Twilight: the downfall of the nuclear family unit.

Hello dear blog, how I have missed thee. It may have seemed that the demon house had succeeded in killing me, but not so! After a three month hiatus in which I have been extremely busy trying to survive the house with it's various gas leaks, spontaneously combustive toasters, and numerous attempts to electrocute me, as well as surviving Organic chemistry and a zombie apocalypse on the CSU campus, I am back with much to report about life on Plum street.

I have noticed a curious and frightening trend sweeping the nation. . .or at least the CSU campus. I've found that this year's fashion trends consist of girls wearing nothing more than tights with uggs and puffy jackets with a fur lined hood. First off, this is about as practical and attractive as wearing miniskirts and uggs in the middle of July. Second, may I point out that tights are not actual garments, they are undergarments! Let me break down the word for you, under- meaning under. garment- meaning something you cloth yourself with. undergarments -meaning things you wear under your clothes! It was bad enough when girls were wearing tiny tiny skirts with leggings, but now these poor girls are so preoccupied with themselves that they are forgetting to even put on actual pants before leaving the house! It's 25 degrees out there, and those things cannot be warm! Oh but I forgot, they have their uggs to keep them warm. And, may I add, looking sexy. Because I can think of nothing sexier than a stick thin girl with giant shapeless boots twice as thick as her legs are (a size difference easily emphasized by her tights) sliding around in the snow due to the fact that her trendy snow boots have absolutely zero traction. At least if she loses her balance and falls the giant fur lining on her hood will cushion the blow to her head. Perhaps one aspect of this frightening season in fashion has some sort of practicality.

The other side of the fashion world is equally puzzling: this year I have seen staggering numbers of guys walking around in the snow in shorts and a t-shirt. I realize that every winter there will be the occasional punk who tries to prove his manliness by pulling this stunt. But this year I've seen this occasional occurrence grow into a trend. Guys, when you wear shorts in the snow we do not think you're cool or manly, we think you're being stupid. Now go put on some pants.

Essentially, this year's fashion has proven that the desire to be trendy and noticed trumps our natural human survival instinct.

Speaking of human survival instinct; another terrifying trend that is sweeping college culture is the Twilight Saga. I had thought that it was only rotting the brains of unsuspecting prepubescent teenage girls, but it has spread upwards and has infiltrated the preferred literature of college students. You may think this is just an annoying fad, but in actuality the Twilight saga is ruining the minds and futures of hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls for years to come. And it's not even well written!! In fact, Twilight is probably one of the most one-dimensional, petty, dull, and all-around horrible books I've ever read.

To clarify: yes I have read it-I made a deal with a friend that if she read the Screwtape Letters I would read The first two books of the Twilight Saga. She definitely got the better end of the deal.

Let me sum up all 700ish of those pages for you: Bella is a unremarkable girl who lives in Arizona (I think, or some other deserty place) and takes care of her mom because her parents are divorced and her mom is apparently incompetent. When her mom gets remarried she moves to Washington with her dad. At her new school every boy is for some reason obsessed with her, including Edward, who is extremely pale, cold and angsty. After saving her life because apparently Bella attracts trouble like fly paper attracts flys, she discovers he's a vampire! She has also caught the fancy of her dad's friends son Jacob who lives with the local Native American population and hate vampires. Oh my! The story that ensues can basically be summed up as this:
Bella is obsessed with Edward, Edward doesn't want to ruin her life. Bella decides that she doesn't care about her family, friends, life, or Edward's wishes because she wants so badly to be with him. Edward decides that he loves Bella so they can be together. Bella spends about three hundred pages blowing off her family and friends to be with Edward, all the while pushing him to the point of almost killing her multiple times because she's frisky. At the end of the first book Bella almost gets herself killed by a pack of evil vampires so Edward leaves her at the beginning of the second book for her own good because he has caused her nothing but trouble. Bella proceeds to go into an existential funk that lasts about 200 pages completely shutting everyone and everything out of her life. . .except Jacob, who she quickly becomes best friends with. Suddenly she decides to jump off a cliff because it sounds like fun, causing Edward to return because he thinks she's suicidal. Once Edward's back Bella returns to him, breaking Jacob's heart. Oh, and a whole bunch of other stuff happens with the evil vampire and the "vampire supreme court", but that really takes a back seat to the awful "love" story.

I don't really know what happens in the rest of the books, but it can be assumed that Bella continues to be self centered and cause mountains of trouble to those around her, and I'm sure she eventually forsakes her soul for the sake of becoming a vampire.


Lets unpack why this book has, more than just a poor plot line, the potential of destroying young adult relationships for years to come.

First, while books like Harry Potter carry themes of the value of friendship and good triumphing over evil and The Chronicles of Narnia carry these themes as well as being an allegory of Christ's selfless love for us, The Twilight saga carries a theme of rooting your happiness in your boyfriend and forsaking your entire life and your soul for this relationship.

Second, the plot is absolutely unbelievable (I mean aside from the fact that it involves vampires and werewolves), Edward, while he may look like a 17 year old has been alive for thousands of years and has thus had ample time to mature and cultivate a wide range of wisdom and knowledge, why would he fall for a selfish immature 17 year old girl that gives nothing to the relationship? Oh ya, because for some reason her blood smells better than everyone else's. Apparently smell is the determining factor of whether or not a relationship will last.

Third, these novels are for adolescent girls what porn is for adolescent guys:
A true relationship requires wanting what's best for the other person which means that absolutely no objectification can go on, whereas in porn there is no love necessary, nothing has to be given and everything is there to take, the participants (particularly the women I would assume) are reduced to noting more than objects for pleasure. In twilight, while Bella may think she's fallen in love she's really fallen in lust; she gives pretty much nothing to the relationship and takes eveything Edward has to offer then demands what he's unwilling to give. While it is almost painful for him to be with her because every moment spent with her he has to fight the instinct to eat her, she insists on being with him all the time because it makes her happy. When he tries to leave for her own good she falls apart then chases down the next best thing; Jacob.
Girls everywhere will read these books and decide that this is exactly the kind of "love" they want, then they'll be shocked when they find out that a.) the boys they are dating are nothing like Edward and b.) they actually have to put some sort of effort into the relationship to make it work. go figure.

And thus, Twilight will be the downfall of the nuclear family unit.




Deo Omnis Gloria