Log In

Home
    - Create Journal
    - Update
    - Download

LiveJournal
    - News
    - Paid Accounts
    - Contributors

Customize
    - Customize Journal
    - Create Style
    - Edit Style

Find Users
    - Random!
    - By Region
    - By Interest
    - Search

Edit ...
    - Personal Info &
      Settings
    - Your Friends
    - Old Entries
    - Your Pictures
    - Your Password

Developer Area

Need Help?
    - Lost Password?
    - Freq. Asked
      Questions
    - Support Area



hangingfire ([info]hangingfire) wrote in [info]fandom_lounge,
@ 2008-07-30 11:46:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood: okay
Entry tags:twilight lounge

Salon on "Twilight"
Laura Miller takes on the Twilight phenomenon and its appeal. Overall a pretty good, succinct article. (It's Salon, so if you're not a subscriber, you'll have to sit through an ad.) The lettercol is worth reading too, and remarkably unwanky. Well, so far. (eta) although it contains a lot more stupid than I initially realized, good god. Unsurprisingly there's a definite thoughts-on-yaoi vibe to much of it, of course.


(Post a new comment)


[info]shallow_kid
2008-07-30 06:10 pm UTC (link)
In May, Publishers Weekly reported that 5.3 million copies of the Twilight books had sold in the U.S. alone. When a movie based on the first novel comes out in December, expect to see book sales jump to numbers that approach Rowling's eight-figure numbers.

Yes, I'm sure a craptastic movie will make the numbers rocket from five million to 325 million overnight. *epic eyeroll of ligament detachment*

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]tarash
2008-07-30 09:29 pm UTC (link)
Especially as the book only seems to be popular in the US. And maybe Canada? I don't think it's known at all in Europe, so, yeah, it's not going to be of Rowling proportions any time soon :/.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]chibikaijuu, 2008-07-31 02:13 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]tarash, 2008-07-31 10:19 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]huehau, 2008-07-31 04:40 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]puipui, 2008-07-31 07:41 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]victoriabloom, 2008-07-31 05:04 am UTC

[info]sgaana
2008-07-31 12:05 am UTC (link)
That was my first reaction too; then I paused for a moment and wondered if they were trying to compare 5.3 million COPIES to $325 million dollars in SALES. (Or whatever the actual eight-figure sales number is.)

And then I thought, fuck it. 5.3 million copies x $19 per book (or whatever) is still only about $100 million dollars.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]rose_tyler
2008-07-31 12:59 am UTC (link)
Um okay right. That's hugely less than DH sold here in ONE night here. Hardbacks only. Epic fail.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]waltraute
2008-07-30 06:14 pm UTC (link)
Good lord some of the people in the letters are morons:

Since vampires are primarily rapists...

...that is, if you read the vampire process as one of "corrupting sex," the way it's traditionally shown...women are cheering on rapists. Oh, yes, that scumbag Anne Rice made them noble (then got a guilty conscience and started writing Christian babble) but every writer has had to come up with "safe" vampires which deny the basic nature of the characters.

The popularity of yet another vampire craze has confirmed it for me. No matter what feminists might say, no matter what women who hate feminists claim in their conservative philosophy, deep down in their hearts (where all that blood is) women love rapists. Women are no more noble or wise than men; at base they're all hypocrites too.

what?

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]seraphtrevs
2008-07-30 06:33 pm UTC (link)
every writer has had to come up with "safe" vampires which deny the basic nature of the characters.

...because vampires are totally real and also rapists and writing "safe" ones is tricking people? What?

