Why Twilight Isn't That Bad

So I willingly admit that there are two things about me that make other geeks scream "TAKE AWAY HIS GEEK CARD." I don't like Star Trek. Seriously, I really don't. The best thing about the JJ Abram's Star Trek movie was that it made Star Trek watchable. For me. As a D&D-playing, computer-programming, video-game loving, comic-book reading, I-own-too-many-F&SF-novels geek, most people just naturally assume that I also love Star Trek. I have seen a large enough sample of episodes to know that it will never be my cup of tea. But I did give it a chance.

The other thing is that I love the Twilight series. There, I said it. I love it. It's not Tolkien, but if I were to compare it side by side with Robert Jordan's massive conglomeration of tropes from other stories and repetitive use of the phrase "tugged on her braid" I think Stephenie Meyer's "pushcart plot" holds up pretty well. Sure it's not for everybody, neither is Star Trek. But I'm getting sidetracked.

Mr. Modesitt's blog post was a defense of the "romance novel" genre of books. I was especially struck by this paragraph:

Romances happen to have some redeeming features, features often lacking in mainstream "literary" fiction, such as a belief in love and romance, and optimistic endings, and often retribution of some sort for evil. There's often a theme of self-improvement as well. Are these "realistic" in our world today? No, unhappily, they're probably not, but paraphrasing one of the grumpy old uncles in Secondhand Lions, there are some things, which may not even be true, that people are better off for believing in, such as love, honor, duty... And if romances get readers to believe in the value of such traits, they're doing a lot more for the readers and society than "realistic" novels about the greed on Wall Street or the narcissism of the wealthy or the depths of violence and degradation among the drug and criminal cultures.

I found this to be a strong argument in favor of the romance novel, even if I never take the time to read one myself. This reminded me of an op-ed column I read in the New York Times about the same time. The Times article was written by Gail Collins (who generally tries to find the humorous side in life.) She said this about the Twilight books:

Before you make fun of this, I want you to seriously consider whether you’re interested in denigrating people who spend their leisure time actually reading books rather than watching “America’s Got Talent.”

She then went on to describe the basic premise of the first novel, wherein Bella and Edward fall in love, Bella finds out he's a vampire, and he refuses to engage in anything more physical than "kissing and cuddling and talking about their feelings."

Then she unloads this kicker:

“Only a vampire, ladies,” said Jessica Valenti, the author of “Full Frontal Feminism.” She worries that in the real world, young men are spending so much time watching pornography on the Internet that they will never be satisfied with normal women and normal relationships.

This sure sounds like trouble to me: A generation of guys who will settle for nothing less than a porn star meets a generation of women who expect their boyfriend to crawl through their bedroom window at night and just nuzzle gently until they fall asleep.

Two of my favorite three characters from the Twilight series are Edward and his "father" Carlisle. They are the kind of characters I most admire. They have morals and they stand by them no matter the cost. They have struggles, but they rise against them. They are the kind of hero I want to be. They don't have to save the world, they just have to find it in themselves to say, "I choose to be a good person no matter the cost." And that's something I think is "virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy."