First, let me state, I am single. I had a girlfriend a long time ago, that went FUBAR, and so single I've remained, mostly due to cowardice and being pathetic. But still, I am not speaking as someone with no knowledge of women. Nor am I saying that every girl is like I'm about to describe. In fact, most of my female friends hate Twilight, so these generalizations hold exceptions. That being said-Romance is porn. Oh, not all romance is porn, certainly not. True romance is not porn, but the modern idea of it, the type put forth in most movies and television is porn. Sometimes, it's literally porn (I SAW Titanic, and while I'll admit I enjoyed the nude scene, it was still wrong)and other times it is merely what I like to call "girl-porn." Guys look at porn (generally) to look at the ultimate sexual ideal. We LIKE to see Madame Boing-Boing doing things to the faceless guy on the screen that we know will never be done to us. Porn, besides being pathetic, is also WRONG. Once more, our girlfriends will NEVER let us look at it. Heck, I have friends whose girlfriends don't even like them going to a Meghan Fox movie because "they know why guys see those movies." Fair enough. I concede. Guys like to ogle hot chicks, and we like even more to see hot chicks having sex. I'm not saying it's right. It's wrong. And guys, we should control it. However, I think girls should control their desires too. Just as guys look at porn for the ultimate sexual ideal, girls like modern romances because they are looking for the ultimate ROMANTIC ideal. Don't ask me why Cullen qualifies. I've read all four twilight books (I know. I know. Stop looking at me like that!) and I can tell you, the only thing I think Cullen proved himself to be was a melodramatic douche. My friend Nick Taylor published a good literary critique of the books (look in the blogs I follow to find his) so I'm not gonna bother doing that here. However, Cullen is still portrayed as the ultimate romantic ideal.
To girls with boyfriends: Why the hell are you reading crap like this? Love your boyfriend, don't read this bull and get these ideas of what your boyfriend "should" be, but love your boyfriend and learn what real guys are like. And don't bother to say "I can distinguish the boy in the book from reality, I just read/watch Twilight for fun." Bull. You don't do that anymore than I could (could meaning I don't actually do it) watch Girls Gone Wild "Just for fun and distinguish it from reality." Be realistic.
As for girls who don't have boyfriends: seriously, don't set yourself up for disappointment. Just like no guy is going to find a woman as well-endowed, flexible, and willing as some Porno actress, no guy is ever going to be as "perfect" as Cullen, Jacob Black, or any other Romance character. Consciously or not, I guarantee you that it will subconsciously affect you, the same way porn affects guys.
Plus, just to prove a point. Girls, please do not insult our intelligence and tell us that one of the reasons you're seeing Twilight and New Moon is not to see things like this
because all guys know you are. You're only fooling yourselves, and sometimes not even that.
This is terribly, terribly unfair to us guys. I can't watch Buffy without every girl I know pitching a fit (that's hyperbolic. If you're one of my female friends who DIDN'T pitch a fit, don't worry.) Everytime a guy watches a movie with a hot chick, it either gets written off as "a guy thing" or girls freak because we must be mentally cheating on them. Girls, you have a right to worry. Guys should be careful of what we watch and why. I don't watch Braveheart for the ONE scene of nudity in it. I always skip it, and I know a lot of guys who do the same. There's a difference between that and watching, say, "Life of a Pornstar" on HBO. Guys have absolutely no business watching that crap. And neither do girls have any business watching or reading Twilight. It's the same basic principle as pornography, except the ideal is different. As Billy Connolly once said "Women need to feel loved to have sex; Guys have to have sex to feel loved." Our ideals are different. We are practically different species. So it's not fair for you to claim that just because you're idealizing romance where we idealize sex, it's somehow "better." Don't condescend to guys as if we're stupid, or somehow can't see the difference. Don't tell us "it's just a story," because it's no more "just a story," than Debbie Does Dallas is "just a movie." It's the same thing in essence.
That's not to say I'm anti-romance per se. True, I hate Romanticism, and a lot of modern romance strikes me as silly and fake. I had a friend who was always romantic with his girlfriend. True, it was about...maybe a month? before he'd get a new one, but he was always ROMANTIC with her, whoever she was. To me, a lot of modern romance is just a justification for premarital sex, so that the woman can feel loved and the guy feel like he's not using her. My half-genetic half-trained cynicism tells me, quite rightly, that that view of romance is (to use a british/aussie term) bollocks. However, my view of romance is that it is the icing on the cake, where most people seem to think it's the cake itself. If you eat too much icing, you'll throw it up. I've done that, by the way, and it is absolutely revolting, to this day I'm not an icing fan. I think that if you love someone, you'll be romantic, in your own way, to them. Romance, real romance, is not chocolates and flowers. Neither is it defying death to save your loved one. It most certainly is NOT trying to kill yourself because of a girl/boy. I've had two friends kill themselves over their girlfriends/boyfriends leaving them. That is the most stupid, immature, F***ed-up thing you can do, and I'll admit, it's one of the points of New Moon I hate the most. Don't give me the bullshit about Edward "loving Bella so much he couldn't live without her." Trust me, go to the funeral of a friend who did that, you won't be singing that tune. Romance is different to every person. Some people are very romantic by nature (by romantic, I mean the good kind.) Some people are more down to earth about it. I would say therefore, that I am very much a believer in love, and not very much at all in romance. If you want a good example of what teenage love tends to be, I'd read Harry Potter. Love is awkward, and full of mistakes. I find myself more "touched" by what I see in "Everybody Loves Raymond" between Ray and Debra than anything I saw in Titanic or The Notebook (I saw those back to back. Let it never be said I never did anything for love.) I consider the "love" you see between married couples like Ray and Debra infinitely more realistic than the romantic bullcrap you see in Twilight.
To sum up. Twilight and indeed, most romance, is simply girls' version of porn. Girls, if you want to be able to indulge in that, then your boyfriend should be able to watch Girls Gone Wild without any complaint or resentment from you. Stop living in this dream world and looking for the ultimate romantic ideal in a creepy 100-something vampire loving a girl less than 1/10 his age, and learn to be content with what guys are really like. Just like no guy is ever gonna find a girl like he'll see in a porno, you are NEVER EVER going to find a boy actually as perfect as Cullen. Welcome to reality.
Although I don't agree with your views on boyfriends/girlfriends (I don't believe such relationships should exist), I think you are on the right track with the "girl-porn." Here is a good article on that subject: http://visionarydaughters.com/2009/11/how-twilight-is-re-vamping-romance
ReplyDeleteGood on ya, I completely agree.
ReplyDeleteThe Harry Potter shout-out is welcomed--love is definitely awkward in those books, and it's far, far more realistic that way. "Half-Blood Prince" is one giant ode to crushes and how they totally fool people.
One nitpick: my blog article was more of a critique of the movie, rather than of the books, although whatever is said in relation to story definitely applies to both.
Yeah, well....you mentioned the books, I remember something about the prose being atrocious, and that's about all you need say.
ReplyDeleteLol, true. Meyer writes like a 13 year old girl.
ReplyDeleteHey, glad your getting back into posting. I really enjoyed this post. It's so true how guys are viewed as such incontrollably sex-hungry douches, when, in reality, girls are honestly not really any better. This was especially true with the release of Transformers 2:ROTF. There was so much crap about guys just going to see it because of the dirty discusting jokes and Meagen Fox's body. I'm not going to say I hated that part of the movie, because I really didn't, but it's so incredibly hypocritical for girls to say how stupid guys are while at the same time they're watching movies like Twilight and Dear John and then blaming their boyfriends for not being like the guys in those movies. However, this does not justify anything. Great post.
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