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]khym_chanur
2008-07-30 07:29 pm UTC (link)
I'm trying to imagine Otto and Maladict from Discworld as rapists and... it just doesn't work.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]dechant, 2008-07-30 08:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]ladyofviolets, 2008-07-30 09:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]seiberwing, 2008-07-30 09:49 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2008-07-31 12:09 am UTC

[info]msmanna
2008-07-31 11:04 am UTC (link)
It started off so well, and then went completely fucking insane in the last paragraph. Vampire bite = rape, check. Modern vampires are often fluffied up to try to pretend otherwise, check. And...all women love rapists, WTF?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]cmikhailovic, 2008-08-02 05:23 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmikhailovic, 2008-08-02 05:24 am UTC

[info]seraphtrevs
2008-07-30 06:36 pm UTC (link)
- "I am trying to find why nearly every girl in the world is obsessed with the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer"

Urge to kill...rising...

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]phosfate
2008-07-30 06:41 pm UTC (link)
Yup.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]agent_hyatt
2008-07-30 06:50 pm UTC (link)
At least that's not the article writer talking, just some teenage boy trying to mansplain the craze for all the other guys above it all.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]chibikaijuu, 2008-07-31 02:16 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]brown_betty, 2008-07-31 03:08 am UTC

[info]sheep
2008-07-30 06:58 pm UTC (link)
Well, if all the comments about it in various wanks hadn't already put me off reading it, that article would have.

I'll just have to hope that my sister doesn't try to drag me to see the film in her ignorance.

(Reply to this)


[info]shallow_kid
2008-07-30 07:05 pm UTC (link)
I've rarely heard such a snarling pile garbage about childrens' books based on some idiot psychosexual post modern political blogging crap. It's a childrens' book. If children like it then why don't you shut the fuck up?

... Okay!

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]mary_mac
2008-07-30 07:24 pm UTC (link)
I never can grasp the 'but the children like it' argument.
I mean, my kid cousin likes eating alarmingly blue Slush Puppies, but I don't let him...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]sheep, 2008-07-30 07:25 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cleolinda, 2008-07-30 07:28 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sheep, 2008-07-30 07:30 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2008-07-30 07:35 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2008-07-30 07:32 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sheep, 2008-07-30 07:35 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2008-07-30 07:36 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]hallidae, 2008-07-31 08:18 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]mary_mac, 2008-07-31 09:37 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]hallidae, 2008-07-31 10:42 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]msmanna, 2008-07-31 11:07 am UTC

[info]sheep
2008-07-30 07:24 pm UTC (link)
You know, after reading comments about it, I don't think I would want my children to read it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]seraphtrevs
2008-07-30 07:56 pm UTC (link)
...but they aren't children's books. They're for teens. Or have parents started reading books about vampire dry-humping to their kids?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]missdaisy, 2008-07-30 09:13 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]altera, 2008-07-30 10:25 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]rhi_silverflame, 2008-07-30 11:32 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]j_lunatic, 2008-07-31 01:41 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]chibikaijuu, 2008-07-31 02:18 am UTC

[info]miss_padfoot
2008-07-30 07:57 pm UTC (link)
S/h/it apparently missed the entire part of the article about Twilight moms.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]khym_chanur
2008-07-30 07:40 pm UTC (link)
Despite Edward's many protestations and demonstrations of his utter devotion, she persists in believing that he doesn't mean it, and will soon tire of her. In a way, the two are ideally suited to each other: Her insipidity is the counterpart to his flawlessness. Neither of them has much personality to speak of.

But to say this is to criticize fantasy according to the standards of literature, ...

Thems fightin' words! *brandishes a Discworld hardback*

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]seraphtrevs, 2008-07-30 07:53 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]nam_jai, 2008-07-30 08:20 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]hangingfire, 2008-07-30 10:29 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]squeakthemouse, 2008-07-30 10:39 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2008-07-30 09:11 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]squeakthemouse, 2008-07-30 10:41 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]the__ivorytower, 2008-07-30 08:28 pm UTC

[info]khym_chanur
2008-07-30 08:38 pm UTC (link)
So I just read on another website that at signings the author is often presented with babies named after her characters and told that their conception was due to her books serving as foreplay.

