Countdown Special

As a previous post indicates, I am way excited about the Twilight movie.  As a way to celebrate the fact that there is only one month left to its release (eeee!!!) I wanted to write something that I've been thinking about since this summer.  I began reading Twilight in the middle of June, and very soon found myself deeply addicted.  As I ventured online to find fixes for my new addiction, I found some interesting things.  First, that I am not a typical Twilight fan.  For one thing, I'm twenty-two.  More importantly, though, if Edward Cullen were a real person, I would not want to date him.  I love the saga, but he is not my ideal man and I would never want to have the kind of relationship that he and Bella have.  (This is one of the reasons why I love the Twilight Guy - his reading of the series operates outside of an idealization of Edward, which can get a little tedious in the fandom.)  Second, I discovered that there are people who believe that the series is anti-feminist, largely based on the circumstances surrounding Bella.  These accusations were further vocalized following Bella's dangerous pregnancy in Breaking Dawn.  As someone who unequivocally considers herself a feminist, I was surprised by this contention.  If you want to argue that the books are hetero-normative, then you've got a case.  But anti-feminist?  Now I don't know that I have the time or energy to deconstruct Bella - I think that Stephenie Meyer's own response to this argument is thought-provoking at the very least, so I'll let that stand until I feel like stalling instead of doing Masters work again.  However, I could put a finger on what bothered me most about these arguments - by focusing solely on Bella, people were ignoring the rich cast of characters surrounding her.

Thus, an idea was born - Badass Ladies of the Twilight Universe.  Bella doesn't exist in a vacuum, and there are savvy, independent, and awesome heroines and villainesses alike who populate the world around her.  Like I said above, I don't particularly love Edward.  I do love the richness of the characters that Meyer has created - they live and breathe on the page.  

This was going to be one post, but then it started to exceed the length of the last paper I wrote, so I'm going to divide it up over the next however many days it takes.  I hope it will be a tribute to the mythical universe that has dominated my life like a meth addiction over the past few months.