalize and define some of the most elemental interactions between men and women. Since the publication of Twilight, we’ve been asking for better stories for young women. Perhaps the real problem is that this convoluted mess is the story that our society currently needs. Instead of expecting our stories to change our culture, perhaps we need to take a hard look at why our culture is producing them in the first place.

* I will personally eat a hardcover copy of Breaking Dawn with raspberry jam and cream cheese if Meyer has actually read anything by Naomi Wolf, much less The Beauty Myth.