Guh! Don't these people have a sense of TMI?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]miss_padfoot, 2008-07-30 10:24 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]gunshou, 2008-07-31 12:20 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]miss_padfoot, 2008-07-31 06:31 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]jess_d_ripper, 2008-07-31 01:30 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]jess_d_ripper, 2008-07-31 01:34 am UTC

[info]vorpal_blade
2008-07-30 09:42 pm UTC (link)
I'm just glad several other letter-writers chastised the dude who thought Miller was praising the series and suggested that he read the article again. That takes some special reading incomprehension there, that does.

(Reply to this)


[info]xero_sky
2008-07-30 10:25 pm UTC (link)
adolescent girls I understand...

but adults? Adults leave that behind. Not because they should, but because, at some point, emotional fantasy becomes so obviously unreal that you'd no more indulge it than you'd indulge eating pizza all day (unless you're 20 and have a cast-iron liver...).

Yes, because adult popular culture is completely devoid of emotional fantasy of any kind.

WTF?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]issendai, 2008-07-31 03:58 am UTC

[info]squeakthemouse
2008-07-30 10:50 pm UTC (link)
Good article, but I'm more convinced than ever that I'm a defective female, because seriously... that whole fantasy Twilight plays upon has never appealed to me. When I was a teen, I read romance novels because they were entertaining brain rot, not because I was particularly interested in inserting myself as the heroine and mooning over the larger-than-life hero. I'm a sucker for romance, but only when the characters are well-rounded and realistic, rather than archetypal figures meant to serve as fap fodder for teenage girls and TwiMom types.

... and this comment turned out way more thoughts-on-yaoi than I intended, yikes. Carry on.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]alexa, 2008-07-31 05:23 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]agent_hyatt, 2008-07-31 05:56 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]squeakthemouse, 2008-07-31 09:54 am UTC
(no subject) - pastri_archy, 2008-07-31 07:00 pm UTC

[info]agent_hyatt
2008-07-31 03:18 am UTC (link)
ohgod, the Meyer worshipper on page 12 of the comments:

The article was not only biased, but offensive and demeaning to all of us fans (millions and millions of them in all age brackets all around the world) for whom the Twilight Series is the epitome of modern day literature.

Ummm... Didn't other fans say that they knew that Twilight was far from literature and enjoyed it because it was brain candy made of pure sugar?

That is why we "Twilighters" worship the pages she writes on :D

*gag*

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]issendai, 2008-07-31 03:54 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]feenix, 2008-07-31 06:38 pm UTC

[info]catremistrae
2008-07-31 07:26 am UTC (link)
I'm reading this and the wank, and I keep wondering about this.

What I would really like to see is a character who contemplates premarital sex, thinks over the pros and cons, then decides that maybe abstinance is for them at the moment. Not "OMG our love is so pure that it must wait!" but a choice based on the character's personal values.

Hey, if you want your heroine to wait before having the sparkle sex, that's your thing. But if you're really trying to push abstinence in your books (and if that's right or not is a totally different matter) then why not show that there can be more sides to the decision besides being "pure"? I'm sick of the purity message, but there are many more reasons why people decide to remain abstinent. That's not something you really see in fiction.

But, in a nutshell, I know I'm expecting too much from Edward and Bella's twu luv.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]squeakthemouse, 2008-07-31 09:56 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]catremistrae, 2008-08-01 04:21 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]qem_chibati, 2008-07-31 01:06 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]qem_chibati, 2008-07-31 01:09 pm UTC
(no subject) - iwanttobeasleep, 2008-07-31 06:51 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]puipui, 2008-07-31 08:16 pm UTC

[info]lidane
2008-08-02 10:04 pm UTC (link)
BusinessWeek has an article on Twilight's online fandom:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_32/b4095044373786.htm

The author fails for trying to compare Twilight to the Potter series, but it's worth a read.

(Reply to this)

  
   
Privacy Policy - COPPA
Legal Disclaimer - Site Map